[TUTORIAL] 15 Tips To Improve As An Artist
polycounter lvl 7
Hey all
I've just finished writing a new article / tutorial for my website, and I wanted to share it with you. Its mainly aimed at students and developers who might have lost some of their desire to improve, but hopefully everyone can find some inspiration from it.
Anyway you can either view it on my website or view it below
Feel free to further discuss this topic within the thread and as always feedback is very much appreciated.
Introduction
Over the course of my art career I feel like I have steadily improved year by year with no great change, however over the last year or two I have become more disciplined in how I approach life and my job and I feel like I've made my biggest improvement yet. I thought it might be good to document some of the methods of improvement that I try and stick by in the hope that someone else finds it useful and inspiring.
1 // Don't Be Intimidated By Talent Around You
Obviously everyone wants to be one of the most talented artists within their studio so it's easy to feel intimidated when you feel someone else is more talented. Instead of being intimidated, you should embrace this as you'll progress so much faster with talented co-workers. People that no longer have any peers to look up too, will often find that their skills will plateau as there's no one around them forcing them to go above and beyond what's expected of them.
2 // Work Hard And Get The Job Done During Core Hours
In my experience most game artists that are new to the industry will often work many more hours than veteran employees even when there's no real reason too. They'll often make a task stretch for as long as possible (you'll find this is easy in an art career as art is never truly finish :-) but this has a negative impact on both you and your co-workers. Firstly you'll get burnt out, your production will drop and you'll begin to resent your job and it affects your co-workers because management will soon start asking why all employees aren't putting in as much effort as the guy stopping back every night. The best thing to do is work hard, get your job done and leave on time. You'll feel better because you're more refreshed and your employer will be happy that your meeting all your deadlines.
3 // Do Personal Work Even If Your Employed
Once you land an industry job it's still super important to continue practicing your work in your own time. I see people coming into the industry all the time and most give up doing personal art because in their opinion they've made it and their dreams have become a reality but I've got three solid reasons why this is a bad idea. Firstly the industry is incredibly small so the amount of jobs available compared to the amount of people wanting a job means that there's always someone willing to take your place and often for half your wage. Secondly one day you'll want to move onto another company and quite frankly a portfolio of 100% professional work is unlikely to cut it (this is especially the case if the games you've worked on haven't been that great). It makes it look like you've become complacent and no employer wants this. Finally you've got to remember why you wanted a job in the games industry in the first place. Most likely it was because you loved doing art and in my experience 90 percent of the time working on your own projects is more fun than working on someone else's.
4 // Find Time To Give People Feedback
Becoming a better artist isn't exclusively about doing art all day, everyday. There are other ways to hone your skills. One of my favourite ways is to give other artists feedback, often on www.polycount.com or other game artist forums. The reason I think giving feedback is important is that it subliminally trains you in Art Direction without really knowing it. The ability to suggest improvements to other people's artwork is an important skill in this line of work.
5 // Don't Get Lazy
This is my biggest gripe with most people in the games industry and I hate to see it. People get lazy, both with personal work and professional work. Essentially this is down to becoming complacent with their job and they start to see their role as exactly that, a job to pay the bills. Laziness results in finding every excuse under the sun to not work on your own personal projects. Do yourself a favour and treat everyday like it was your first and put in 100% effort. After all this is the job you most likely dreamed of as a kid.
6 // Find Time For Family
Being a games artist can be a pretty demanding job but don't let that affect your family life. I see people struggling all the time with relationships because they let work become more important than family. Often people don't realise this is happening but it's obvious when you take a step back and view relationships from a different perspective. Being in a healthy relationship will keep you happy and this will bleed through into your work.
7 // Don't Be Afraid To Fail
The number one issue I come across with people not reaching their full potential is the fact that their scared to fail and often hesitating to try new things for fear of failing. Everyone will fail at some point in their career and the quicker you learn to relieve that pressure and be comfortable with the thought of failing, the more free you will be to live up to your potential. Obviously making mistakes is bad but no one is perfect. What is most important for an employer is that you learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them.
To progress as an artist you need to be undertaking projects and tasks that are outside of your comfort zone, tasks that you're scared of failing. The type of tasks that have you nervous because you've never done it before or last time you tried the task, it didn't go to plan. This is the fastest way to progress because when you successfully complete a task, everything you've learnt gets stored in your brain and that knowledge will be with you for the rest of your life.
8 // Make Sure You Finish The Projects You Start
There comes a time in every projects lifespan where you're sick of the sight of it, normally it's because it looks quite bare and you feel like you could do better, however constantly restarting projects is bad. You'll start getting a reputation of never finishing anything and you won't have anything in your portfolio. Always put in the effort to finish projects. I guarantee you'll be surprised at the end result and you'll be happy you stuck with it. After all an average piece of finished art is 100% times better than an amazing piece of unfinished art.
9 // Experience Different Types of Studios
Obviously most students straight out of university almost exclusively apply for AAA Studios because they are the studios that make the cool games. However I recommend that people be more open minded about what studios they work for. Ideally you should try a bit of everything throughout your career such as small independent studios or large publisher based studios because they all have their own set of advantages and its not necessarily obvious which one you'd prefer. For example independent studios are normally much smaller teams so you'll often feel like you can play more of an important role where as at a publisher based studio it's easy to feel like just another cog in the machine.
10 // Try Some Different Roles
If you're employed at quite a small studio chances are you'll be encouraged to help out in other roles that you're not necessarily specialised in. I would advise everyone to embrace this as it will keep you're job feeling fresh, you'll expand your knowledge of the different teams and because your not doing your main job at work, you'll more than likely undertake more personal projects at home. While I specialise in environment art I've had several chances to takes on different roles (Particle Artist, Level Designer), it was during these periods that I've done my most successful personal projects.
11 // Compare Yourself To Artwork In Commercial Games
While it's human nature to compare your artwork to that of other artists around you, You will get much more benefit by comparing your artwork to the artwork released in commercial products (especially those products that are released by companies that you aspire to work for). The reason for this is that the artwork in these games are essentially showing you how good you have to be to work for that company and you can also be sure that it runs on the platform it was designed for. I often see people doing some incredible personal art but technically it would never be viable in a commercial product.
12 // Learn How To Accept Feedback
One of the most important things for an aspiring artist to learn is learning how to accept feedback. The first time you receive some negative feedback it can be disheartened and it can take a strong personality to handle it well but it's important to realise that receiving feedback is a positive thing, even if it's not necessarily positive feedback. The reason for this being that if someone takes the time to give you feedback they obviously think you're worth the time investment and they want to see you reach your full potential.
13 // Learn To Manage Your Time More Effectively
This point is a super important one to me because if I'm honest I used to feel like I had no time to do personal artwork so therefore I didn't put in the effort to get my personal projects off the ground. However that all changed after reading a selection of great articles on productivity by Alex Galuzin over at www.worldofleveldesign.com. I recommend that you read them all but one of the most important points I took away from them is to try and find time for 30 minutes of uninterrupted work per day and after 30 days you'll be surprised at how much work you've produced. I started with this and now I find I'm always inspired to do work and find much more time than 30 minutes a day. Now I find that I get annoyed when people say they have no time. I have a full time job, two children to look after, a house to keep clean and a fianc� to keep happy. If I can find time for artwork then anyone can.
14 // Network With Other Like Minded Artists
One of the best things I've done as an artist is start posting my work on websites such as www.polycount.com and other similar websites. It can be pretty daunting at first but I've had some amazing experiences and met some amazing friends and that would have never happened had I never posted. Having had these experiences, its kept me constantly inspired because you never know what experience might be next.
15 // Try To Be One Step Ahead Technically
One thing that's always worked pretty favourable for me throughout my career is to try and be one step ahead technically. What I mean by this is try and soak in as much technical knowledge as possible, whether that be getting familiar with a game engine, learning next gen techniques, learning a new program such as Quixel DDO or Handplane or even keeping up to date with GDC talks etc. If you're the guy constantly keeping the rest of the team knowledgeable, you'll find yourself becoming much more indispensable and your showing your employer that you have leadership qualities.
I've just finished writing a new article / tutorial for my website, and I wanted to share it with you. Its mainly aimed at students and developers who might have lost some of their desire to improve, but hopefully everyone can find some inspiration from it.
Anyway you can either view it on my website or view it below
Feel free to further discuss this topic within the thread and as always feedback is very much appreciated.
Introduction
Over the course of my art career I feel like I have steadily improved year by year with no great change, however over the last year or two I have become more disciplined in how I approach life and my job and I feel like I've made my biggest improvement yet. I thought it might be good to document some of the methods of improvement that I try and stick by in the hope that someone else finds it useful and inspiring.
1 // Don't Be Intimidated By Talent Around You
Obviously everyone wants to be one of the most talented artists within their studio so it's easy to feel intimidated when you feel someone else is more talented. Instead of being intimidated, you should embrace this as you'll progress so much faster with talented co-workers. People that no longer have any peers to look up too, will often find that their skills will plateau as there's no one around them forcing them to go above and beyond what's expected of them.
2 // Work Hard And Get The Job Done During Core Hours
In my experience most game artists that are new to the industry will often work many more hours than veteran employees even when there's no real reason too. They'll often make a task stretch for as long as possible (you'll find this is easy in an art career as art is never truly finish :-) but this has a negative impact on both you and your co-workers. Firstly you'll get burnt out, your production will drop and you'll begin to resent your job and it affects your co-workers because management will soon start asking why all employees aren't putting in as much effort as the guy stopping back every night. The best thing to do is work hard, get your job done and leave on time. You'll feel better because you're more refreshed and your employer will be happy that your meeting all your deadlines.
3 // Do Personal Work Even If Your Employed
Once you land an industry job it's still super important to continue practicing your work in your own time. I see people coming into the industry all the time and most give up doing personal art because in their opinion they've made it and their dreams have become a reality but I've got three solid reasons why this is a bad idea. Firstly the industry is incredibly small so the amount of jobs available compared to the amount of people wanting a job means that there's always someone willing to take your place and often for half your wage. Secondly one day you'll want to move onto another company and quite frankly a portfolio of 100% professional work is unlikely to cut it (this is especially the case if the games you've worked on haven't been that great). It makes it look like you've become complacent and no employer wants this. Finally you've got to remember why you wanted a job in the games industry in the first place. Most likely it was because you loved doing art and in my experience 90 percent of the time working on your own projects is more fun than working on someone else's.
4 // Find Time To Give People Feedback
Becoming a better artist isn't exclusively about doing art all day, everyday. There are other ways to hone your skills. One of my favourite ways is to give other artists feedback, often on www.polycount.com or other game artist forums. The reason I think giving feedback is important is that it subliminally trains you in Art Direction without really knowing it. The ability to suggest improvements to other people's artwork is an important skill in this line of work.
5 // Don't Get Lazy
This is my biggest gripe with most people in the games industry and I hate to see it. People get lazy, both with personal work and professional work. Essentially this is down to becoming complacent with their job and they start to see their role as exactly that, a job to pay the bills. Laziness results in finding every excuse under the sun to not work on your own personal projects. Do yourself a favour and treat everyday like it was your first and put in 100% effort. After all this is the job you most likely dreamed of as a kid.
6 // Find Time For Family
Being a games artist can be a pretty demanding job but don't let that affect your family life. I see people struggling all the time with relationships because they let work become more important than family. Often people don't realise this is happening but it's obvious when you take a step back and view relationships from a different perspective. Being in a healthy relationship will keep you happy and this will bleed through into your work.
7 // Don't Be Afraid To Fail
The number one issue I come across with people not reaching their full potential is the fact that their scared to fail and often hesitating to try new things for fear of failing. Everyone will fail at some point in their career and the quicker you learn to relieve that pressure and be comfortable with the thought of failing, the more free you will be to live up to your potential. Obviously making mistakes is bad but no one is perfect. What is most important for an employer is that you learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them.
To progress as an artist you need to be undertaking projects and tasks that are outside of your comfort zone, tasks that you're scared of failing. The type of tasks that have you nervous because you've never done it before or last time you tried the task, it didn't go to plan. This is the fastest way to progress because when you successfully complete a task, everything you've learnt gets stored in your brain and that knowledge will be with you for the rest of your life.
8 // Make Sure You Finish The Projects You Start
There comes a time in every projects lifespan where you're sick of the sight of it, normally it's because it looks quite bare and you feel like you could do better, however constantly restarting projects is bad. You'll start getting a reputation of never finishing anything and you won't have anything in your portfolio. Always put in the effort to finish projects. I guarantee you'll be surprised at the end result and you'll be happy you stuck with it. After all an average piece of finished art is 100% times better than an amazing piece of unfinished art.
9 // Experience Different Types of Studios
Obviously most students straight out of university almost exclusively apply for AAA Studios because they are the studios that make the cool games. However I recommend that people be more open minded about what studios they work for. Ideally you should try a bit of everything throughout your career such as small independent studios or large publisher based studios because they all have their own set of advantages and its not necessarily obvious which one you'd prefer. For example independent studios are normally much smaller teams so you'll often feel like you can play more of an important role where as at a publisher based studio it's easy to feel like just another cog in the machine.
10 // Try Some Different Roles
If you're employed at quite a small studio chances are you'll be encouraged to help out in other roles that you're not necessarily specialised in. I would advise everyone to embrace this as it will keep you're job feeling fresh, you'll expand your knowledge of the different teams and because your not doing your main job at work, you'll more than likely undertake more personal projects at home. While I specialise in environment art I've had several chances to takes on different roles (Particle Artist, Level Designer), it was during these periods that I've done my most successful personal projects.
11 // Compare Yourself To Artwork In Commercial Games
While it's human nature to compare your artwork to that of other artists around you, You will get much more benefit by comparing your artwork to the artwork released in commercial products (especially those products that are released by companies that you aspire to work for). The reason for this is that the artwork in these games are essentially showing you how good you have to be to work for that company and you can also be sure that it runs on the platform it was designed for. I often see people doing some incredible personal art but technically it would never be viable in a commercial product.
12 // Learn How To Accept Feedback
One of the most important things for an aspiring artist to learn is learning how to accept feedback. The first time you receive some negative feedback it can be disheartened and it can take a strong personality to handle it well but it's important to realise that receiving feedback is a positive thing, even if it's not necessarily positive feedback. The reason for this being that if someone takes the time to give you feedback they obviously think you're worth the time investment and they want to see you reach your full potential.
13 // Learn To Manage Your Time More Effectively
This point is a super important one to me because if I'm honest I used to feel like I had no time to do personal artwork so therefore I didn't put in the effort to get my personal projects off the ground. However that all changed after reading a selection of great articles on productivity by Alex Galuzin over at www.worldofleveldesign.com. I recommend that you read them all but one of the most important points I took away from them is to try and find time for 30 minutes of uninterrupted work per day and after 30 days you'll be surprised at how much work you've produced. I started with this and now I find I'm always inspired to do work and find much more time than 30 minutes a day. Now I find that I get annoyed when people say they have no time. I have a full time job, two children to look after, a house to keep clean and a fianc� to keep happy. If I can find time for artwork then anyone can.
14 // Network With Other Like Minded Artists
One of the best things I've done as an artist is start posting my work on websites such as www.polycount.com and other similar websites. It can be pretty daunting at first but I've had some amazing experiences and met some amazing friends and that would have never happened had I never posted. Having had these experiences, its kept me constantly inspired because you never know what experience might be next.
15 // Try To Be One Step Ahead Technically
One thing that's always worked pretty favourable for me throughout my career is to try and be one step ahead technically. What I mean by this is try and soak in as much technical knowledge as possible, whether that be getting familiar with a game engine, learning next gen techniques, learning a new program such as Quixel DDO or Handplane or even keeping up to date with GDC talks etc. If you're the guy constantly keeping the rest of the team knowledgeable, you'll find yourself becoming much more indispensable and your showing your employer that you have leadership qualities.
Replies
(Maybe leave out the text on the preview images, its doubled and you have so much text on your page)
This was a good read and a good motivator.
This is probably one of my biggest problems.
Thanks for the article, man
5,8, and 14 are things i really need to work on personally...:poly122:
If you wouldn't mind, you could send the text to me, so I could fix the grammar up a bit for showcase on your site.
Let me know.
What do you mean with "technically it would never be viable in a commercial product"? Could you please clarify it? ^^
Thanks for the feedback, it's my first article so the feedback is defiantly going to help me improve the next one that I do.
Below are replies to individual questions:
@dustinbrown // Excellent point, I was going to include this but decided I wanted to keep it rounded off at 15 points which resulted in this one being sacrificed. The only reason this one got dropped is the fact that it didn't relate directly to improving as an artist. It's something I would like to discuss further though
@Coridum // Thanks mate, glad you approve, Yeah I'm totally up for a google hangout. Just message me when your available.
@Kimahiri // Thanks for the comments. See below for a response to your question: What do you mean with "technically it would never be viable in a commercial product"? Could you please clarify it? ^^
So basically one of the hardest things about doing game art for commercial products is getting the art to look great while being optimised enough so that it doesn't grind everything to a halt once the rest of the game is running along side it.
You don't have these restrictions as much when doing personal artwork because there isn't AI, Gameplay Mechanics, UI, Physics & Sounds etc running at the same time. Therefore people can often get away bad techniques and habits such as poorly optimised textures / shaders, resource heavy post process effects, resource heavy methods of setting up models etc and the list goes on.
Hope that helps, if it needs to be discussed further I'd be happy to do so
@Shrike // Good point, I'm defiantly going to change this
This! yeah, good read man!
i get lazy always and end up finding myself passing months without getting anything done
been very inspirational to read >> specially that at least 30 min per day work
im totally making this a new rule
^ This, so much this. I'm in college right now and I have this experience all the time. There's a lot of pressure to deal with. I'm still learning how to cope with it and take a lot of the pressure off of myself and instead, purely focus on improving. A part of that is taking a step back from work and relaxing for a little while. It can still be hard to tear myself away, but coming back to a project refreshed and rejuvenated gets me better results than powering through them all with dozens of cups of coffee.
Absolutely second dustinbrown on the health point! There's a sort of a romance in the industry of sleeping and eating badly which ultimately will just make you less productive and might increase frequency of illness. Not very responsible towards the company either if you ask me.
Original Post
-Full time employees, where do you find the time to work on your projects?-
I'm going to pre-face this with: don't say, "I do it at work" or "get a job where you can get away with it" as that doesn't exactly help a lot of people who are tied to a job they like.
I'm at work, Mon-Fri from 9am to 6pm. I get home, have to cook, eat, clean, etc and usually by then it's 8pm and I'm too tired to code. It doesn't help that I'm a Software Engineer and as much as I like programming, I'm a little burnt out after doing it all day.
On Saturday and Sunday I usually have various plans or bigger jobs to do around the house that I've put off from doing during the week.
When I can squeeze some time in, it's only for a couple of hours and I feel like I never get really started or get enough done. At the snail's rate the code progresses, I can't imagine ever finishing =/
Doesn't help that I'm trying to do multiple projects at once, my own personal website and game ideas.
Is there a secret? More planning maybe? Only sit down to code when I have a solid idea of what I'm going to code? Rejig my schedule to have a day of just programming?
Comment Response
I get home, have to cook, eat, clean, etc and usually by then it's 8pm
Seems to me you're being inefficient. It's okay, it's normal for humans to fill every waking moment with something to do. I had a girlfriend who went to the grocery store every day and then complained she had no free time. Everything she did was maximally inefficient.
If you look around, you can find "life hacks" to free up that time. Only go to the store every 2 weeks. Yes, that requires some planning. Do the laundry and cleaning once a week, not spread out. Cook for the week on the weekend, and then just eat from that for the week instead of cooking daily.
Imagine that you were forced to take up a second, part-time job. People do this, you know. With the way your life is scheduled now, you couldn't do it. You need to treat gamedev as that second job. You need to treat it as required time that you need to spend on it, or you'll fail. Keep that in mind: You'll fail if you don't spend time at it.
Coding only once a week will mean you have to spend time figuring out where you were every time you sit down. You need to be coding at least 3 times a week to keep that stuff in your head, and not just 3 days in a row.
You also need to get seriously organized about what you plan to do in the game so that every time you sit down, you know exactly what you're going to do. This is vitally important. You may not know how you'll resolve it, but you'll know what you need to resolve. Use a bug tracker or kanban board or something. It seems like time wasted, filling it out, but it'll keep you on track so much better that you won't know how to work without it in the future.
And finally, drop any other project. Gamedev isn't something you can do while doing other things. Your other hobbies need to get put on hold. Especially other games. Pick one and focus on it. If it turns out to be shit, shelve it and pick a different one to work on. Never work on more than one at once, and always be serious.
The exception to that is things like Ludum Dare. It's only 2 days out of your schedule and gives you a great break from the norm, without really getting in the way.
tl;dr -
Pick 1 project. Put everything else away.
Re-organize your life so that you're doing things efficiently.
Organize the project. Put everything on a Kanban board and work from it. Know what you'll be doing every time you sit down.
Work on that project daily. At least 3 times a week, spread out, but more is better.
Without that feedback and critiquing of work it's very difficult to improve one's skills and abilities.
I really wish there were more light on this issue. I feel like improving in art is like leveling up in an MMO, and any time you're not leveling up hurts your chances of getting a raid spot...or in this case a job. I feel like a pile of crap for playing games for even just an hour, or going out on the weekends, like I don't deserve it.
My friends always nag me to come out of the house because "it's not homework, c'mon you can come out tonight". I usually tell them "I can't just get the 'right answers' and be all done for the summer..."
@BARDLER // Thanks man, Excellent post. I really like the part about knowing exactly what you'll be doing when you get chance to do work everyday. I'd just like to add that one of the things that I changed personally is learning not to spend time looking at websites and checking email. Instead I completely cut this out.
@Snafubar7 // Try and get out of this mentality, it's important to remember that art isn't everything. One thing I try to bear in mind is what would I do if one day I could no longer do art for whatever reason. If you put all your eggs in one basket and it's taken away, you'll find it difficult to cope with life. It's important to enjoy your life as you only get one chance.
I personally think this mentality starts at university or at least it did in my case. They give much too demanding projects. My first uni project was to model and texture half a kilometre square of a city.
@lorem.ipsum // You Miss are an inspiration, I thought having two kids was tough. Can't imagine bringing up three on my own.
@AtomicRobotToy // I 100% agree with you here but I'm unsure why some people's threads get glossed over. A good example of this is one of my best mates thread. Adam is one of the most talented artists I've worked with but yet his thread isn't getting half as much attention as it deserves. It seems to be a general problem with communities. If anyone has any insight into why this happens I'd love to discuss it further
Yeah I'm graduating next spring so I feel really nervous about it. I wish I knew about environment modeling before going through college, I wasted so much time/money in other classes. I envy those that start modeling by 17, I wish there were 3D classes back when I was in high school.
On an adding note, i wanted to stress how just taking real breaks every now and then is ultra useful and healthy. Either a vacation or just a weekend hike and disconnect. I've found my self sometimes stuck, unable to come up with ideas or sometimes wanting not too...and sometimes just going out for a hike makes you feel refreshed, being behind a desk and monitor makes me forget I am human sometimes, and a part of a real world. Seeing life, trees and hearing the world around me makes me feel grounded once more.
Thanks again! :thumbup:
That's true. Whenever my wife and I go on vacation, I unplug (well, other than Facebook on my phone). I get immersed in whatever we're doing or wherever we are and I don't think about work at all. It's amazingly good for the brain! You come back champing at the bit to get back at it...
On a smaller scale, I've found that if I'm stuck for motivation or creativity, giving myself permission to have a lazy Sunday or something helps to recharge everything. I lay on the couch with the dog and watch movies or whatever. Give the brain time to cool down...
I'd also say to keep any BAD work you've done - you can often learn as much from that as you can from your best piece. These things work for me at least...