Making your work stand out when aspiring to become a Junior Environment Artist
polycounter lvl 6
Hi all,
First of all sorry for the long title name, but I have a question about it. So I'm aspiring to start off as a Junior Environment Artist, however I wanted to ask what would make my work in my portfolio stand out more than other potential candidates?
Is it adding detail to textures on objects using various textures or sculpting in ZBrush?
Is really good lighting make a big difference as well?
I have heard that if you can create a scene that can tell a story, then that is a big plus. However what do a lot of artists, or most artists do when they are trying to tell a story with a scene? Does it depend on how you use lighting, or how you constructed the scene?
Any feedback on this is greatly appreciated. Thank you
First of all sorry for the long title name, but I have a question about it. So I'm aspiring to start off as a Junior Environment Artist, however I wanted to ask what would make my work in my portfolio stand out more than other potential candidates?
Is it adding detail to textures on objects using various textures or sculpting in ZBrush?
Is really good lighting make a big difference as well?
I have heard that if you can create a scene that can tell a story, then that is a big plus. However what do a lot of artists, or most artists do when they are trying to tell a story with a scene? Does it depend on how you use lighting, or how you constructed the scene?
Any feedback on this is greatly appreciated. Thank you
Replies
he kind of talk about the same stuff in both videos but they are TOTALY worth the time to watch.
he basically answers all the questions you mentioned, kind of weird actually, they are pretty much tailored for what you just asked xD
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Without seeing your work it's impossible to help. In a thread awhile back you stated you would post some work but you never did.
"Is really good lighting make a big difference as well?"
No, you should have terrible lighting
Of course good lighting is important.
I think you really need to start posting your work here so we have an idea of what you can and can't do. Just talking is pointless.
Choose designs well. Don't just do something because you think it's cool. You should try to recognize why something is cool.
And when I say design, I mean make sure whatever you make has good composition, lighting, gestural, lines of action or movement, and not just a story. Actually, in a lot of ways, art theory and foundation generates good story from a very basic premise.
Technical skills can always be improved, and it's expected. But good design? That's relatively special.
Let's talk about a scene that's fairly simple in terms of technical needs.
This is a movie still from the movie "Road to Perdition."
Let's take this at face value.
There's car. There's a bunch of black silhouetted bodies. There's a couple buildings to the side. There's rain. It's blue-ish in lighting.
It seems whatever just reading it, but looking at it, even without the context of the movie, I feel like it's a powerful image for several reasons.
1) The only standing human figure is the man near the car. The rest are on the ground, bringing focus to the ONLY individual standing. You're left wondering what happened.
2) There's a visual weight that's erring towards the left side because of the mass size of the car taking up the frame. You're feeling this sense of asymmetry.
3) The frame is obeying a rule of thirds. Notice how the focus of the image, the standing man and the car, is standing on the upper left intersection of a Rule of Thirds graph if overlaid on top of the frame.
4) A sense of depth is simply added because there are small YWLLO lights in the background. You can't see the building in the back too well, but you know this is a long street simply because of those lights. Long street, a long way to go, a long way to run, perhaps nowhere to run since this is all laid out in the open on what seems to be a street. No escape. Just rain.
6) There's really only 4 light sources in the frame, but it's being used very effectively to lead your eyes to focal points and disseminate depth information.
Notice I didn't take any time to discuss how accurate the car looks, or if the coats the men are wearing is materially defined. As a game player, or just as a visual consumer, your initial couple of seconds rarely contemplate specifically those issues. You're more worried about where to focus. This is what good design does in some ways.
Study the discplines of composition, how to light scenes, why silhouette matters (and not just with individual objects, but whole scenes). It's these ideas that push really nice looking environments to environments that asked to be explored.
Fantastic videos!
+1. Make art. Post it for critique. Don't be afraid. Do it. Get critiques. Make everything as good as possible. There isn't one thing that has to be good and the rest can stink.
As for telling a story, ask yourself what the environment is for, the purpose of everything in the scene and the way it all comes together in unity with itself. That's vague without seeing your work to see how you may or may not be doing so.
lotet: Thank you for the videos. I don't have enough time to watch the whole amount on both videos at the moment, but I will definitely watch more of these later.
Thank you all for the information so far, I appreciate it
This kind of goes back to the original post.
One key to making your work stand out is being very open to good critique. If you never post in progress stuff your work will likely not be as good as a result.
Show it now. Trust me, the best way you can get good feedback and build your skills is by showing work early on. Don't fall into the trap of holding back until you feel its "ready". Everyone knows the process. Beautiful work doesn't just happen in an instant so you shouldn't be afraid of showing your work in a rough state.
Sorry for posting them like this. I need to create a better website for my portfolio work than the one I have right now. However in the future once I have a new portfolio website up, then I'll start posting my screenshots there.
Feel free to let me know what you all think. Any feedback is much appreciated. Thank you
When you get imgur, just link the image like
Here: