Fan Art in a Portfolio?

Sukotto

Hey guys, I've always wondered what is the professional stance of putting fanart in a portfolio? When I mean fanart I don't mean horrible anime scribbles uploaded to 4chan, more like refined illustrations and models/sculpts. With the Comicon challenge and Brawl it seems like more and more people are putting 'fanart' type stuff in their portfolios. Then again the stuff that came out of those two contests were amazing.

So would studios really care if you have art of an existing character but the piece it all kinds of awesome, or would they prefer to see your own concepting skills? Or is it a mix of both whether its a small studio or a big one? I would think the studio would really just look at how good you are at following a concept and executing it rather than where the concept came from?

spacemonkey

As someone who is in a hiring position I can honestly say it does not matter if the work is 'fan art'. If you demonstrate the range of skills required for a given discipline and they are 'good enough' that's fine. Being able to follow a concept and execute it is great. Having further artistic talent is also great. Role requirements vary so much its going to change on a per job basis.

Great art is always going to be great art no matter the context. (Of course if it happens you have great art and its not exactly what they are looking for you to do in the role thats when an art test may come in to play imho.)

JacqueChoi

gaw. almost half my portfolio is fan art.


;(

Tenchi

Well it would be good to have a mix I suppose to show your creativity. But the main priority is to make sure it's a decent piece, anatomically correct, good topology etc..

Jeff Parrott

Yeah, if it's good it doesn't matter.

Now having 8 final fantasy character models that are all bad? Yeah don't do that.