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Comic & Concept Art at UCA

Passionate about the world of games and comics? Dream of creating exciting concepts for worlds and characters? Our highly popular BA (Hons) Comic & Concept Art degree course at UCA Fanrham will give you the tools and the network to follow those dreams.  

You’ll learn the techniques and modes of presentation used in the industry, together with fundamental art skills which you’ll then apply in different ways, depending on your chosen medium. Plus, you’ll gain the storytelling skills to bring your characters and worlds to life.  

You’ll be guided along the way by a team of staff who have direct industry experience, and you'll have access to enviable facilities including our suite of Wacom Cintiq tablets.  

Once you graduate, you’ll have the right skills to aim high in the career of your choice, whether it’s as a comic artist specialising in layout, panel, and page design, a concept artist creating new characters and environments, which help define the look and feel of entertainment franchises.

 

Course entry options

Select from the following options to find out more about the different study options available for this course:

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W223
Campus
UCA Farnham
Start date(s)
September 2025
Duration
3 years full-time
Entry requirements

112 UCAS points

International equivalent qualifications

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W22A
Campus
UCA Farnham
Start date(s)
September 2025
Duration
4 years full-time
Entry requirements

UK: 32 UCAS points
International / EU: 12 years of schooling (with good grades)

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Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W22C
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W224
Campus
UCA Farnham
Start date(s)
September 2025
Duration
4 years full-time
Entry requirements

112 UCAS points

International equivalent qualifications

Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W22B
Campus
UCA Farnham
Start date(s)
September 2025
Duration
5 years full-time
Entry requirements

UK: 32 UCAS points
International / EU: 12 years of schooling (with good grades)

Close
Institution code
C93
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements

Accreditations, partners and industry connections

The Rookies logo

The Rookies

The Rookies is a leading platform for digital artists to promote their work and assists members in preparing for industry. We are proud to be ranked 25th in the 2024 Top 50 Creative Schools in the World.

What you'll study

What you'll
study

The content of the course may be subject to change. Curriculum content is provided as a guide.

UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated Foundation Year

Launch
The Launch week may be comprised of a range of activities, which will comprise of an interdisciplinary Industry Guest Speakers’ Series offered to all students across the School of Games and Creative Technologies. 

Visual Design Fundamentals
You’ll be given the fundamentals of art production using a range of traditional and digital techniques. These skills are developed and applied to achieve, creative, and engaging outcomes. Complimentary to this, you’ll also learn vital life drawing and mark making skills necessary for observing and interpreting gestures and anatomy.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
This unit aims to develop an awareness and understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and promote progressive values and attitudes in creative practice.

Design Sprint 1
In this unit, you’ll be asked to use the skills and knowledge you’ve gained to create an Art Bible (Art and Design Document) for an entertainment design project. You’ll work in teams and develop new skills in engaging and communicating effectively with your fellow students, including your ability to distribute tasks effectively and resolve conflicts. 

Opportunity
A range of activities will be available to students during this week, to broaden their engagement and subject knowledge, such as Games Jams and Design Sprints.

Narrative Development for Concept and Sequential Art
Via static imagery and sequential art, you’ll learn about narrative and storytelling methods. You’ll be required to keep a sketchbook to develop and document your ideas, and you’ll need to record your creative process and development, including ongoing reflection and critical evaluation.  

Client Brief
In this unit, you’ll be asked to use design skills and knowledge combined with critical contextual studies disciplines to produce work aligned to a client facing brief - working individually or in teams (depending on the brief).

Design Sprint 2
In this unit, you’ll be asked to use the fundamental art skills and the knowledge of narrative you have acquired to create a short story sequence pitch in the form of storyboards or animatics. You’ll work in teams to further develop your skills in engaging and communicating effectively with your fellow students, including your ability to distribute art tasks effectively and resolve conflicts. 

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are small pieces of individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across UCA, and offer a flexible, impactful learning experience. They expand your creative horizon by accessing learning topics that would not otherwise be scheduled on your course specific timetable.

PLE Digital Outcomes
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive, engagement with and presence on, digital media platforms across the year.

Launch
The Launch week may be comprised of a range of activities, which will comprise of an interdisciplinary Industry Guest Speakers’ Series offered to all students across the School of Games and Creative Technologies.

Advanced Workflow and Techniques
You’ll build on the art and design skills and critical and contextual knowledge you gained in year 1, once again using a range of traditional and digital techniques to produce a more advanced body of work. 

The Conscious Practitioner
This unit aims to promote progressive values and attitudes to diversity and inclusion in creative practice. Students will have the opportunity to explore global perspectives and influences on creative practice, drawing upon interactions with varied identities, cultures, politics, and histories.

Opportunity
A range of activities will be available to students during this week, to broaden their engagement and subject knowledge, such as Games Jams and Design Sprints.

Character and World Building
The critical and contextual elements of this unit will continue to produce connections between your practical work and relevant scholarly debates, theories, and concepts with a focus on characters and world-building. In addition, the unit will continue to provide a platform for the development of skills relating to academic research, analysis, and critical thinking necessary for your development into a successful artist. 

Throughout this unit you will be expected to demonstrate creative problem solving, self-direction and effective time-management. 

Industry Brief
You’ll use design skills and workflows to produce work for an industry brief, to be interpreted and aligned to your discipline pathway. The client will set specific parameters and conditions to be fulfilled within the allotted project time. This could include style guides, historic markers, format conditions, audience and genre. You will work as individuals or in a team (depending on the brief).

ATOM Activities
ATOM activities are small pieces of individual learning that facilitate interdisciplinary exposure across UCA, and offer a flexible, impactful learning experience. They expand your creative horizon by accessing learning topics that would not otherwise be scheduled on your course specific timetable.

PLE Digital Outcomes
The PLE Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive, engagement with and presence on, digital media platforms across the year.

Elective units
You’ll also be able to choose from two of the following elective units through the course of the year:

  • Conceptual Interdisciplinary
  • Immersive Media
  • Digital Storytelling
  • Hardware Projects using Arduino
  • Life Drawing
  • Concept Story Design
  • Virtual Production Studio
  • Pervasive Game Studio
  • Creature Animation
  • Motion Capture Technologies
  • Environmental Storytelling

If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

While on your Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Please note: If you are an international applicant, you will need to enrol onto the course ‘with Professional Practice Year’. It will not be possible to transfer onto the Professional Practice Year after enrolment

Launch
The Launch week may be comprised of a range of activities, which will comprise of an interdisciplinary Industry Guest Speakers’ Series offered to all students across the School of Games and Creative Technologies. 

Final Major Project – Pre-Production
This extended period of study, starting with the Pre-Production unit running alongside the Critical and Conceptual Influences unit, allows you to develop a significant body of work that demonstrates your chosen pathway discipline, ideation skills, genre interests and your aspiration for your future role within the Games and entertainment industries. Work from this period of study will make up and define your graduate portfolio.

Final Major Project: Critical & Conceptual Influences
The Critical and Conceptual Influences unit enables you to engage with a range of research skills, to develop an appropriate methodological approach appropriate to your chosen subject area that forms your Final Major Project.

Professional Practice
You’ll identify, explore and develop professional promotional resources which highlight your strengths and your body of work. These resources should successfully promote the individual, their skills and workflows to industry. 

Opportunity
A range of activities will be available to students during this week, to broaden their engagement and subject knowledge, such as Games Jams and Design Sprints.

Final Major Project: Production
The culmination of your studies, the Final Major Project allows you to develop a significant body of work, that will represent your graduating portfolio to industry, either individually, or in a group, or in an interdisciplinary group collaboration (from disciplines outside of Games), that demonstrates your skills, interests, and your aspiration for your future role within the games or aligned creative industries. Work from this stage will make up your graduate portfolio. 

This course is designed to offer you (if eligible) the opportunity to study part of your degree aboard at a UCA partner university, while still earning credits towards your UCA degree.

For more information please visit the Study Abroad section

Course specifications

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.

Explore our gradshow

Each year, we’re privileged to be able to share our graduates’ incredible work with the world. And now’s your chance to take a look.

Visit the online showcase
Fees & funding

Fees & financial support

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £9,535
  • BA course: £9,535

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2025 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,900. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £9,535 (see fee discount information)
  • BA course: £9,535 (see fee discount information)

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2025 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,900. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £16,950
  • BA course: £17,500

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2025 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £3,390. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Please note: The fees listed on this webpage are correct for the stated academic year only, for details of previous years please see the full fee schedules.

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources. Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information.

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of the Course Information Document for more details of the costs you may incur.

Facilities

UCA Farnham has digital media suites programmed with design software for high-quality print production; printmaking studio with relief and block printing, plate or stone lithography, intaglio, letterpress, photopolymer plate printing and screen-printing; and a modern library with a wealth of books, journals, special collections and online resources.

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Games studios, UCA Farnham

Games studios, UCA Farnham

VR motion capture studio, UCA Farnham

Games studios, UCA Farnham

Career opportunities

Whether our graduates become self-emplpyed artists and establish a freelance career, there are a wide range of specific roles within the industry to explore.

These include:

  • 2D and 3D art designers
  • Character concept developer and artist
  • Concept artist
  • Animation and games artist
  • Comic print artist
  • Comic book illustrator
  • Cartoonist
  • After Effects compositor and motion designer.

You may also like to consider further study at postgraduate level.

What’s it like being a student at UCA?

That’s a big question. Get some answers from people who are studying right here, right now.

Chat to a student

Entry & portfolio requirements

For these courses, we’ll also need to see your portfolio: 

  • UK applicants: We will invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person.
  • International applicants: We will ask you to submit an online portfolio. 

Further information will be provided once you have applied.

View more portfolio advice

Select your country to find the equivalent requirements

Apply now

Please use the following fields to help select the right application link for you:

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