Games art University portfolio application
polycounter lvl 3
Hey,
I am going to be applying to do a games art course at university very soon and I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips on my portfolio. I'm applying to Demontford, Falmouth, Stafford etc, but I am really not sure whether or not I'm frankly good enough. I know its drawing they mainly like, and I have a background in painting mainly, not much digital.
I've posted up most of my work here: http://celestialhavoc.deviantart.com/gallery/
which I will probably be using as my digital portfolio, or I also have an artstation https://www.artstation.com/artist/tithan which has less work up but most of the same stuff.
Thank you so much for having a look at my stuff, and any feedback on it would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks
I am going to be applying to do a games art course at university very soon and I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips on my portfolio. I'm applying to Demontford, Falmouth, Stafford etc, but I am really not sure whether or not I'm frankly good enough. I know its drawing they mainly like, and I have a background in painting mainly, not much digital.
I've posted up most of my work here: http://celestialhavoc.deviantart.com/gallery/
which I will probably be using as my digital portfolio, or I also have an artstation https://www.artstation.com/artist/tithan which has less work up but most of the same stuff.
Thank you so much for having a look at my stuff, and any feedback on it would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks
Replies
Concept/illustration work ideally - apparently we don't need much knowledge on 3d work before hand, and I don't know much on it. But the courses are games art so deal with all aspects. Thank you for responding so quickly
Regarding your portfolio you clearly need to study. Currently your work is unrelated to games so none of the subject matter is helpful toward the industry. I strongly suggest you do a lot of research online and find out who the leading conceptual guys are and study what they do. School isnt going to hold your hand, and they certainly are NOT going to get you employed. Only expect them to go through the courses and that's about it. Majority of the students I have had to retrain came from schools that were robotic and just regurgitate the same courses day in, day out. Take your money, thank you very much, and good luck.
You will only get out of school, what you are willing to put in. There is no hand holding, so be prepared for that. You might want to spend 6 months first doing online courses and tutorials to get familiar with the tools and techniques so that when you do enter the classroom you can have a good head start and get better, more valuable assistance from your instructor.
** Reality Check- If you really want to be in games or film you have to eat & sleep this stuff. the competition is super high out there and the jobs are scarce. Be honest with yourself if you have what it is going to take to be dedicated and hard working to do what is necessary to gain the skills and portfolio neessary.
I suggest you review all of the links below in detail:
Former Blizzard concept artist Trent Kaniuga
Some of Trent's Gumroad tuts: https://gumroad.com/trentk
A good friend of mine and exceptional concept artist: Thomas Pringle
Cubebrush has great tutorials. Here is one: https://cubebrush.co/mattdixon
Magazines like ImagineFX, Digital Artist and 2D Creative are important for your area of interest.
Here is a good site to check out: 2D Artist
Hope that helps give some direction.
Was told in the portfolio advice for university that they mostly want to see drawings/sketches which I thought I had included in the mix. Or smaller character designs. But if little digital experience is going to put me at such a disadvantage is it better to hold back for a while?
Thank you for your response!
Personally I do not like De Montfort and I have not heard of the courses at Falmouth or Stafford so I can not comment on those courses.
Speaking about the course, it has recently won the prize for School of the year for games art related courses (above Gnomon) and in my personal opinion it is the best course currently for what it offers. The first year is fairly general and has a lot of crossover between the various pathways offered (Games Art, VFX, 3D and 2D although 2D splits off earlier)
Speaking on my current experience as a first year, the lecturers are really friendly and supportive and all of the material has felt relevant so far.
Not going to lie though, it can be quite a hard course to get into. I think the figure the lecturers gave us was that out of 1000 applicants only 100 get accepted onto the course each year. In terms of portfolio I would message @littleclaude (the head of the Games Art couse) with your current portfolio and ask for his advice on what you currently have.
The university actually has a thread on Polycount that can be found here:
http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2482628#Comment_2482628
Sorry if this has sounded like a sales pitch. But there was a reason that I really wanted to get into this particular couse. If you have any more questions on my experiences on the course so far, feel free to private message me.
Do you have a copy of your portfolio you used to apply still? I shall have a look at Herefordshire's course in more detail, I was planning on applying there as well but haven't been to visit yet. Thank you, I shall message them with my link
Hi, I’m Neil Gallagher and I’m one of the Lecturers at the University of Hertfordshire, I look after Games Art and Design BA & MA. Well done for posting here, I wish more students were like you before they go of for their interviews.
You mentioned some great courses above, also check out the Creative Skillset website as it has a lot of information on the subject of Games Art and many UK based courses. The reason I mention "Creative Skillset" is that they work with the UK’s screen-based creative industries to develop skills and talent, from classroom though to industry and they list some great courses in the UK. The website should be able to help you find the course which best suits you - https://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games
You have a nice creative portfolio and its going in the right direction. It would be great to see you try some more classical drawings such as location drawings, still life, perspective, sculpture, read up on artists like George Bridgman and my personal favorite Andrew Loomis, here is a link to his books. Try some two and three point perspective, Andrew Loomis covers a lot of ground in this area but there are also some great Youtube videos to learn from.
We really need to see a strong portfolio of work to maximise your chances of getting a place, last year we had well over 1000 applicants from the UK and over 250 from around the world but the good news is that all the advice below should help you with all the UK games Art courses. The advice below is for our ideal candidate so just try your best in as many areas as you can, we don't expect it all but if you do manage it then hats of to you.
I should mention the ideal applicant for us will show a range of traditional and digital art skills, and much of the artwork we are looking for is likely to be different to the artwork you are creating for your current course, so expect to spend a lot of time and effort in creating the work that will help you get a place on the course.
The artwork we are looking for is relevant to applying to most Games Art degrees in the UK, so whichever course you apply to, you will need this sort of art in your portfolio.
We like to see a mixture of paper based and digital work – if your artwork was created on paper or using other traditional drawing or painting based media – acrylics, oil paint, watercolours, charcoal, pastels, pencils etc then please bring it to the interview on paper, and if the work was created digitally in Photoshop or Maya for example then it’s always a good idea to have a printed version of those images with you in case the digital files become corrupted, but digital copies will display the quality of digital work best.
So what do we want to see? The first skill we look for in an applicant is strong life drawing. We like finished polished drawings as well as drawings that show movement and dynamic poses. It’s good to show some works with shading to illustrate the volume of the human body and also work that shows foreshortening and good knowledge of proportion. We like strong animal drawings as well if you have them. Please draw from life; drawing from photos means you’re translating a flat 2D image into another flat 2D image and those drawings tend to lack the volume and understanding of form that drawing from the real body will give you.
Alongside life drawing, anatomy drawings are interesting to us – if you can draw from skeletons, both human and animal, then that is useful for us to see if you have been studying anatomy.
Sculptures – if you have any clay sculptures of realistic humans or animals please bring photos of them taken from different angles – show at least one image of the entire form, plus a couple of close ups for areas that you are particularly proud of – don’t bring the real model with you.
We enjoy character designs – you can show progression from first sketches to finished designs of course and we like silhouette drawings as well as full colour paintings. These can be realistic or stylised, but we are really impressed if you can draw them from the front, side, back and a three quarter pose as well. If you really want to impress us, some pose sheets and facial expression pages and even mouth shapes for speech if relevant will clearly show how serious you are towards character design.
Not every artist is a strong character artist, so we also look for your environment skills, so we look for drawings of buildings and structures that show your understanding of two point or higher perspective – we will not accept one point perspective drawings. If designing architecture, as well as perspective drawings of buildings, also try front, side and top down images, and do paint scenes in colour as well as line. When you design structures, make sure you use reference to get the scale and the believability of the forms right.
Paintings – images that show good understanding of colour palettes and composition, regardless of visual content are interesting to us.
3D models. We don’t care what software you use to create these, just make sure you model from reference – either photos of the real world object or from your concept art designs. If you are new to 3D start with simple objects like props or architecture, before moving onto vehicles or characters. Make sure that you always model from your concept art or from photos of the object you are making.
Realtime game worlds. For interactive levels please record videos of you exploring your world; don’t expect that interactive files will work in your interview. We would prefer to see smaller levels made to a higher standard than vast worlds that are poorly populated with weak assets. If you can show an understanding of scripting or visual programming to create interactive elements then that is a very useful skill to us. We recommend using Unreal Engine for this, but there are many other programs you can use.
Scripting – if you’ve written code in Python for example that enables you to automate tasks in a 3D program or create art using code then please record you using the scripts you have made and show those to us. Don’t bring the scripts and expect them to work in the interview.
Sketch books. If you have sketchbooks that have lots of drawings in them, then please bring the best one or two, we enjoy seeing them. If you only have sketchbooks with masses of writing and cut-out images of other artists’ works, then leave those at home.
We are not interested in fan art or copies of anyone else’s work. If you have translated another artist’s 2D concept into a 3D model, please make sure you credit the original artist. We are most interested in your original ideas and designs.
The examples you’ve seen are all from the portfolios of successful applicants to the 3D Games Art course. We don’t expect every applicant to have art from every area I have described, but you must have life drawing and some 3D modelling as a minimum requirement. If your background is in traditional art, then show us your best life drawings and paintings and provide evidence that you have tried 3D software to model forms – we recommend Autodesk Maya for this. If you’re coming from a more digital or technical background, then show us more of this sort of work but we will still expect you to have life drawing and artwork in your portfolio.
If you do apply to us then I look forward to seeing your application and I would be more then happy to answer any more questions, also have a read about the course here - http://www.herts.ac.uk/courses/3d-games-art-and-design
If you decide to apply to another course then my biggest advice would be to start a work thread on this amazing forum and keep posting and improveing.
All the best and I hope that helps
Neil
I shall ensure to do a lot more drawings and sketches in those areas beforehand then. Luckily I still have time to add and improve drawing skills before the application. Hopefully I will be able to improve and add to my portfolio enough in time to get some offers. Your student forum link is exactly what I have been looking for; so incredibly useful to see portfolios of sucessful candidates.
This has been really helpful and I can't tell you how much I appreciate the time you've given me. Thanks again!
Tanith