Is Eastern style a downside for me to get a job?
polycounter lvl 6
Hey guys, i've been wondering for a while now that i really love the eastern art style be it drawing or 3d models that are done in the east. For instance, i can tell i really like NCSoft looking games (Blade & Soul, Aion, Lineage) and for the most part i would love to work on a company like that in the future(Funny enough Guild wars art style not so much and it's also targeted to the weast audience).
The problem is i live in the west(like most of you), most of the studios are targeted to the west audience as you may already know. I've been working on foundamentals and practicing realism and that i know i have to learn realism before moving into stylization i find it really scary to not be able to work on something i wouldn't love.
I know we all do sacrifices to get what we want and that i may end working on something i may not fully like at fist but...is doing eastern style art living in the west a viable route?
TL-DR: can you still find a job doing eastern art living in the west?
The problem is i live in the west(like most of you), most of the studios are targeted to the west audience as you may already know. I've been working on foundamentals and practicing realism and that i know i have to learn realism before moving into stylization i find it really scary to not be able to work on something i wouldn't love.
I know we all do sacrifices to get what we want and that i may end working on something i may not fully like at fist but...is doing eastern style art living in the west a viable route?
TL-DR: can you still find a job doing eastern art living in the west?
Replies
That being said, branching off and showing an ability to master multiple styles and catering to the styles of the studio you're applying for is a plus.
You should check out some of Hazardous' work, He's a western artist but I think he nails it when it comes to finding a middle ground.:
http://www.hazardousarts.com/
The more skilled you become the easier it gets. Granted if you're not flexible with the kinds of work you're willing to do for work then it will be more difficult.
Like Spiffy has said, it's doable, people have been doing it for a long time. The hardest part is getting the necessary skills.
However I'd still employ someone with a different style than the project if they displayed the skill set I know would work with the style of the project. With a test etc.
It depends who's looking at the folio, someone with the technical understanding of 'art skillz' or some random from HR who only looks for gritty apoc survivor portfolios.
There's still be a bunch of studios in the west that do that kind of style, but either way Outsourcing bro, no need to worry.
Moving to Asia is something that bothers me a little also, is the language barrier a big deal? Only as far as japanese goes i have a soild grasp of it but not korean or chinesse. Also i have the feeling Asia has a lot more competition with extremely dalented artist with almost the same style. What would you do in my place?
I forgot to mention that where i live in Peru in South America, good Game studios are ZERO. Everyone of them is totally outdated and make medriocre work that i definetely don't want to work there only if i don't have any other option to eat. Freelance or moving to the US may be a better option and much easier than going to Asia at least to start.
It's a bit of a cheesy thing to say, but If you are great at anything someone will be interested in paying you for it.
Don't quote me.
shakerzero i don't have portfolio yet, started like 2 years ago into 3d but actually i'm working on anatomy now and figure drawing so i can have my first 3d portrait by march taht can use it as my first piece of portfolio, so yeah...just starting out those 2 years were about learning things like rigging, modeling, animation, pretty much everything but drawing or anatomy so that was a big mistake.
hey, just gonna say that you probably should'nt hold back on working on your portfolio.
the thing is you never know how good you are until you put all your knowledge into a single piece. there are a lot of things in a workflow that don't have anything to do with single production steps, but with the transition between them.
also doing portfoliostuff on a semiregular basis is good to see how you are developing your skills and how progress is going.
it might end up being depressing when you start your first portfoliopiece after 3 years of learning and it turns out that it sucks, and you might think all those years were wasted. only because you never baked normals before and your greenchannel is inverted and you can't see what the problem is.
In my case I had a vocational college degree "which isn't supposed to count" and 2 years of explainable experience when I got my engineer Visa for Japan, I think that they also can go a lot on the person as well, I knew the language quite well at the time as well as I studied a year in Japan when I was in high school, so if you have that sort of experience it might help.
Sometimes companies are also asked to write letters to the immigration office explaining as to why your experience is needed instead of a japanese.
As for skill, many japanese companies are trying their best to mimic foreign companies and what they want is someone skilled at what a western artist is usually skilled at, preferably a technical artist with lots of UE4 experience.
Companies like from software and square enix are hiring foreign talent all the time for example.
Yeah, pretty much no game studio would want to hire Jackson Pollock, right?
Jonas - That's super good to hear i didn't know they were opened to hiring western people just have to work hard then.
sure, everything is valid as long as you think it remotely represents your current skill level.
as long as you are not applying anywhere it doesn't realy matter that much what is in your portfolio anyways.
once you start applying you should start kicking out smaller and older pieces.
solid technical UE4 skills and the world's your oyster.
we're also looking for for one of those. One of our former UE4 wizards left for Epic
There are plenty of very, very good artists here in China. I would not want to compete with them on art skills (and salary is out of the question). As pure artist I'd say there's little chance to get hired unless some smaller studio looks for a foreigner to parade around (it happens).
You have to offer what isn't available locally: mostly anything to do with leadership, directing (e.g. art direction), technical issues and hands on production experience.
What's difficult to find? People who can create shaders, lighting or do optimization in UE4. Stuff that often requires some actual knowledge of a platform and the hardware. People who can go beyond just making assets. People who can put stuff together and give it some polish! Meaning that "I worked some with UE4" isn't going to cut it in many cases. You gotta be good enough so that, in comparison to hiring you, training a good artist, who doesn't know all this, takes a lot of time and patience.
Similarly useful: rigging, mocap, animation, especially in combination with getting things like advanced rigs and animations into UE4 or a similar engine (Cry, Frostbite, Anvil, etc).
Any artist centric experience with middleware like Morpheme or FaceFX. All hard to find here.
Anther route, for artists, is to focus on team leadership, management and organization - i.e. running a team professionally, coaching it, making it grow. i.e. team lead / art director.
The good thing about China is, since these positions are difficult to fill (less competition), the entry barrier can be lower than at Western studios. Entry ticket is cheaper, but you're expected to catch up quickly on your own though. If you have the right skills, language is usually not an issue in China.
If you are serious about making this type of characters without a doubt you must sit down and and sculpt/retopo anime style faces whenever you can. Believe me you'll understand
In fact, many studios completely disregard much of the skills you've demonstrated, and want you to take a test to PROVE you can do "their" style.
Try this as a simple exercise:
Name all the studios that are make stylized fantasy game.
(Off the top of my head, I can think of maybe 5?)
You're cutting out a LOT of potential workplaces by going stylized at all. It's fine when you're at the level of guys like Pior, and Hazardous, but for someone wanting to break in, I wouldn't recommend it unless you have the time, and resources to get THAT good.
I would recommend varying it up a bit.
But there is a LOT more opportunity for artists who show ability to do hyper-realism.
Think of all the FPS
All the annual Sports Games
Adventure/action games with realistic proportioned/textured characters, etc.
Ubisoft Games
If a studio can't see past whatever style you're building in, then you may not want to work there.
I'm very much in favor of stylized work and anti-realism, but if I see an awesome portfolio that is all realism, I will give the artist a benefit of a doubt and approach them to gauge their interest.
Especially when the style they've developed is heavily based on someone else's work.
Having the style is fine just make sure you're developing and not letting the rules of that style hold you back. Even those eastern artists are trained in still life and real life portrait drawing, their style stems from learning to draw real life. Which is why their work can look so amazing.
You can do the same and still be influenced by their work.
My art history teacher in high school pointed out that what a lot of people were doing was illustration not "art". If that makes sense.
There is nothing wrong with implying that you would love to create lots of cool stylized art in a particular style. Just make it very clear that you can do more mainstream stuff as well.
I'd suggest putting in something LoL/DOTA2 styled rather than a realistic military dude. I guess it depends on your personality, would working on a realistic shooter slowly crush your soul or could you handle working on an art style that doesn't excite you?
I guess working with realistic military dudes are fine with me for starting out and somehow get into the industry, it's not that i'm not happy doing them because even if they aim for hyper realism they still have some personality and the characters are very appealing sometimes. It's just that i would be super happy doing eastern art and you know, we only have 1 life
Aion:
Super popular Guilty Gear:
Models like Basara/Samurai warriors are heavy eastern as well:
I've seen portfolios thrown out (or deleted) MANY times because they were filled with nothing by anime. The problem with anime is that there are a lot of people out there that use it as a crutch, and don't push it. They use it as a way to avoid learning proper proportions and anatomy. And they don't get creative with it. Especially the younger generations. They`ll learn to draw basic anime and not much else. I personally find that to be a disservice to anyone trying to be a better artist. Not to say there isn't some nice looking anime out there. But, the majority of it is pretty similar to each other, and doesn't show much creativity (usually). It's a very specific style. It's why people always list the same shows / movies as "good anime", because the good stuff stands out from the rest. Just most of it, in my mind, doesn't. I know people will rage at me for saying that, but that's my opinion on it. We all know art is subjective.
Now, with that said, I don't think it's unreasonable or bad to have anime in your portfolio. But you should have more than just that. Just as with ANY portfolio, if you fill it with one style and one style only, it hurts you. You should have different styles to show that you can do different styles. So fill it with the art you love, but maybe have that realistic army dude as well, just to show you're able to adapt? And don't bury that realistic guy at the end of your portfolio. have it near the top so that people see it quickly and don't dismiss you.
But you all made a good point, having variety of styles on your portfolio is the way to go.
Variety is one route. And there's nothing wrong with it.
Another route is focusing just on the one thing you love until you're so fucking good at it that you're known worldwide as the best at (whatever). People will come looking for you to make what you do best.
Your choice!
But damn I love modeling this cute shit so much! I don't know why.
This is something that I kinda want to aim to. The thing with anime art in the west is that most people look down on you for it (well that's the impression I've got over the years). I think because most people who try it don't it well? I want to do it well someday.
There's a certain stigma that comes with it. The image of weeaboos that gush over Japanese videogames and hate anything else comes to mind to most employers.
While it is understandable to want to aim for a wide market, focusing on a niche is very valid too.
But regardless, wouldn't it a bit sad to limit your own art based on what the majority wants ?
Also, please show us your own eastern-styled art, as it is quite hard to give any recommendation based on just chatting
On a side note, you mentioned Guilty Gear as an example. I can pretty much guarantee you that anyone able to produce models at the level of quality shown in Xrd would find a job very easily.
More information here :
http://www.4gamer.net/games/216/G021678/20140703095/
And doing GG fanart certainly didn't prevent this guy from finding a job !
http://www.neobear.fr/index.html
So, just show your stuff here and focus on working hard man