This is a great question. Sadly, there's no single answer - but I'll do my best to weigh in. Concept art and Matte Painting are two totally different disciplines. It's easy to confuse the two because of what we see on the front page of ArtStation. First, Concept art. It's fundamentally about problem-solving. So if you work at a game studio as a concept artist, it's your job to figure out what things look like --- but you're doing that in service of gameplay, narrative, and other functional requirements. Real concept art, the stuff that happens every day in game studios, ranges from loose sketching all the way to the polished work you see on artstation. If the question you're trying to solve is 'how could this door catch the player's attention better?", a quick sketch or a slightly modified screenshot would be the correct technique. If the question was 'what will our hero see when they emerge from their space ship on an alien world?' , then a detailed landscape illustration would be the right technique. A detailed landscape one day, and 10 rough sketches of door paint job colors the next --- this is the variety that concept artists deal in. The real skill isn't polished rendering, it's problem solving. If you can solve the problem with a simple sketch, that's a huge victory! Then there's Matte Painting. Matte painting is fundamentally a skilled technical job. It's not about visual problem-solving, it's about delivering an image that extends the look of the film. It might be a basic sky replacement in a live action movie, or it might be a sci-fi vista with flying cars. Ultimately, the Matte Painter isn't deciding what the scene looks like. They're not usually designing the architectural style, or deciding what time of day the shot should be. They're getting very specific visual instructions from their director, and expertly crafting an image. Their polish & rendering quality are absolutely critical. This job is great for artists that want to focus on the final image itself, and aren't as interested in the 'invention' aspect of design. Neither of these disciplines are superior. One is open-ended and all about invention, while the other is narrow and all about polish. Some artists are able to do both. Some concept artists, for instance, will use techniques common to Matte Painting - but it's often only superficially similar. When it comes to deciding for yourself, I wouldn't worry about 'the Chinese and the Russians' -- there's so many jobs that use these skills. Focus on the work that you like doing, and learn about where it fits into the creative industry. There's a much better chance of excelling at a skill you enjoy than trying to force one you dislike. I hope that helps a bit!

@@ctrlpainter Thanks man very precise answer and you nailed it with the last line. But the thing is if you look at prerquisites for mattepainting course at CGMA. They have listed their foudation design, environment design, advanced environment design, all as prerequisites. So if a mattepainter isnt gonna design then why we should spend years learning these skills i mentioned? And it literally would take years. I am an obsessed person and i rediscovered my childhood passion last year. And its been 14 months since and i am still at the drawing phase( spent half the year drawing from scott robertson's "how to draw" and the other half designing in small thumbnails of imaginative landscapes and by scribbling abstractly from chaos to control . I picked up your basic rendering series but ive stalled it for now because i only move to another thing once i master the first one. I enjoy painting much more but have rarely been able to do it because this stupid drawing phase isnt getting over. Should i do now jump to digital painting now because my lineart is still way way worse than any of the professional but atleast i can draw in perspective and kind of make cool scenes too with just arranging cubes abstractly in perspective and then turn them into archetectural buildings. Do you think this is called design because i am not problem solving i am just inventing new towns and landscapes without any story guide to work to? and recently i picked up a novel david copperfield and i failed miserably when i tried to design one of its main location establishing shot. I am wondering why do i come up with cool unique compostions when i have nothing in mind but when there is a story to work towards i am lost and it seems all my ideas for the composition are generic. what am i doing wrong? and should i buy your portfolio builder right now because i can draw so i think i could design too? or should i first learn values and colour ? Sorry for bothering you brother but for self learners there is no way other than annoy pros :)

​@@sharyarjavaid6159 Excellent questions. CGMA brings up the important distinction between academia & industry. While learning, it's common to briefly study subjects that won't be used every day at your job. I went to SCAD for comic books, and have taken classes on a variety of illustration-related subjects. These skills were great to learn, but aren't used daily for my job as an art director / concept artist. Similarly, CGMA is smart to have pre-reqs for their Matte Painting course. While learning about matte painting, you won't have a director, a storyboard artist, or your own concept artist. So for those assignments, you'll need to do all of the jobs simultaneously. But if you were to advance into a career in Matte Painting, you'd no longer be the director, the concept artist, and the storyboard artist --- your co-workers would do those things. Which leaves you with the classic art-school dilemma: you've gotta learn it all! The skills you listed are all crucial: color, rendering, perspective, and design. You can't skip any of those. In time, you'll have a stronger foundation - which will be a great springboard toward either concept art or matte painting. Years down the road, you might find yourself in a highly specialized job, where you're not actively using your perspective sketching or your black & white rendering -- but you'll be happy to have the strong foundation.

@@ctrlpainter Thank you so much Matt! You are truly the best!