Comic & Concept Art

Comic and concept art occupies the creative space where storytelling meets visual design, producing the imagery that brings fictional worlds, characters and narratives to life. Concept art establishes the visual identity of games, films and animated productions, defining how characters, environments, creatures, vehicles and props look and feel before they are built or modelled. Comic art uses sequential images to tell stories directly, developing visual narrative skills that are distinct from but related to concept art.

Together they form a discipline with both strong artistic traditions and clear professional demand in the games, film, animation and entertainment industries.

At Leeds Arts University you will study for three years full-time, refining your design, drawing and digital visualisation skills to create believable worlds and bring immersive stories to life. You will work with industry-standard software, developing your design and planning processes alongside the ability to produce finished comic and concept art outputs at a professional level. The programme emphasises industry engagement from the outset, building professional practice skills and an understanding of how concept and comic art fit into the broader creative pipeline of game studios, film and animation production companies.

Graduates work as concept artists, character designers, environment artists, storyboard artists, visual development artists, comic illustrators, graphic novelists and production designers in the games, film, animation, publishing and entertainment industries. The portfolio built during training is central to how employers in these creative industries assess candidates, and the professional practice emphasis of the programme is specifically designed to help you produce work that meets industry standards. Many graduates also move into freelance illustration, art direction or into teaching, while others pursue postgraduate study to develop a more research-oriented or specialist practice.