Advice for aspiring character artist?

nGreenroad

Hello fellow polycounters!
I'm in the last two months of getting my degree in Game Art and I want to prepare one or two character portfolio pieces. Do any of you have advice on what makes an effective character artist portfolio piece? I want to be able to show I can do both realistic and stylized, but beyond that I am at a loss.

SecretPro

nGreenroad wrote: »

Hello fellow polycounters!
I'm in the last two months of getting my degree in Game Art and I want to prepare one or two character portfolio pieces. Do any of you have advice on what makes an effective character artist portfolio piece? I want to be able to show I can do both realistic and stylized, but beyond that I am at a loss.

Not to come off a bit offensive, but shouldn't this have been in issue maybe in the second year or mid way through the art program. I know art schools don't always deliver, but also there needs to be some out of the box effort from the student.

To answer your questions, not a character artist here but a universal advice would be to pick your target audience or studio. Is it Blizzard style art or realistic, pick want you enjoy and produce a high quality finish product. Don't forget breakdowns and posing the character.

Maybe others more inform in the area can help

Optinium

Conversely you don't have to specialize necessarily, I've tried to keep my portfolio pretty varied and it's worked out well for me. The only problem you might have is that 1 or 2 characters probably won't cut it (unless they're absolutely amazing, solid anatomy, pose etc...).

Character art roles are few and far between, many aspiring character artists settle for environment roles as their first position to gain experience (I'm not downplaying environment art here, it's just the fact there are a lot more positions), so maybe consider some probs and weapons to help bulk out your portfolio a bit.

Add3r

It does not hurt to do exactly what Optinium said. Sure being able to do full fledged characters with your first position is the dream... but lets be realistic here. Most entry level character artists will help with character related props/weapons/gear/etc, if not, clean up on the characters themselves.

Once again, like optinium said, keep your skillset broad enough to fill a character support role as well as a specialized character artist role. Knowing how to rig is nearly a must these days it seems as well as a character artist, I recommend studying character tech art skills in your spare time when not working on portfolio pieces. This includes shader stuffs, rigging, effects, etc, anything that can help bring your work to a new level but never lose sight of that goal. Get a good set of SOLID characters and props first and foremost.

As secretpro said, you probably should have the beginnings of a entry level portfolio already in the works at this point.

slipsius

I am in no way a modeller or character artist, but, something I've not really seen in portfolios, which might be neat to see and help you get that first job in either character art or props would be to do 1 or 2 base characters, naked / loin cloth, then do different sets of armour / weaponry for them. Show them at different tiers of level, or different classes. That sort of thing. It will show you can do both characters and props, and can show your design skills as well.

Just a thought.

nGreenroad

Thanks guys! SecretPro I totally agree. The program I am in is only 2 and a half years long, and there has been little to zero focus on portfolio prep until this point. Long story short, the program is severely lacking in anything useful (for profit degree factory) for the industry. So I have been teaching myself mostly through polycount and those few who came through the school and landed jobs. The last year has been spent teaching myself the basics of baking proper normals (Andy Davies is the man) and A TON of anatomy. None of this is taught at the school.
Optinium, I have recently been told about 4 core pieces (showing off anatomy, cloth folds, hard surface, and fantasy anatomy) are pretty standard. Would you agree? Thats a good tip about hard surface props and weapons, I should add at least one for each character?

nGreenroad

slipsius, I like the idea of doing multiple armour/equipment sets. Do you think it would be effective to do different character states too? Like a wounded version, or a starving/straggler version?

seth.

SecretPro wrote: »

To answer your questions, not a character artist here but a universal advice would be to pick your target audience or studio. Is it Blizzard style art or realistic, pick want you enjoy and produce a high quality finish product. Don't forget breakdowns and posing the character.

^^ this. Make something that you like in the style that you like, it will show through in the finished product if you really enjoy what you are making. Hitting a checlist of things takes the fun out of it.

In one of his online lectures Hai Phan mentions that it is a lot better for a beginning character artist to model from someone elses concept rather than design your own, and I agree with this viewpoint. It takes a long time to be a pro character concept artist, for now you should just focus on the modelling side and build your design skills over time.

Short story shorter: Find a franchise that you like, dig out some of the concept art and make something

JacqueChoi

To offer a different perspective...

A very full portfolio of hyper realistic characters is the 'easiest' way to land a job in the industry.

Its the easiest way to demonstrate fundamental knowledge (Anatomy, wrinkles, surfacing, ... etc) and there's generally a WAY higher demand for it.


Something I often get my students to do, is off the top of their heads... name all the fantasy studios in North America...


Then name all the studios that make military, period piece games, sports games, etc etc.

For every Blizzard/Bethesds/Bioware game that's made, there's 10x more Tiger Woods, NHL, NBA, Madden, type games.