John's art improvement/portfolio critique thread - please critique me!

JohnWithTheEyebrows

So, I was just informed about the existence of this site today, and it seems like a great resource for burgeoning game artists like myself. No medicine like the truth and good friends, eh?

Anyway, I'm John, and I'm an aspiring concept artist from Chicago, Illinois, currently a senior in college at Miami University in Ohio. I've arrived to this discipline pretty late in the game - it wasn't until early last school year that the penny dropped that I needed to pick something to specialize in if I wanted anyone to bother with hiring me. I can also program and do a bit of 3D modeling, but I recognize external skills like those will be of little relevance for entry-level art gigs. Since then, I've been working rather furiously on improving my art and learning all the tips and tricks of programs like Photoshop (the main one I work in). I drew a bunch of environment sketches for Inktober, I do art trades with art buddies, the whole shebang.

I'm here because I want to waste as little of my time as possible in driving my skills forward to the point that I'm employable. Environments are my main area, but I have some experience with characters too. I would much appreciate all the advice you fine folks can give, in as harsh and gnashing of words as you need, about (1) what kinds of art I should be focusing on for concept art positions (outlined and cartoony? digitally painted? simple? elaborate? bucolic? urbane? in what ratio?) and (2) what particular techniques I need the most work on.

This is a portfolio I threw together relatively quickly earlier this winter break: users.miamioh.edu/davisj17/portfolio/index.html

...and these are a few of my top drawings to give a general idea of my level and subject matter.





Again, many thanks for any advice you can give.

Greg Westphal

Hey man, welcome to the site.  First things first, decide what you want to be doing.  The thing no one ever tells you about concept art is that there is no entry level jobs for this.  You have to be pretty good already, or you're not useful for the company so most of the people finding "internships" are actually art center grads or have a few years at gnomon.  Where you're at right now will need a ton of work to get into the triple A side of the industry so expect years of working at it and the only way you'll be able to approach that goal faster is by deciding where you want to drive your art. I'd pick 3 companies you want to work at or that their game visuals inspire you and just list them.  It helps if they are themed but not necessary.  Be your own person and look up game developers, I can't tell you how many people I talk to that say "naughty dog, riot and bethesda."  (right now mine are CCP, Treyarch and 343).  Once you have those listed do some research into who is on their team, find their art and their blog and see what they are doing.  I've had friends work for CCP,  I know and have taken classes from a lot of the guys at Treyarch and Sparth, one of my heroes, is at 343.  After you have your list and a group of people to follow/research from you'll have a much better understanding of what you need to be working on.

JohnWithTheEyebrows

Greg Westphal said:

Hey man, welcome to the site.  First things first, decide what you want to be doing.  The thing no one ever tells you about concept art is that there is no entry level jobs for this.  You have to be pretty good already, or you're not useful for the company so most of the people finding "internships" are actually art center grads or have a few years at gnomon.  Where you're at right now will need a ton of work to get into the triple A side of the industry so expect years of working at it and the only way you'll be able to approach that goal faster is by deciding where you want to drive your art. I'd pick 3 companies you want to work at or that their game visuals inspire you and just list them.  It helps if they are themed but not necessary.  Be your own person and look up game developers, I can't tell you how many people I talk to that say "naughty dog, riot and bethesda."  (right now mine are CCP, Treyarch and 343).  Once you have those listed do some research into who is on their team, find their art and their blog and see what they are doing.  I've had friends work for CCP,  I know and have taken classes from a lot of the guys at Treyarch and Sparth, one of my heroes, is at 343.  After you have your list and a group of people to follow/research from you'll have a much better understanding of what you need to be working on.

Hm, I haven't really thought about it. I'm not necessarily going for triple-A right away; I know someone who's working at a local, small studio in Chicago (and has worked at a couple others in the area), and the impression she gave me was that that was an easier entry to the field.

I guess three of my favorite studios would be Klei Entertainment, Playdead, and Might and Delight.

Greg Westphal

Interesting 3 picks for studios and all with fairly similar visual styles so that will help you out.  One catch with these though is they are all pretty small so having a dedicated concept guy might not be feasible for them and if they do have one, there may not be place to bring on another.  That being said Keikai started off doing textures and Paick did marketing art so by no means is it impossible to start doing 2d art and transfer into concept.  

Now it gets down to doing the mileage.  The portfolio site you have up currently looks like you are posting everything you've done and the quality and subject matter vary immensely.  Because it looks like you've posted everything you've done, and you were gracious enough to give us your times, (which I would remove asap) I can estimate that the total time it took to do your portfolio was about 31 hours and 15 minutes, or about part time for 1 week.  Compare that to your competition just on this site from people like Miguel Nayaran and you'll start seeing the problem with this.  I've found that most people who end up getting a job as a concept guy work at least 40 hours a week for a year throughout being a student or having a part time job before even getting a chance.  You'll at least want to show that you do a ton of work and have been working on it for a long time.

Easiest way to do that is to find a project.  Sink 2 to 3 months into a project where you design as much as you can about it.  Theme it for the studio you want to work at.  In your case there is a lot of graphical reads in flat camera views, so drawing room interiors or doing rigid perspective might not be beneficial.  If you take Klei entertainment most of it looks like character and prop design.  I wouldn't try to design or redesign anything from their games, because it'll come across as fan art, but instead take a game made 10-15 years ago and just pretend like they acquired the IP and would be making it again.

JohnWithTheEyebrows

Greg Westphal said:

Interesting 3 picks for studios and all with fairly similar visual styles so that will help you out.  One catch with these though is they are all pretty small so having a dedicated concept guy might not be feasible for them and if they do have one, there may not be place to bring on another.  That being said Keikai started off doing textures and Paick did marketing art so by no means is it impossible to start doing 2d art and transfer into concept.  

Now it gets down to doing the mileage.  The portfolio site you have up currently looks like you are posting everything you've done and the quality and subject matter vary immensely.  Because it looks like you've posted everything you've done, and you were gracious enough to give us your times, (which I would remove asap) I can estimate that the total time it took to do your portfolio was about 31 hours and 15 minutes, or about part time for 1 week.  Compare that to your competition just on this site from people like Miguel Nayaran and you'll start seeing the problem with this.  I've found that most people who end up getting a job as a concept guy work at least 40 hours a week for a year throughout being a student or having a part time job before even getting a chance.  You'll at least want to show that you do a ton of work and have been working on it for a long time.

Easiest way to do that is to find a project.  Sink 2 to 3 months into a project where you design as much as you can about it.  Theme it for the studio you want to work at.  In your case there is a lot of graphical reads in flat camera views, so drawing room interiors or doing rigid perspective might not be beneficial.  If you take Klei entertainment most of it looks like character and prop design.  I wouldn't try to design or redesign anything from their games, because it'll come across as fan art, but instead take a game made 10-15 years ago and just pretend like they acquired the IP and would be making it again.

Hm. Well, I'm not picky at all about where I work; those are just studios who make some of my favorite games and have some of my favorite artstyles. I assumed there was kind of a "generic" pool of subjects and styles that were acceptable for concept art portfolios, since the portfolios I've seen tend to be pretty internally diverse, but is that really more of a reflection of the fact that these people were all applying to companies that happened to have the same general artstyles these people drew with, and in fact every portfolio has to be pretty well tailored to a specific company? (If so, does that mean you have to create multiple portfolios if there isn't a single place you want to work at?)

Anyway, thanks for the advice about time commitments. I certainly do not draw 40 hours a week because I'm in school right now and I'm not an art major, but I can see why you'd want to create the impression you're that level of passionate about it. I thought I'd include some of my quickest sketches to show I can work fast, but maybe that only works above a certain quality level.

I would rather focus on doing mainly environments, because that's what I'm best at and enjoy the most, so what kinds of studios should I be looking at? Or is that only really a thing for triple-A studios?

Greg Westphal

I'll take it question by question here.  

Yes, most of my friends who get hired onto projects where their skill sets over lap.  Take Marco Gorlei, (https://www.artstation.com/artist/mvgorlei) he is usually approached by people needing cinematic shots and as such has mostly worked on films.  Someone polar opposite to him style wise would be Jourdan Tuffan (https://www.artstation.com/artist/jtuffan) who does a lot more cartoony illustrative stuff and gets hired into those roles.  My friends Pete Sutherland and Joao Silva both changed their portfolios (http://www.petesutherlandesign.com/ and http://www.silvaconceptart.com/) the months before applying to Crytek where they both got in.  All of us were from the same class, but our expectations and our desires to work on certain things drove us to specialize differently and the company is always going to hire the best fit for them.  I'd never hire someone like Pete to do something cute and cartoony, but his wife Iva (https://www.artstation.com/artist/ivaseowsutherland) would crush it.  Keep in mind that we're still newbies in this industry and most of us only had 1 year of training.  The guys coming out of gnomon, ccs and art center are your competition for "entry level position" and their work will be driven to get them to what they want to do.

The part about quick sketching is when John Park or Nick Gindraux do it, its so bad ass.  Thats the decade of hard work and the thousands of hours coming through in that 45 minutes and its not something you can fake quickly.  When I first started drawing there were levels I just couldn't hit.  I slowed it down, took 40 hours to do 1 interior (just line art) and struggled.  Now if you ask I could do the same interior in 6 to 8 hours probably and it would look way better. If you're not willing to do the 30 hour pieces your level will be really low and you'll just pump that level artwork out for a very long time a speed paint at a time.  If you want to level up faster, you have to slow down the piece and really work on pushing its quality up high.  It'll get faster, but that isn't something you can fake to a hiring art director who has been looking at art for over a decade.

Its not just triple A studios for environments for sure, but just the ones you listed were a bit light on the scene focus.  They were using reusable assets to just tile quickly and then generating out what you played on.  Something like Banner Saga had beautiful environments and Bastion probably had some of the most memorable pieces in my inspiration folder.  Thats kind of at a weird point though which is pretty niche.  If you take a place like Treyarch and ask what to do to get in, its a bit easier because there are 26 or so concept artist and they have been driven to a well oiled machine in terms of processes for their primary IP.  If you take an indie studio, it might be just 1 guy, who might not even have professional concept experience but instead was a modeler or texture artist who just knows the project lead.  Its hard to really offer backable advice when you're aiming for the smaller studios on what you should focus on because I could tell you that environments aren't "generally" needed all that much, and then another game will come out like Journey that will make me eat my words.

JohnWithTheEyebrows

Greg Westphal said:

I'll take it question by question here.  

Yes, most of my friends who get hired onto projects where their skill sets over lap.  Take Marco Gorlei, (https://www.artstation.com/artist/mvgorlei) he is usually approached by people needing cinematic shots and as such has mostly worked on films.  Someone polar opposite to him style wise would be Jourdan Tuffan (https://www.artstation.com/artist/jtuffan) who does a lot more cartoony illustrative stuff and gets hired into those roles.  My friends Pete Sutherland and Joao Silva both changed their portfolios (http://www.petesutherlandesign.com/ and http://www.silvaconceptart.com/) the months before applying to Crytek where they both got in.  All of us were from the same class, but our expectations and our desires to work on certain things drove us to specialize differently and the company is always going to hire the best fit for them.  I'd never hire someone like Pete to do something cute and cartoony, but his wife Iva (https://www.artstation.com/artist/ivaseowsutherland) would crush it.  Keep in mind that we're still newbies in this industry and most of us only had 1 year of training.  The guys coming out of gnomon, ccs and art center are your competition for "entry level position" and their work will be driven to get them to what they want to do.

The part about quick sketching is when John Park or Nick Gindraux do it, its so bad ass.  Thats the decade of hard work and the thousands of hours coming through in that 45 minutes and its not something you can fake quickly.  When I first started drawing there were levels I just couldn't hit.  I slowed it down, took 40 hours to do 1 interior (just line art) and struggled.  Now if you ask I could do the same interior in 6 to 8 hours probably and it would look way better. If you're not willing to do the 30 hour pieces your level will be really low and you'll just pump that level artwork out for a very long time a speed paint at a time.  If you want to level up faster, you have to slow down the piece and really work on pushing its quality up high.  It'll get faster, but that isn't something you can fake to a hiring art director who has been looking at art for over a decade.

Its not just triple A studios for environments for sure, but just the ones you listed were a bit light on the scene focus.  They were using reusable assets to just tile quickly and then generating out what you played on.  Something like Banner Saga had beautiful environments and Bastion probably had some of the most memorable pieces in my inspiration folder.  Thats kind of at a weird point though which is pretty niche.  If you take a place like Treyarch and ask what to do to get in, its a bit easier because there are 26 or so concept artist and they have been driven to a well oiled machine in terms of processes for their primary IP.  If you take an indie studio, it might be just 1 guy, who might not even have professional concept experience but instead was a modeler or texture artist who just knows the project lead.  Its hard to really offer backable advice when you're aiming for the smaller studios on what you should focus on because I could tell you that environments aren't "generally" needed all that much, and then another game will come out like Journey that will make me eat my words.

I'm not necessarily aiming for smaller studios; I'm aiming for wherever the competition and skill requirements are the least intense, LOL. I just want a job.

I can create 30-hour pieces if that's what it takes; I just want to use that time as effectively as I possibly can - I don't want to spend 30 hours on something that won't really improve my skills. I don't even know what I'd do with 30 hours on one single drawing. No one's ever taught me this stuff.

Greg Westphal

I can understand the frustration.  I spent 6 years in uni, 2 studying computer science, 4 studying film studies but focused on electronic arts and entertainment.  6 years basically being taught by people who had a collective total of 2 months of industry experience and no clue on how to actually land a job and this was at the time ranked in the top 5 or so schools for Game development.  Truth be told, nearly all degrees that are offered are useless for video game art and after you've sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of your life into a program its the last thing you want to hear.  I have conversations with art directors all the time who say that don't even look at resume when they hire and that they are tired of looking at poor student portfolios that have never had another pair of industry eyes on it.  

I'll rep the alma mater that actually gave me a job here and link you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naV1QseJC4k.  Feng's podcast are probably where you should start because he is someone with a lot of clout and I know a lot of people, myself included, who have gotten jobs listening to his advice.  

As far as where to put your 30 hours or so lets go back to the first thing I talked to you and alter it a bit, could you give me 3 pieces of concept art that really speak to you?  If we can figure out what you want to achieve in terms of technical skills I can give you a bit more detailed advice beyond just "do variations" and "texture studies".

JohnWithTheEyebrows

Greg Westphal said:

I can understand the frustration.  I spent 6 years in uni, 2 studying computer science, 4 studying film studies but focused on electronic arts and entertainment.  6 years basically being taught by people who had a collective total of 2 months of industry experience and no clue on how to actually land a job and this was at the time ranked in the top 5 or so schools for Game development.  Truth be told, nearly all degrees that are offered are useless for video game art and after you've sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of your life into a program its the last thing you want to hear.  I have conversations with art directors all the time who say that don't even look at resume when they hire and that they are tired of looking at poor student portfolios that have never had another pair of industry eyes on it.  

I'll rep the alma mater that actually gave me a job here and link you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naV1QseJC4k.  Feng's podcast are probably where you should start because he is someone with a lot of clout and I know a lot of people, myself included, who have gotten jobs listening to his advice.  

As far as where to put your 30 hours or so lets go back to the first thing I talked to you and alter it a bit, could you give me 3 pieces of concept art that really speak to you?  If we can figure out what you want to achieve in terms of technical skills I can give you a bit more detailed advice beyond just "do variations" and "texture studies".

I perused ArtStation for a little bit, and these three probably represent what I enjoy drawing the most: immersive environmental pieces with a lot going on.





Based on the pace I've grown at so far (a year ago my stuff was embarrassingly bad even for digital art in general - like what you'd cringe at from seeing in some random fanart group on DeviantArt), I think I could potentially be drawing things at this level in a few months if I work hard at it and don't bother with extraneous art styles. I just want to know that there are reliably jobs out there if you can draw at X level - I'm tired of finding winding turns in the network of rabbit holes that is the concept art industry saying "actually, this isn't nearly enough to be successful".

JohnWithTheEyebrows

Greg Westphal said:

I can understand the frustration.  I spent 6 years in uni, 2 studying computer science, 4 studying film studies but focused on electronic arts and entertainment.  6 years basically being taught by people who had a collective total of 2 months of industry experience and no clue on how to actually land a job and this was at the time ranked in the top 5 or so schools for Game development.  Truth be told, nearly all degrees that are offered are useless for video game art and after you've sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of your life into a program its the last thing you want to hear.  I have conversations with art directors all the time who say that don't even look at resume when they hire and that they are tired of looking at poor student portfolios that have never had another pair of industry eyes on it.  

I'll rep the alma mater that actually gave me a job here and link you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naV1QseJC4k.  Feng's podcast are probably where you should start because he is someone with a lot of clout and I know a lot of people, myself included, who have gotten jobs listening to his advice.  

As far as where to put your 30 hours or so lets go back to the first thing I talked to you and alter it a bit, could you give me 3 pieces of concept art that really speak to you?  If we can figure out what you want to achieve in terms of technical skills I can give you a bit more detailed advice beyond just "do variations" and "texture studies".

I perused ArtStation for a little bit, and these three probably represent what I enjoy drawing the most: immersive environmental pieces with a lot going on.





Based on the pace I've grown at so far (a year ago my stuff was embarrassingly bad even for digital art in general - like what you'd cringe at from seeing in some random fanart group on DeviantArt), I think I could potentially be drawing things at this level within a few months if I work hard at it and don't b. I just want to know that there are reliably jobs out there if you can draw at X level - I'm tired of finding winding turns in the network of rabbit holes that is the concept art industry saying "actually, this isn't nearly enough to be successful".

JohnWithTheEyebrows

Greg Westphal said:

I can understand the frustration.  I spent 6 years in uni, 2 studying computer science, 4 studying film studies but focused on electronic arts and entertainment.  6 years basically being taught by people who had a collective total of 2 months of industry experience and no clue on how to actually land a job and this was at the time ranked in the top 5 or so schools for Game development.  Truth be told, nearly all degrees that are offered are useless for video game art and after you've sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of your life into a program its the last thing you want to hear.  I have conversations with art directors all the time who say that don't even look at resume when they hire and that they are tired of looking at poor student portfolios that have never had another pair of industry eyes on it.  

I'll rep the alma mater that actually gave me a job here and link you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naV1QseJC4k.  Feng's podcast are probably where you should start because he is someone with a lot of clout and I know a lot of people, myself included, who have gotten jobs listening to his advice.  

As far as where to put your 30 hours or so lets go back to the first thing I talked to you and alter it a bit, could you give me 3 pieces of concept art that really speak to you?  If we can figure out what you want to achieve in terms of technical skills I can give you a bit more detailed advice beyond just "do variations" and "texture studies".

I perused ArtStation for a little bit, and these three probably represent what I enjoy drawing the most: immersive environmental pieces with a lot going on.





Based on the pace I've grown at so far (a year ago my stuff was embarrassingly bad even for digital art in general - like what you'd cringe at from seeing in some random fanart group on DeviantArt), I think I could potentially be drawing things at this level in a few months if I work hard at it and don't bother with extraneous art styles. I just want to know that there are reliably jobs out there if you can draw at X level - I'm tired of finding winding turns in the network of rabbit holes that is the concept art industry saying "actually, this isn't nearly enough to be successful".

JohnWithTheEyebrows

Greg Westphal said:

I can understand the frustration.  I spent 6 years in uni, 2 studying computer science, 4 studying film studies but focused on electronic arts and entertainment.  6 years basically being taught by people who had a collective total of 2 months of industry experience and no clue on how to actually land a job and this was at the time ranked in the top 5 or so schools for Game development.  Truth be told, nearly all degrees that are offered are useless for video game art and after you've sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of your life into a program its the last thing you want to hear.  I have conversations with art directors all the time who say that don't even look at resume when they hire and that they are tired of looking at poor student portfolios that have never had another pair of industry eyes on it.  

I'll rep the alma mater that actually gave me a job here and link you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naV1QseJC4k.  Feng's podcast are probably where you should start because he is someone with a lot of clout and I know a lot of people, myself included, who have gotten jobs listening to his advice.  

As far as where to put your 30 hours or so lets go back to the first thing I talked to you and alter it a bit, could you give me 3 pieces of concept art that really speak to you?  If we can figure out what you want to achieve in terms of technical skills I can give you a bit more detailed advice beyond just "do variations" and "texture studies".

I perused ArtStation for a little bit, and these three probably represent what I enjoy drawing the most: immersive environmental pieces with a lot going on.





Based on the pace I've grown at so far (a year ago my stuff was embarrassingly bad even for digital art in general - like what you'd cringe at from seeing in some random fanart group on DeviantArt), I think I could potentially be drawing things at this level within a few months if I work hard at it and don't b. I just want to know that there are reliably jobs out there if you can draw at X level - I'm tired of finding winding turns in the network of rabbit holes that is the concept art industry saying "actually, this isn't nearly enough to be successful".

Greg Westphal

Man, if you could hit this level after a few months you're a prodigy.  The person with the least experience on that list is Logan and he has 6 years.  This sort of work relies super heavily on the plein air technique and in fact the piece by the polack you linked, Sidre's, is just a stylalized plein air study.  This isn't my speciality by a long shot as I do mostly drawing and 3d work but I've met Robh Ruppel in passing at CTN and was told by Paick that he is the man when it comes to sorting people out for environmental story telling.  I'd pick up his book "Graphic LA" as it was really incredible and just study the hell out of that.  Paick also mentioned to our class that when he first started at naughty dog, he was only allowed to use black and white, no colors.  I'd do that as well to make sure the seperation is there.  Another Naughty Dog guy, Kuciera has a gumroad or two on environmental pieces for games if you need a video and of course any tutorial by Paick is worth the money.  Naughty Dog guys I've met all seem to obsess over plein air and it shows in their work, so obsessing over it can't hurt.

Because of the low amount of work that photos are doing in these pieces, learning photo texturing and such is probably not helpful.  I'd avoid 3d to start as well because the people who can only develop space in 3d are very obviously relying on it.  As far as developing shape language and delving into more functional design, none of the pieces you linked really showcase much of that so I wouldn't worry about it right now. 

If it was me, I'd find an old story like a brother's grim or a excerpt from Shakespeare, that everyone knows and set up a project around it.  Just paint what should be there, all of it real stuff, and tell the story through 10 pieces.  Start following people like Nathan Fawkes and Dice Tsutsumi if you haven't already too.  The good thing about old stories is that you can use photo references of stuff from now, but if its historical the place in that time doesn't exist anymore.  Assassin's Creed's design is 100% just taking us back to cool places in history and jazzing them up 10% and yet Martin Deschambault is probably one of the top 10 designers for me over the past 5 years because of how great he did exactly that.