Why you need an education
polycounter lvl 18
There have been countless "should I go to art school threads." The answer is no. Don't waste your time or money on any art or game school. With that out of the way, you may want to get an education. Here are some reasons:
If you're an artist, all the coders and business people at your job are probably vastly more educated than you -- even if you have a Fine Arts degree from a 4 year school. While you were taking tedious but chilled-out studio art classes, they were taking balls-hard advanced math classes.
That is one big reason they get more respect and are paid more than you. That is why they have more job security than you. They also probably don't really take you seriously because...
You probably aren't good at math, reading, or writing compared to them. While you spent the last 10 years mastering your craft of moving pixels around, they have been reading, writing and doing math every day for their jobs. This makes you very bad at communicating compared to them. You don't understand logic on their level, and even if you did, you'd probably struggle to express it.
(as an aside -- If you spend any time around coders, you will notice how much it pisses them off to make a typo, let alone spell a word incorrectly.)
Maybe one of the reasons you took up art in the first place is because you're bad at math or memorization. You were naturally bad at the things that they were naturally good at. If you don't put any effort into improving those skills that gap will become a gaping chasm.
But here you say: "But I don't care about money, job security or the respect of my co-workers. I just care about making good art."
Good art is about expressing meaning to people. Diverse experience and research understood thoroughly and boiled down is the fuel of good art. You have to understand other people to be able to make art for them. You have to be able to research things and understand what you're reading. This may mean understanding engineering ideas, historical context or geography. When you get the details right is when you really connect to other people. When your art is accurate and expresses an important truth it can change people for the better.
But maybe you're thinking: "Hey, I want to make good art, but for children and not very smart high school students from the community I grew up in."
Well, okay, then go to art school. Unless you want to be an indie game developer...
Because, as an indie game developer, you are really going to HAVE to communicate with the coder and marketing guy you're working with. There's a very good chance you'll end up doing video production, writing, music, simple coding and marketing. A lot of marketing, and public speaking. You are going to be dealing with all sorts of different people, including indie devs from other countries where the standard educational attainment is way above the United States level. A lot of notable indie game developers actually teach college classes. As an artist, the most you can hope for really is to thoughtfully articulate your job, and to know when you are not understanding something, so you can shut up. Even if you try hard to educate yourself, there is a good chance you will be the dumbest person in the room. You don't want to make it obvious.
This is the kind of education you want:
-learn some math and code. You can do these in community college, a 4 year school, Khan Academy or Code Academy. It doesn't matter.
-learn to research. If you can tell good sources from bad ones this is pretty easy these days. Critical thinking skills help you to identify bullshit when you see it. It's always better to go to first sources of information (these are things like interview, photo or correspondence archives, autobiographies, academic research papers, unedited video, unedited audio recording, etc). Knowing about and navigating archives is a skill. Part of being good at research is being able to read pretty fast. If you read a lot, you will get faster at reading. You will want to read a lot anyway so that you know things.
-learn pop science basics. Nonfiction books, and magazines/websites like Scientific American, Wired and MIT technology review are good for this. I read this kind of stuff while I shit (multi-tasking). You can also go beyond the basics and take a science major at a 4 year college. I would avoid anything with a lot of lab classes, because they take a lot of time, which doesn't leave time for art (which you are going to have to teach yourself).
-learn how to sell things. I have a degree in economics, but I'm sure you can just work at a place with a commission for a few years also. Make a blog. Get on Facebook. Create some Youtube videos, etc.
-learn how to talk to people. College always requires some group projects and public speaking, but it's not the only option obviously. There are clubs, church, etc. These are also good places to meet members of the opposite sex. A good partner with a solid income is something to think about if you are going to try to make your career in art. Majoring in English or philosophy are options if you really want to express nuanced and complicated ideas better.
-meet people from different backgrounds. Sometimes you can just move across town into a more diverse neighborhood. Move from the 'burbs to the city. Generally the farther you go from your support network the better. I know a lot of people who did a semester abroad in college, which is a good start. Learning a new language is good. Majoring in psychology, anthropology or sociology are good for this and will probably leave enough time to make art (ie, no labs or studio classes or a mountain of reading).
-Do interesting things. Even bad experiences are good grist for artists.
-Obviously, draw all the time you are not doing something else. Draw from life and from memory. Learn light, shadow and perspective. Learn design. Learn anatomy. Then learn how to use 3D software and model dem shapes. Post here, get feedback. Improve.
-You don't have to learn everything all the way except some aspect of art at first. It may take a long time to learn some of this stuff. You are just trying to learn enough so that your non-artists peers take you seriously.
Artists play a critical part in making games. It's a hard job that takes years of practice and a lot of passion. Being an artist is awesome, and when we do our job properly, we deserve respect. Artists are flexible and good at meeting people halfway. Classic games like Mario were directed by visual artists. New games like Hotline Miami, Super Meat Boy, Fez and Spelunky were directed by visual artists. Artists are able to make great games when they're in a position of authority. Getting an education will make you a better artist, comfortable in more situations, and help you get the respect you deserve.
If you're an artist, all the coders and business people at your job are probably vastly more educated than you -- even if you have a Fine Arts degree from a 4 year school. While you were taking tedious but chilled-out studio art classes, they were taking balls-hard advanced math classes.
That is one big reason they get more respect and are paid more than you. That is why they have more job security than you. They also probably don't really take you seriously because...
You probably aren't good at math, reading, or writing compared to them. While you spent the last 10 years mastering your craft of moving pixels around, they have been reading, writing and doing math every day for their jobs. This makes you very bad at communicating compared to them. You don't understand logic on their level, and even if you did, you'd probably struggle to express it.
(as an aside -- If you spend any time around coders, you will notice how much it pisses them off to make a typo, let alone spell a word incorrectly.)
Maybe one of the reasons you took up art in the first place is because you're bad at math or memorization. You were naturally bad at the things that they were naturally good at. If you don't put any effort into improving those skills that gap will become a gaping chasm.
But here you say: "But I don't care about money, job security or the respect of my co-workers. I just care about making good art."
Good art is about expressing meaning to people. Diverse experience and research understood thoroughly and boiled down is the fuel of good art. You have to understand other people to be able to make art for them. You have to be able to research things and understand what you're reading. This may mean understanding engineering ideas, historical context or geography. When you get the details right is when you really connect to other people. When your art is accurate and expresses an important truth it can change people for the better.
But maybe you're thinking: "Hey, I want to make good art, but for children and not very smart high school students from the community I grew up in."
Well, okay, then go to art school. Unless you want to be an indie game developer...
Because, as an indie game developer, you are really going to HAVE to communicate with the coder and marketing guy you're working with. There's a very good chance you'll end up doing video production, writing, music, simple coding and marketing. A lot of marketing, and public speaking. You are going to be dealing with all sorts of different people, including indie devs from other countries where the standard educational attainment is way above the United States level. A lot of notable indie game developers actually teach college classes. As an artist, the most you can hope for really is to thoughtfully articulate your job, and to know when you are not understanding something, so you can shut up. Even if you try hard to educate yourself, there is a good chance you will be the dumbest person in the room. You don't want to make it obvious.
This is the kind of education you want:
-learn some math and code. You can do these in community college, a 4 year school, Khan Academy or Code Academy. It doesn't matter.
-learn to research. If you can tell good sources from bad ones this is pretty easy these days. Critical thinking skills help you to identify bullshit when you see it. It's always better to go to first sources of information (these are things like interview, photo or correspondence archives, autobiographies, academic research papers, unedited video, unedited audio recording, etc). Knowing about and navigating archives is a skill. Part of being good at research is being able to read pretty fast. If you read a lot, you will get faster at reading. You will want to read a lot anyway so that you know things.
-learn pop science basics. Nonfiction books, and magazines/websites like Scientific American, Wired and MIT technology review are good for this. I read this kind of stuff while I shit (multi-tasking). You can also go beyond the basics and take a science major at a 4 year college. I would avoid anything with a lot of lab classes, because they take a lot of time, which doesn't leave time for art (which you are going to have to teach yourself).
-learn how to sell things. I have a degree in economics, but I'm sure you can just work at a place with a commission for a few years also. Make a blog. Get on Facebook. Create some Youtube videos, etc.
-learn how to talk to people. College always requires some group projects and public speaking, but it's not the only option obviously. There are clubs, church, etc. These are also good places to meet members of the opposite sex. A good partner with a solid income is something to think about if you are going to try to make your career in art. Majoring in English or philosophy are options if you really want to express nuanced and complicated ideas better.
-meet people from different backgrounds. Sometimes you can just move across town into a more diverse neighborhood. Move from the 'burbs to the city. Generally the farther you go from your support network the better. I know a lot of people who did a semester abroad in college, which is a good start. Learning a new language is good. Majoring in psychology, anthropology or sociology are good for this and will probably leave enough time to make art (ie, no labs or studio classes or a mountain of reading).
-Do interesting things. Even bad experiences are good grist for artists.
-Obviously, draw all the time you are not doing something else. Draw from life and from memory. Learn light, shadow and perspective. Learn design. Learn anatomy. Then learn how to use 3D software and model dem shapes. Post here, get feedback. Improve.
-You don't have to learn everything all the way except some aspect of art at first. It may take a long time to learn some of this stuff. You are just trying to learn enough so that your non-artists peers take you seriously.
Artists play a critical part in making games. It's a hard job that takes years of practice and a lot of passion. Being an artist is awesome, and when we do our job properly, we deserve respect. Artists are flexible and good at meeting people halfway. Classic games like Mario were directed by visual artists. New games like Hotline Miami, Super Meat Boy, Fez and Spelunky were directed by visual artists. Artists are able to make great games when they're in a position of authority. Getting an education will make you a better artist, comfortable in more situations, and help you get the respect you deserve.
Replies
Great information for someone looking to go the game art path!
However, it is incredibly unrealistic to assume that because someone is a programmer, or works in finances/business that they're even remotely good at any of these things. Surely I'm not the only one who's had to correct/rewrite/spellcheck things for various people who are much higher up on the ladder. Even helping sort out financial matters has somehow landed in my lap over the years.
I agree with you I think those things are important, but I'm just saying...title or position in a company these days certainly does not imply the one holding that position is very adept at them.
Absolutely some ham-fisted, sloppy generalizations. There is a lot in this post that will be wrong in people's individual cases, which is good, hopefully!
Agree with this 100% I did a course at Uni which was split into two things, 3D art/design or Computer science/programming.
I always found the coders were much worse at writing and communicating. I found a lot of them to be lazy as well, but there were plenty of cases of that in every course.
They were better at Math though, I'll definitely give them that. I can barely add.
I believe your viewpoint is colored with your economics degree? Do you think in part your speech came from this? Do you know artists that went to your school personally? As said, you are creating a broad generalization that almost comes across as a pat on the back for your personal situation and experience.
Also, I should add, there is no reason why one could not be a double major or continue ones education in other fields. In other words, do a reversal from what you say. Go to college for fine arts, learn these other skills on your own.
I have a BFA and want a MFA. I also plan to take some business courses. I can't speak for other BFA programs, especially ones from profit schools, but mine required learning subjects outside of just art. In example, I took courses dealing with things like plant biology, office/business programs *, to Roman History (and the best professor from my time).
As far as math, some people just are not cut out for it.. That doesn't mean they can't follow a reasoned logic tree.
*I admit, I failed the Basic coding program in it. I asked the instructor for help, and he wouldn't give it. I excelled at the Database portion though.
Yeah my personal experience has been different (and severely limited), but I certainly agree that regardless of where you're at, education is important. It's true that where I'm at right now (bottom of the totem pole) I have to do a lot of stuff outside of my job description to help save the ship from sinking (or embarrassing itself), but it does get me respect.
Really, with all of us having such direct access to resources like the Internet these days, there's really no excuse for not educating yourself. When people need to communicate something in an organized, efficient manner, you don't want to be the guy people can expect to respond with, "not sure wat u mean?".
No. my school was fine, but that was a long time ago now. A good friend and fellow game dev got a BFA from my school. College is not really good or bad, or necessary. It is just sometimes useful for some skills.
It is mostly colored by the fact that I have to deal with people who are way smarter than me all the time. I wish someone had outlined this for me. I find that the more ground I gain on the other people I work with, the less I have in common with your typical game artist.
I think artists are naturally pretty good at expressive writing, but that kind of writing is meaningless to most coders, who have their own whole set of issues (but that would be an entirely different post). I do however think that it's easier for artists to adapt to their mindset, than they can to ours. It is basically our job.
And I agree you are making some very generalized statements about art school.
In the end it really comes down to what you do with it. But I don't think art school is completely useless. It exposed me to a lot of things I never would have encountered on my own if I was just trying to teach myself.
I do agree in some general terms about your education points as well.
I would tell young aspiring artists to do ANYTHING BUT get an education in video game art. Traditional art, or pretty much and other degree that can apply to other fields and job markets outside of the gaming industry is a much better choice. I say a non art degree for two reasons:
A. Game art is easy as hell to learn on your own, there are so many fantastic resources. If you don't have the passion to learn it on your own outside of a school environment, you will probably not last in the games industry as an artist.
B. Having a more diverse education will help you as an artist, and also generally in life if your art career does not work out. The burn out rate in the games industry is very high, if you manage to get hired in the first place.
Its also very important to know some maths and science as an artist, otherwise it will be very difficult making a proper feature request to a programmer, and even more difficult to understand them when they tell you why they can't do it.
Forever and ever, Amen.
My one real professional regret is that I left my fine art university where I had a full scholarship, to go to a school focusing in Game Art where I ended up owing over 43,000 USD from only 1.5 years, with no degree to show for it. (and the teachers were not so great overall, definitely a ripoff).
Horribly off topic, but if you ever want to troll a programmer into possibly giving you what you want just to prove you wrong, is to say, "well, I believe *you* can't do it, but not that it cannot be done, period."
Yeah, I forgot to mention the cost as well. Game Art specific degrees can cost you like 4-20x as much as say, going to a local community college, or even a local state school.
I know some people going to video game school right now that will have student loan debt higher than the mortgage on my house.
Hehe yeah, knowing whether or not programmers are bullshitting me has always been a driving factor in my technical knowledge. :poly142:
I conflated coders and business people together in the original post because it was easy, and it would take several pages to suss out the exact details of how and why these groups are more in charge, make more money, etc. Keep in mind that coders can communicate fluently about things you probably (and I) don't understand at all.
On the serious note, imho, you can't succeed at something you don't really like.
I'm terrible at math and economics. I think the goal is not to be good at stuff you are naturally bad at/don't care about, but to at least understand sort of what it is.
Well I think a lot of people automatically associate "education" with school, college making the most sense in this case.
But then there's that thing about not letting your schooling interfere with your education, which seems to get more and more relevant as time goes on.
Well, then i agree.
Can I ask you a question? Are you American?
The good thing about easy college classes is that you can draw in class.
Right now what I personally worry about is that kids who grew up with Facebook and Youtube are a lot better at selling themselves than I am. I know random teenagers who have 2K followers on twitter and that scares the shit out of me.
[edit]
@Andreas. Yup, the whole post is kind of aimed at Americans. I am well aware that everyone everywhere else is way more educated than we are. If I could get an education for free maybe I would feel totally differently. I have no idea what the state of art schools are overseas.
Respect should be earned with hard work on your craft and not throwing money and time at what everyone else does. If your colleagues don't take you seriously then either you're not good enough of a professional or a person. Or they can just be mean. But it has nothing to do with degrees, apart from being a superficial reason for segregation.
The only thing anyone ever needs is tenaciousness and conscious attitude to learning. No one can teach you that. But once you've got it, college or not you are going to kick some serious ass.
If I have any advice for people that are starting out it is not to conform. Throw out all the useless crap that everyone says or thinks you have to do. Research what you want and concentrate on what matters. And then sweat and bleed for a few years and you'll be good.
Theres plenty of artists who have a maths education, theres plenty of artists who did other technical or involving jobs before and after working in games.
I could not disagree more that because coders study math that they should be held in some awesome godlike status. I cant build a house, I cant fly an aeroplane (well actually i can) I cant join a pipeline across alaska, or insert a drip or stich a wound, or pull people out of the sea in a force 10 gale.
These are all difficult, serious jobs that require a lot of training and skill. There are a LOT of jobs that are complex, involving and require extensive training and expertise. Programmers code because they enjoy it, simple as that. And if you enjoy something, you strive to get good at it. Theres no magic, just hard work.
I get what you are trying to say about developing a wider skillset than just drawing, but really, for artists, Id say the biggest zen like attribute you could aquire is not to have an ego, not to be arrogant, and to listen and be humble in your role, open to feedback, and not be overly possessive of your work.
AAaand, not confusing that with being a pussy, and just agreeing with whatever anyone says. Fight your battles, but learn which ones are worth fighting. And that is fucking hard
The more interesting people in life tend to be those who do a wide variety of things, and tbh more interesting people proabably have more interesting ideas, and once you have skills, what really sets you apart in art is imagination.
Still not convinced about the coders bit tho
amen
I could still go back to it if I wanted to but I'm so invested in Art right now, I would see it as a waste just to give it all up.
Agreed.
What I find interesting about art is it requires alot of attention to detail. Any minute mistakes and the whole picture is ruined. Trying to correct every error can be time consuming as well as tiring.
It's definitely not something like a Waiter where anyone can be handed food and serve it to people. This is something that requires years of experience in training your mind to perceive things in a professional way.
Actually no, it's not good. If you're going to write something like this try to be correct for the majority of cases. Or else specify who the audience is. Lots of silly untrue generalizations in here.
There are fantastic game art colleges in the world; Northern Europe, England and Scotland, Asia I'm sure... Just because America has problems with their education system does not all game art schools are bad.
I hate to break this to Americans, because it really does mess with some American's world view but...
America is not THE WORLD.
I've heard that there are some companies out there that filter resumes based on if you have a degree but I'm pretty sure that's BS. It would be too big of a risk to lose really awesome talent.
From my standpoint I don't think it matters.
Portfolio > (almost) everything.
If you spend time building a solid portfolio and you're not a shitty person to work with then you'll be a contender.
Also, the passion for the work is incredibly important. I had read this a thousand times on job postings and it's importance never really hit me until I had to work with someone that had no desire to do 3d art. This guy told me a few weeks after I started to make my models less detailed because it was going to make him look bad, to slow down because our project lead need to know how long it actually took to model something and he would actually take credit and log hours for downloaded turbosquid models. A pretty shitty person to work with. I've had jobs that I didn't like in the past but it boggled my mind that someone could get that far in this field and not be into it at all. Meanwhile I was still shocked at the fact that I was getting paid to do something I loved.
PORTFOLIO + PASSION = PROFIT
</tangent>
Being in a class surrounded by people who share your dreams and aspirations is a really neat experience, and they quickly become your family. You also make connections wayyyy faster than if you were trying to sell yourself online. And that's huge - networking is a huge aspect of getting your foot in the door.
It's simple things, like being able to ask a teacher a dumb question that you would have spent hours scouring the internet for the answer. Having teachers to give you daily critiques on things, as well as class feedback.
On a personal note...I'm happy with the art I produce, but there is a ton of room for improvement. To know I came this far in just a year long program, I'd say it was worth every penny (and my family is pretty low income, so that's saying something). No way I would have been able to get this far this fast without going to college. Also I discovered a passion, which I was previously unaware of.
When it came to 3d, it was a waste of time.
Study traditional. I can dig that.
As Cesar Dacol Jr once said " Chose and Do " .Also he likes the idea that failure is the only way to proceed and succeed.>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab0qyVvcRGs Please watch this if u care about this discussion.
Get feedback from strangers in public and the internet and find people with different mindsets to form an opinion.
*_Information:will often be subjective. filter it on the internet.
*_School is cool if u have great teachers if not find them on the internet u have to do it not someone else.
I do think that someone who wants to be an artist because hes enjoying to play with the happy accidents that can seed an feeling in our-self's dos something fine [ame="
What Andreas said about being an American, I think he is referring to American art education. If you take St Petersburg academy or Shanghai academy or many European art schools in Italy and France the level of art education is leaps and bounds higher than North American art schools. You have to grind much harder with that much more focus, your instructors have much higher expectations of you. The foundation is ground into you so hard that you can draw in your sleep. There is a big difference between drawing 2 times a week for 4 hours over a semester and drawing 6 days a week for 4 hours over the course of 3 years.Not to mention the educators.
In American art schools you get a lot of put your feelings into it, express your self, its nice, be unique, you could do this a little different, when in fact they should say this is garbage and you need to do 300 more drawings to make it better (been there, done it). Simply the arts were never important in America like they were elsewhere, thats why you can only sell prints in America at Spencers or a record shop, while Europeans still buy originals.
This is the direct cause of Dominance War results in the past couple of years.
These countries now have greater access to the Internet and technology.
More on topic. A business degree can easily be supplemented by a rich life experience.
On the coding I will agree you should have scripting knowledge if you are a td or rigger some science knowledge for lighting and shaders however the index of refraction for skin is completely irrelevant for a concept artist.
My biggest professional regret would have to lie right next to poopinmymouth. I wish I took a stronger art program. Everything else you can pick up along the way.
I will also agree with Selaznog there is a great benefit to being surrounded but talented driven people. When I went to school we helped each other so much, we did paint-overs, critiques, shared techniques, did demos for each other and helped each other beyond that. It elevated the level of our artwork collectively and by a great margin.
I suppose you can say, that you can get the same from forums but I don't think you can achieve the same level of commitment as when you see the person every day.
Forgot to add the most important thing. With out pure desire passion and fortitude to continue you will be nothing in any career or business. And no amount of education will fix that.
Unless you aspire to work at a government office.
Believe me character art is not easy in any way shape or form, I don't think you can say coding is harder because its relative. if you are good at maths/tech stuff then you will find coding easy, if you are good at drawing colour theory then you might find art easy.
The role of a technical artist is well established, serving as a bridge between coders and artist. almost never have any of art team had to make a feature request directly to coders, it's the lead tech artist or art director who would do that.
oh actually I once had to ask tom the programmer to code some hot air balloons for an environment I was working on and that panned out fine, he did not once try and patronise me or bite me or even correct my spelling.
I have a degree in scientific illustration and it helped me a lot in terms of learning to draw detailed stuff, which translated quite well to game art
I 'would' recommend doing a degree in traditional illustration, but not fine art so much.
I really can't see what the OP is about other than a general rant at us artists.
Calm down Morrissey.
Good post. A lot of it doesn't ring true from what I've seen, etc. But some good points to think on.
Well that was my general point, but I wouldn't say N.A. art schools are all bad at all... just those for-profit scams. Plenty of decent schools in N.A. I'm sure.
I have no bias. I am just averse to the idea of people making life decisions based on someones massive generalizations. If anything the OP shows extreme bias in the first line of his post.
Good post Selzanog.
Where did you study in NA? I have seen some European students work which isn't any better or worse than over here.
It sounds like you reference Altier programs (which btw are offered in some places in NA), or illustration programs. Both which promote a structured traditional way to learn (albeit Altier more classical based). Which is both good and bad. Good in that you become technically proficient. Bad in that you don't get as much in growing outside these skills, so your creative endeavors can be sometimes handicapped with regurgigation.
You end up more a craftsman looking for personal.vision. While on the other side as you suggest, schools that promote personal style and meaning over execution. Creates an artist looking for the craft to make ones vision feasible.
I would say a balanced middle ground is best. Though it can be argued with some conviction our industry needs the craftsman, you can end up in the long run limiting your growth. You get to that Art lead position, and have nothing unique to offer for creating a more nuanced experience for the player.
Or to extremely simplify, without the balance of both, you can end up with redundant ideas that you produce, or original ideas that you can't create .
Yeah, I'm not sure where people are getting that I said being a pro level artist is easy when I specifically say it's hard in the OP.
The first part is about is how artists get paid less, get fired first, have less control and work on games with very polished art assets and no heart or meaning.
The second part is about the skills that will be helpful working as an indie game artist.
would you really want a studio full of tech artists?, it would be bit of a sterile environment for my liking.