Help? Looking to grow/improve as an artist.
polycounter lvl 12
Hi there Polycount,
I'm reaching out to the follow artists on here seeking advice/guidance. I've been graduated from a Game college for almost 3 years now, it was a for profit school.
And though I thought I was learning a lot, when I got out I realized that there was so much more that I wasn't taught while being there and am doing all I can to play catch up. Now facing crippling debt and trying to get into the games industry as a game artist seems near impossible.
I've been spending any of my spare time looking to improve as an artist to hopefully reach that goal most of us are going for. To be able to take our passion for making games and turn it into a career.
Is there anyone else facing this issue? I'd love to hear your processes for getting into the industry, or the best techniques you've used to improve yourself artistically.
Also, my portfolio can be viewed here:
www.joeburak.com
& my art-blog here:
www.cupohjoe.tumblr.com
Critiques and feedback are obviously welcome and encouraged.
Looking forward to hearing from you guys.
I'm reaching out to the follow artists on here seeking advice/guidance. I've been graduated from a Game college for almost 3 years now, it was a for profit school.
And though I thought I was learning a lot, when I got out I realized that there was so much more that I wasn't taught while being there and am doing all I can to play catch up. Now facing crippling debt and trying to get into the games industry as a game artist seems near impossible.
I've been spending any of my spare time looking to improve as an artist to hopefully reach that goal most of us are going for. To be able to take our passion for making games and turn it into a career.
Is there anyone else facing this issue? I'd love to hear your processes for getting into the industry, or the best techniques you've used to improve yourself artistically.
Also, my portfolio can be viewed here:
www.joeburak.com
& my art-blog here:
www.cupohjoe.tumblr.com
Critiques and feedback are obviously welcome and encouraged.
Looking forward to hearing from you guys.
Replies
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=94202&highlight=motivation
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117968&highlight=motivation
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=132379&highlight=graduated+portfolio
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124805&highlight=graduated+portfolio
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=96277&highlight=graduated+portfolio
and there's a ton more.
I even made this thread a few years ago haha
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=90764&highlight=graduated+portfolio
If you search polycount for portfolio threads you'll see a lot of advice that will be useful. Here's an older thread from Jon Jones, who gives a lot of tips on this subject: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39516
You can also look through his website for other advice: http://www.jonjones.com/archives/
Piggybacking off of what others have just said...your portfolio is very rough. Your work shows a lack of focus and the current work you have there isn't really at a level that would get you noticed by employers.
Where I really failed personally in college was that I always compared myself with, and competed with, my peers in school. I wasn't looking at portfolios for artists who worked in the industry. You kinda have to do that. Just look at the level of portfolios from other people here who do have jobs, and strive to compete with that. Its daunting, but ultimately you hold a higher standard for yourself that way.
I think you should consider figuring out what discipline you are most interested in (characters, environments, animation, etc) and focus on effort on that. Definitely post work everywhere so you can get critique, and just keep doing projects until you get better and rebuild your portfolio with that (and only that) stuff.
Might want to use decent size images as well and I agree with what everyone else says.
I do have a 4k monitor so it's extreme but soon it will be as normal as 1080 I'm willing to bet.
It's small on my other screens too but at least have 1080p images on the site or close.
It feels like youre trying to do so many things at once that as a result nothing is very good. Focus on small, manga gable projects. I'm about to make a thread on this soon, and my experience with 3d.
Bridging the Gap from Student to Professional
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9A9kt9M4Vw
Holy references! This is awesome stuff. I read through a lot of these and plan on soaking all of this in. Thank you!
How many pictures should each piece have? Also, should I focus on improving my art first? Before I make a website overhaul?
"If you search polycount for portfolio threads you'll see a lot of advice that will be useful. Here's an older thread from Jon Jones, who gives a lot of tips on this subject: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39516
You can also look through his website for other advice: http://www.jonjones.com/archives/[/QUOTE]"
This is great stuff, I'll be going through and bookmarking all of this!
Thank you!
The lowpoly thread also has quite a few good examples: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41232&page=486
Well, my big reason for posting on here is wanting to improve! I know that I've kind of spread out too thin. I'm going to focus on props/environments, but you're totally right about the school thing.
I thought I was doing pretty alright, and then when I got out I received a pimp smack from life making me realize just how far behind I am. And originally I was working with a group making projects, but the projects weren't anything visually appealing. So I ended up wasting time and energy on projects that don't really look that good.
Regardless, thank you for the feedback! Definitely appreciated!
Hey slosh, I did indeed do that drawing. My problem with that piece is that I did all of that traditionally and it took more time than I'd like to admit. Is it even worth having up if people are going to assume I didn't create it?
I know that my 3D work is lacking, so I was looking for ways to improve. But, i'll definitely keep what you mind in said. Thanks for the feedback.
Hey PolyHertz, that was one of the things with the college I attended. We had no experience using Zbrush, so I've been trying to teach myself from references available online.
And I've been wanting to take a digital painting class just due to painting textures has become a norm if not creating photo realistic textures.
Thanks for the references! There is some beautiful looking work on that thread!
Yeah, I've been noticing that I'm going to have to redesign my website. When I originally created it the website I set it up to where everything would be on the top of the browser.
You're totally right though, I've stretched myself pretty thin and have decided to focus smaller. I'll be looking forward to your thread on 3D, thanks for the feedback!
Cool but enough about your shlong, lets talk about the monitor
That was a lot of great information crammed in an hour! Thanks for the share!
I feel like a lot of us (myself included) were taught everything in school when we should have been told to specialize from the start (or soon-after). I'm just learning that now (thankfully with a year left before I graduate) and trying to figure out exactly what I need to have in my portfolio/do in order to land a job.
I kinda disagree, even though I totally understand the sentiment. I think though that having a foundation is pretty important. I think of it like a skill curve.
What you are talking about is a generalist skill curve, something like this;
Yeah, that would probably not be the easiest skill curve to get hired with, unless you are talking mobile, or something similar.
But this is just as difficult a skill curve to have as well:
So while you might not like having to had go through all those 'unnecessary' classes, they still give you something more than cursory knowledge. Now your skill curve is looking something like:
Which is much more well rounded, even though you still have your speciality, makes it easier to get hired, even though you'll only be working in one area.
When I say specialize, I mean picking a part of the 3d field and focusing strongly in it (and everything it involves). E.g VFX Artist, Enviornment, Character, Techincal, etc.
For example, while it is possible with enough work, I see a lot of people (myself included until recently) who try to do both characters and environments. It usually ends with characters that aren't too good and environments that need a little bit more time.
Edit: I guess it was you who said it best in "that" thread. Right now, I'm just trying to emulate what I think should be done since I'm still relatively a beginner..
Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking about taking useless classes like rigging and animating etc. Things are a bit different when you are talking about environment art vs. character art. There is crossover art skill wise, but its different than what I was talking about I guess, I would more agree with you there.
Thanks man! I'm going to be spending some pretty intense hours improving my skills and portfolio after all the useful feedback on this thread. I understand the whole being taught "everything" thing. We were taught programming, level design, & lots of team classes (build a game/environment in X amount of time), which all are kind of useful though totally don't help me at all in the long run.
That top chart completely explains my overall situation. I jumped back and forth a lot between doing 2D stuff and 3D and never really found solid footing in either. Now that I've got a solid focus in mind, I'm definitely hoping for my skill set to resemble that bottom chart.
Thanks for that! Really cool stuff and insight here!