Game art and design is a subset of game development and is concerned with game’s artwork, such as character modeling, 2D and 3D animation, game-level designing, environment and effects, game conception and texturing. A game’s artwork has a significant impact on the entire look and feel of a game, thus ultimately becoming one of the most important factors that drive customer behaviour.

The video game industry generates multi-billion dollars as revenue annually and employs thousands of game artists. As the competition is stiffening, the demand for multimedia artists, animators and game art work designers is increasing significantly. Another factor contributing to the demand for gaming professionals is consumers’ requirements for more realistic and varied video games. These games are no longer children-specific. Rather video gaming has become a preferable recreation mean for people of all ages.

Becoming a Game Art and Design Professional

Being passionate about video games is certainly important. However, what make you eligible for employment in this industry are your creative and technical skills, qualifications and hands-on experience. Therefore, it’s important to enroll yourself in a post-secondary game design program at a reputable college, in order to gain the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to build a sustainable career.

A game and art design program will help you in:

  • Learning how to build 2D and 3D art assets for games
  • Understanding how to develop game environment and characters
  • Learning how to conceptualize, design and develop a game level
  • Developing programming skills
  • Building skills in composition and colour, texturing, painting, post effects and material editing

What Will You Study?

A post-secondary game art and design diploma program runs for two years through four semesters. The program covers a wide selection of subjects, including drawing for 3D modeling and animation, anatomy and construction, creativity in context, composition and colour, 3D modeling and texturing, game theory, social history of design, architectural design, character design, digital painting, unreal editor, integrated media, UE3 material editing, lighting, post effects and material editing, compositing and final project studio.

This is a comprehensive program that covers all aspects of games art work and prepares you to work as character modeller, character animator, level designer, texture artist, game concept artist or environment and effects artist.

Studying Game Art Design in Toronto

Numerous schools game design in Toronto offer courses in game design. Unfortunately, not all are good. A program is worth considering if it:

  • Is delivered by industry professionals who have strong academic backgrounds
  • Offers intensive hands-on training for building 2D and 3D art assets for games, environment and characters
  • Provides valuable experience through studio visits and industry events
  • Incorporates industry field placement, helping you gain hands-on experience

Centennial College’s game art and design program fulfills all the above mention criteria and may be the right choice for you. The USP of this program is that it is intensively creative and is delivered in 16 consecutive months, which reduces your time to industry. You can then gain hands-on experience through industry field placement.