HOW TO stand out to potential employers
Hey guys/girls
Recently i have been applying for jobs all over the UK and Europe.
Obviously coming from a self taught background with no formal education other than a diploma, I was just wondering if you peeps had any tips on how to stand out among the hundreds of other applications in the pile!??
Ive been working really hard on my folio and I feel i have it to a potential point were I could land a junior position in a AAA studio.
So now i'am trying to figure a way out of which I could have a change of being considered over those who are just fresh out of college!
I do have the experience of working on a few small titles including No More Room In Hell which came out on steam!.
Ideally If there was any artists on here from the UK/Europe area who could give me a few tips that would be really appreciated
Thanks guys!
Recently i have been applying for jobs all over the UK and Europe.
Obviously coming from a self taught background with no formal education other than a diploma, I was just wondering if you peeps had any tips on how to stand out among the hundreds of other applications in the pile!??
Ive been working really hard on my folio and I feel i have it to a potential point were I could land a junior position in a AAA studio.
So now i'am trying to figure a way out of which I could have a change of being considered over those who are just fresh out of college!
I do have the experience of working on a few small titles including No More Room In Hell which came out on steam!.
Ideally If there was any artists on here from the UK/Europe area who could give me a few tips that would be really appreciated
Thanks guys!
Replies
"no formal education other than a diploma" isn't that a formal education? Or did you major in something unrelated to art?
There aren't a ton of "junior positions" like your company needs to be set up for that - and generally at a certain size where a senior member can mentor the junior one...or the game is complicated enough that it needs multiple levels of experience. Smaller teams look for the "all in one" guy, generally, medium to big teams have levels in hierarchy. No idea what it's like in the UK - I thought a lot of the companies there were rather small, but I really don't know tbh.
for your experience, it matters...but if the work isn't great, or doesn't turn heads, it really doesn't matter at a glance. Like if I worked on GTA5 and all I have to show for it are a few fire hydrants, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, your work needs to exceed expectations - you need to be better than the job you're going for....
Speaking of which, you can always post your work here and get crits.
If this is true, and you've heard not so much as a peep from anyone. I hate to be so straight but you probably aren't that good of an artist. You're going to have to up your game. Get better. Do more. Do something different.
The status quo is not good enough any more, there are thousands of artists out there better than you who dont have jobs. You have to be better than them, and if youre not willing to graft to get there youre better off doing something else. :thumbup:
1) If the portfolio you're linking to employers is that Sketchfab that comes up when I look for your portfolio; Don't. At least use Artstation or something with real beauty shots and breakdown images, dude, no one has time for that.
2) It's probably too late now, but PolyLove is kinda a bad screen name. If you Google it it comes up with a ton of polyamory support groups. You didn't even show up as a result for me. Just. Putting that out there. :thumbup:
Sell stuff on the Unity asset store. Sell stuff on Turbo Squid. Make stuff for the Steam workshop.
If you can produce a large volume of work for profit on your own, you will be in a tiny minority of game artists.
Nothing says "bullshitter" more than the guys who claim to want to work but haven't produced more than a few half-assed models in years. Don't be one of those guys. It's an instant red flag.
After you get a few jobs based on your own work, you can relax a bit. But until then, prove it with your own work.
Yosuke Ishikawa is a well known 3D artist that NO ONE knew about before roughly 5 years ago. This dude came out of no where, and amazed the entire 3D community with his real-time character art presentations. (I don't know his entire background mind you, but I wouldn't doubt he's been getting hit up the wazoo for offers) As I stated first, he wasn't known to a wide audience, but now. He is... and that's all thanks to his work.
Anyone CAN become hireable. What it takes is really as Gav said, you have to grab attention of those with influence, or enough of those without who can get a hold of someone who does.
If you are good enough, they will make exceptions and hire you. If you aren't and they don't have the budget. You'll continue to drift about in the open sea of artists looking for work.
My advice to you and any artist, is be the artist FIRST. Get so good and have fun doing what you do first, that the job part just magnetizes itself to you on the principle that you are an artist who is creating art, and art that looks great.
I graduate in a year from my bachelors. I'll probably do my masters also since my scholarship will pay for it all. Just depends on things I guess.
Ie I can see that you've imported / exported your models, you know how to sculpt, normal map and texture a model, but that's absolutely bare minimum requirement I think these days. You would almost be certainly passed over for that role by someone who has spent just a little more time and put al ittle more effort into the presentation of their characters. Posed them up, given them character, lit them better etc.
I better start working harder than. I don't get this kind of feedback at my school sadly.
Well, this is the portfolio I had when I got my junior character artist position: http://loicpaulus.com/
I haven't updated it in a year and a half as it's easier to post new artwork on my artstation. Now, I'd consider my work at the time a little bit lower than a mid level character artist but I think this could give you a good idea of the quality expected by potencial employers.
very cool, thank you. I def. have more work ahead of me.
As others have said, the bar for entry at the moment is absurdly high. It seems to have even increased substantially since I graduated 3 years ago. I saw artists going straight into character positions from uni with portfolios that felt very mediocre by todays standards. If you take a look at the current job market it's common for studios to ask for 5+ years of experience as a character artist. You'll noticed there is 1 junior position on that list - which requires you to have finished uni less than a year ago. Those who have the experience also have the advantage of working on characters for at least 8 hours a day. Even working every second of my free time whilst maintaining my 9-5 job can't compete with that.
I've know a few people who've managed to secure a character position from other areas of their company but it definitely feels like you've got to be very lucky to work for a company who'll both encourage that practice and have openings for character artists.
Since I graduated uni I've applied for a tonne of character artist positions across the UK and Europe. Recently I've had some success - art tests, interviews.. But it seems like every time I lose out due to my lack of experience. I've been told the quality of my work is more than good enough for the company but that I just fell short of the experience working with characters in an industry environment. It's pretty demoralising to hear that what's holding you back is the ol' catch 22 of industry experience.
Apologies for the massive whine of a post, I was considering starting a thread like this myself. I feel like the only thing I can do is work on my portfolio and just hope that at some point the stars will align and I'll land that first job - but it's definitely a harder path than I thought. I'd be really interested to hear how other character artist have managed to break into the industry, any advice for an aspiring character artist?
If your work is not up to the quality of the shipped games of the studio your applying to why on earth do you think they would want to hire you?
Senior vs Junior is only time in the industry. There are tons of new people who are WAY better than people who have been doing it for years. Just because your a senior artist doesn't mean your amazing, it just means you have been doing this for a while.
How is anyone suppose to learn or get better if they are expected to already come in knowing ?
The only thing I would've worded different from his post there, is from "sheer amount of stuff in your folio and probably efficiency" to "sheer quality". Efficiency can only be determined by art tests, or breakdowns of a persons process from word of mouth, or illustrated art pieces of what's in the portfolio. If not, by the company taking a gamble in hiring the person to see if they are what they are.
Ah gotcha, i failed at understanding
That's the nature of working in a professional environment - you *are* supposed to come in knowing. An employer doesn't care how long it took to get there.
Sorry if I worded things confusingly. Basically I mean that as a Jr artist trying to break in, you want your folio to have assets that are close to mid-sr level quality. You may not have a lot of assets in your folio as a sr artist or be as efficient making them. You just want to show you are CAPABLE of hitting that high bar of quality. A studio willing to take on a Jr artist probably figures they can make you faster easily but the quality is what they are looking for in the folios.
When I've first started with this stuff something like 15-20 years ago, the internet was a desolate place. Videos were so big there was no chance to donwload anything even at 320*200 resolution. Any web tutorial with a single new idea on how to do something was worth solid gold. I mean I had this friend with a fast internet connection and I've used to just write out all the downloaded htmls to CD Rom to take home and read through.
Today we have major companies selling video tutorials on everything. Sample files, HD recording of what the guy's doing in real time, everything. Most artists run blogs, share behind the scenes images, answer questions on facebook. Most of the stuff for a couple of dollars, some even for free. You can learn almost literally everything from browsing the internet and maybe spending a few bucks here and there.
The single thing that hasn't changed is that you need to take all this stuff and put it into practice. And practice a lot. I mean I've spent months on modeling and texturing an X-wing that looked worse than what they have now in the new Battlefield SW game. Today you can learn every single aspect of that task from the internet, most for free, but back then I've had to figure out most of the stuff for myself; and boy I've done some really ugly things as I had no idea how to make it better.
So how to? Well get on the job and work and work and work. The only single obstacle that remains is your own abilities and overcoming those depends on you. That's the only advantage that the other guy can have over you, the amount of time invested in developing skills. There ain't no excuses left here but your own level of dedication.
I'm on the same boat as PolyLove. I have been looking for work. I recently submitted my portfolio to game companies but no one has returned mail showing interest. I'm afraid that it could be my portfolio, resume, or the lack of working visa(limited to remote job)
These past couple of years I mostly worked on Indie games and are all still in development. I recently manage to worked on an AAA title but the character that I did is not that significant (BG characters). That game will be released next year.
Maybe there are some details that I'm missing.
Could you guys check out my portfolio for critiques.
https://www.artstation.com/artist/oliverp3d
https://ph.linkedin.com/pub/oliver-pabilona/4a/243/637
I'm focusing on Characters and Creatures
Thanks
Do you research into employees at the companies you're interested in. A simple LinkedIn search will show you new hires, Seniors, Juniors - followed by portfolio links. It's a very easy way to compare if you are good enough. Sometimes it's worth taking time out to really focus on your work before applying to places with a half-assed portfolio.
One thing that really helped me was to create a unique piece of artwork specifically for each company which always went down well and showed some initiative and passion.
However, I think your folio lacks of game res materials: textures, wireframes, breakdowns for each model. Any character artist with the same level as yours and just 4 or 5 pieces with complete breakdowns will get more attention from a recruiter/art director.
So you have what it takes, just work on those points and keep up the hard work
just been hanging out watching what ya'l are sayin!
Appreciate all the advice
Feeling a bit down and too far after seeing your portfolio which supposed to be at Junior level
multiple ways
making something in specific to the company you are applying is surely one of the best ways to stand out and shows that they are not one of a dozen you apply to, (if you get through the HR..), but it requires time and effort obviously. But if its super important to you (no alternative, or dream job), that be a good thing to do. Dosn't help if your portfolio is not up to scratch however and your personalized work is not good enough.
Rhythem
I think you need to spend your next time on a really good skin shader and remake all those head textures. That drags down your overall impression so much imo. (put the 2 lunar silver ones that are half clay, to full clay to save that time)
Hope that helps.
I have a skype interview with a games studio who do mobile games on Tuesday
I just read through whole topic, an interesting lecture and there is not much more to say. Oh, maybe there is something.
On interview, try to sell your knowledge and experience about making a game, not making an assets. Everyone could get to know how to make an asset at home. There is so few people who actually know how to making a game and even less who knows how to make a game.
This tip is less for character artist than for environment artist.
This would be a big issue. Your work is good but without experience it would be very hard for a big company to justify applying for a working visa for you. Smaller companies just don't do visas. So to qualify for a visa without experience you would need to be extremely good. Basically visa and relocation are usually restricted to senior-level employees.
However there's nothing stopping you from doing contract work until you're at a senior level and have shipped-game work in your portfolio.
I'm also struggling to find Character work, although I would say my struggle is partly due to Location as well as Skills.
Also I'm pretty sure I need to do more styles and finished pieces of work for my portfolio to be considered more.
Do what you love and become so good at it people want to pay you for it.
Best of luck with your interview PolyLove
The Junior Character Artist position has been replaced with Outsourcing.
This has created a lions share of problems, (I'm not going to pretend like it's a good thing), but I think I can name like 4 Junior Character Artists that have joined since 2010, and they were UBER gosu to begin with.
Also, as junior Character Artists, you go where the work is. Give up on your dream of trying to remain local.
Unless you're in Montreal, LA, Seattle. or some Hub where there are plenty of opportunities... Even then you should apply EVERYWHERE, and go wherever on earth they offer you something.
Jacque brings up a very valid point. Even when we start to discuss how to increase resources for our current game, it's always "we can outsource this stuff."
Networking is probably more important. It's pretty easy to have a good portfolio, but it's important to get your portfolio in front of the right people. Also it vastly helps if they already know you. Most of the awesome jobs I've gotten have been because I knew the right people. They already knew who I am and weren't taking as much of a risk on some stranger.
Also something I've learned over the last year or so which is kinda basic, but you really have to tailor your application to the company you're applying to. Send them work that already fits with their style. Don't send hyper realistic hi-poly models to Blizzard, it doesn't fit their look. I started finding a lot more work when I sent my portfolio to companies that already had work that was similar to mine.
tl;dr: Strong portfolio, network, tailor portfolio to company style.
Hope this helps and good luck,
By this do you mean outsource to places like Slide or Airship? Or cheaper places in China or India? Or even just outsourcing to freelance individuals?
I think it's a mix off all of the above. At my company, we outsource to studios in China for the most part. A friend of mine at a AAA studio told me they are outsourcing a majority of their character work to senior level freelance character artists. Point is, instead of using intro level artists to help, a lot of studios see it as cheaper and more efficient to let outsource resources do the work instead. Some of this attributes to the fact that good outsourcing studios, especially international ones, are affordable but still house mid-senior level artists who produce really good work.
edit: btw, slide and airship both look pretty top notch. never worked with them but I'm sure they get more highend gigs.
I meant more that you could have a fairly average portfolio and be an awesome person with a lot of connections and get a job quite easily. I know lots of average artists that get lots of work because they market the hell out of themselves and are constantly networking.
The advice was more that you shouldn't forget to build those connections.
This would work for Freelancers, but I've seen 'this guy' you speak of fail so hard in a top studio where his work wasn't up to scratch and no amount of niceness could save him.
Fault comes down to poor 'hiring friends' practice. Couldn't fire him because of proximity to higher up's, so he got 're-aligned'.
More like dead weight and bloat, art team knew it.
Networking is important, but handing out a notion that networking is important to a junior, is risky. They should be spending time on their art skills developing those, not polishing up their brown nosing talent.
They should be doing both. And obviously don't brown nose; I'm talking about building relations. I'm coming from a contract/freelance position, but some of the best jobs I've gotten were through people I knew, people I've previously worked with. If I need to hire an artist the first thing I do is check to see if I know any artists I'd want to hire or get recommendations from people I know.
Let me break it down as simple as this...If you were employed as a senior character artist at your job for example, and your studio is looking to hire 2 character artists of either range of experience. Would YOU hire the person who's learning, versus the one who rocks? Definitely not. I wouldn't want to wake up and commute to my job everyday to know I work with talent I couldn't learn from. And neither would anyone here. If we did, we'd become teachers at all the universities that offer our medium as a course.
Any new artist out there wanting to break in. I REALLY...and I mean REALLY cannot emphasis this enough. Be a solid artist before you send your portfolio out there. Make a folder of your favorite work images and put them in your other folder that has the inspired art and click through them admiring until you get to your own. If it sucks, fix it, or throw it out and start over.
Like Hazardous mentioned, don't polish your skills brown nosing those who are employed, it's the most annoying thing anyone new can do. And we can smell it before we even read what you write, or can tell from what you're saying in person. Let your work speak for itself.