Character artist vs. Animator
interpolator
Hi guys ,
I'm in a bit of a pickle right now. My study was 2 Years and I'm reaching the end in September and I've been working my ass off to get to an acceptable level where I could be accepted as an Intern and work my way up from there.
Needless to say after having sent out about 10 Applications within Germany for a 3d art internship , I got 2 rejections and the other 8 have not replied in 2-3 months now so I'm guessing I can already strike them off my list as well.
I know basic animation though and if I would sit down like I sat down for character art I could probably go a long way as well.
Edit:
The thing I want most is to work is to work on Animation Movies/Games.
That's the back story.
The question I have is would be worth it sitting down for a few months non-stop and get animation to an acceptable studio level ( If that is a realistic goal ) or sitting down for a few more months and trucking away at character art.
What are the job chances anyway for an animator , from what I've seen there are vastly more positions open for them than for Character Artists.
Any input , advice or criticism is greatly appreciated.
I'm in a bit of a pickle right now. My study was 2 Years and I'm reaching the end in September and I've been working my ass off to get to an acceptable level where I could be accepted as an Intern and work my way up from there.
Needless to say after having sent out about 10 Applications within Germany for a 3d art internship , I got 2 rejections and the other 8 have not replied in 2-3 months now so I'm guessing I can already strike them off my list as well.
I know basic animation though and if I would sit down like I sat down for character art I could probably go a long way as well.
Edit:
The thing I want most is to work is to work on Animation Movies/Games.
That's the back story.
The question I have is would be worth it sitting down for a few months non-stop and get animation to an acceptable studio level ( If that is a realistic goal ) or sitting down for a few more months and trucking away at character art.
What are the job chances anyway for an animator , from what I've seen there are vastly more positions open for them than for Character Artists.
Any input , advice or criticism is greatly appreciated.
Replies
I would love to have the time to learn animation on top of my current skillset
Generally, there are more positions available for animators than character artists.
That is not a realistic goal at all.
I know people who took a 3 year bachelor in Character Animation, at a decent school, and it was the only thing they focused on. Even then, only few from a class qualify for (highend) games and film - to my knowledge.
Just like you dont just do characters for 2-3 months, and then dominate the discipline
Do what you think you will enjoy the most. If you are sitting alone at home a sunday evening, what are you doing?
Focus on that.
Even it it takes you a whole year of that to get a job, its still worth it, as you are going to be doing that for a looong time, and it will make you more happy than doing animation wondering why you didnt push the final steps to do characters (or whatever)
Read
[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Dip-extraordinary-benefits-knowing/dp/0749928301/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403089455&sr=8-1&keywords=the+dip"]The Dip: The extraordinary benefits of knowing when to quit and when to stick: Amazon.co.uk: Seth Godin: Books[/ame]
if you laugh at how some people look...go for character artist and
if you laugh at how some people walk...go for animator
case closed : )
Yeah I figured that wasn't a realistic goal.
I'm going to sound like an absolute idiot but I tunnelvisioned since having started my studies on characters and did nothing else and spend countless hours doing it and now that the studies is almost over I felt confident enough to get at least an internship and couldn't even reach that.
So in my own naive nature I figured that there's so many animator entry positions , internships etc. especially here in Germany that it couldn't be that difficult.
The situation goes as far as , I don't want to do any further studies either. I'm having enough stress in a Bachelor that I can't focus on anything but that right now , and since I can't get a job for 3D I'd either have to look for something that's unrelated to games/3d and try and get by or I have to move back in with my parents to minimize costs and solely concentrate on characters and get to a really good quality where I can get a job.
I'm just so confused right now , maybe it's the stress but I don't know.
I suppose I give up too easily.
Thanks for the replies anyway guys. Appreciate it.
It's also probably the 2nd easiest thing in production to farm out, so a place might have a lead character artists who does the high profile assets and manages the consistency of outside resources.
Character artists positions are hard to land even with production experience and an amazing portfolio. The less experience and polish you have the more diversified your skill set should probably be so you can go for generalists jobs. Just keep in mind that being mediocre in a bunch of areas won't be that great, so don't spread yourself too thin. The end goal of a generalist is to be drop dead amazing at everything, not "good enough to maybe not be fired". So generalists tend to have one really strong area of expertise but competent in other areas and are actively working on getting those skills up to speed.
If I was you, I would expand into environment art, specifically prop creation. It has a lot more openings and is a lot more friendly to newcomers. Once you land a job I would continue to work on your character art. Those skills that you use to model props really help with character modeling so it will benefit your end goal.
Personally I don't think pursuing animation as job filler would be a good idea. The skill sets aren't really related and it's not a simple discipline. It requires a lot of time to master animation and competition is almost as fierce for animators as it is for character artists with maybe a few more positions open. It helps if animators also are competent at rigging which seems related but it really isn't, its an art unto itself and shares very little with actual animation skills or modeling.
If you're going into animation it should be because you are interested in doing it for the next 30, 40, 50 years. If you're trying to get "good enough" to get a job they'll see through that and hire someone who really has a heart for animation. Prop modeling is a little less picky and as long as you are good enough they typically won't mind hiring you. Of course that normally means you aren't nearly as indispensable as other people are, but its a job, its experience its an in to the character department once your skills are up to speed.
So I guess I'll start to do environment/prop modelling from now on. Do you guys have some people that I could use as a reference of who's up there in quality?
I know Tor Frick does a lot of environments but that's the end of my list sadly.
But yeah. Thank you all so much.
And most of it, that i ran away from Character art, all the tutorials/courses are timelapse, which as a beginner, was huge disadvantage.People usually skip parts between scenes , showing the end results. I always ended with question mark above my head, of what happen, what he did etc.
Animation courses like iAnimate and AnimationMentor, are not like that. it is explained every single thing in real time:)) Choose Animation, you don't regret it.
2) I don't know about iAnimate but Animation Mentor doesn't teach rigging skinning or modeling they focus on a specific type of animation which is geared toward entering the animated film industry. There are a lot of Animation Mentor reels floating around, they all look roughly the same and unless those people show some other skills they often get passed over because they have an incomplete skill set.
3) If you think animators have a lot of crutches to lean on you're wrong, motion capture still requires a skilled animator to turn it into something usable, especially for games when animations are sliced, diced and blended together. Someone who has a few ball bounce animations under their belt will crumble to pieces trying to make just about anything work.
4) Animation might come easier to some people because they have always been excited about it, think about, read about it and practice it. For them going over and learning something unrelated like modeling, that they've never thought about will be harder for them, they are farther behind than everyone else who has made that their passion. Same is true for modelers who jump into animation without ever thinking about it, they will be behind.
And you also forgot that an animator is expected to be able to animate animals. Just look at "how to train your dragon" movie. I mean, I can animate humans, I can even give them some character, but to animate a dragon like that... this is hard, really hard. I do animation for 6 year on and off (not my primary skill), but I can't animate anything like that. I deeply respect those people who did that.
It is also bugging me that you say "you just need to know Maya". Modelling, applying textures etc. what modellers do - it is easy in terms of knowing the software. Most of those people barely scratch the surface. It is only when you start rigging (and inevitably scripting) you start understanding what happens under the hood. Even simple operation like assigning a shader to a mesh through a script will give you more information about how the software operates than you can think of.
Oh, and I forgot anatomy. Animators/riggers don't need anatomy? For real? Pff, the post turns into some kind of rant
I better stop here.
It's all good now.
Your questions are absolutely legit.