Losing my way a bit
polycounter lvl 3
Hey polycounters!
Just wanted to throw up a post introducing myself and to see if this awesome community can help steer me a little more in the right direction.
I'm currently a game design student from Ireland. Previously I was a Design Engineer for a company in England. I'm 31 years old now and have 1 year of my game design course under my belt. I'll be 34 or so when i finish school for this.
So the thing I'm looking at is this:
I've always put a lot of out-of-school hours into game design, either drawing, modelling or programming. It's all new to me so I need to push myself hard in this.
There's a few things I'm getting bogged down about though. I look at other peoples artwork on here or other places and think "wow... I'm waaay off that standard/quality". This gets me into a rut of looking at more awesome artwork and a neverending circle of de-motivation when it was originally intended as inspiration!
I had a big list of things to practice/learn over the summer break. I've probably done 10% of it if i'm being honest.
The thing I struggle with most is concepting. I'd call myself a creative person, but when it comes to concepting a character or environment I just hit a brick wall it seems.
If I want to get into, say, the environment modeller role, do I need to be able to pull ideas out of the air or could I worry less about coming up with the concept myself and just work with other peoples concepts? (with due credit given of course).
That leads me onto my other question. Specialisation. In college we're told to pick whatever area we want to specialise in and focus on that. My problem is not knowing which area I WANT to specialise in. I like character modelling, I like environment modelling, I like texturing, I like Level Design. I like all of it!
So is a "Generalist" a negative thing? If I really can't decide which area I enjoy the most. Or is this a choice I can make down the road a bit? I've another 3 years of college to go before I'm out in the big bad world again.
Anyway, just wanted to get in and introduce myself. Any advice is much appreciated and be as brutally honest as possible please, I can take it!
It's not a question of whether I want to be in this industry or not. I AM going to be in this industry
Just wanted to throw up a post introducing myself and to see if this awesome community can help steer me a little more in the right direction.
I'm currently a game design student from Ireland. Previously I was a Design Engineer for a company in England. I'm 31 years old now and have 1 year of my game design course under my belt. I'll be 34 or so when i finish school for this.
So the thing I'm looking at is this:
I've always put a lot of out-of-school hours into game design, either drawing, modelling or programming. It's all new to me so I need to push myself hard in this.
There's a few things I'm getting bogged down about though. I look at other peoples artwork on here or other places and think "wow... I'm waaay off that standard/quality". This gets me into a rut of looking at more awesome artwork and a neverending circle of de-motivation when it was originally intended as inspiration!
I had a big list of things to practice/learn over the summer break. I've probably done 10% of it if i'm being honest.
The thing I struggle with most is concepting. I'd call myself a creative person, but when it comes to concepting a character or environment I just hit a brick wall it seems.
If I want to get into, say, the environment modeller role, do I need to be able to pull ideas out of the air or could I worry less about coming up with the concept myself and just work with other peoples concepts? (with due credit given of course).
That leads me onto my other question. Specialisation. In college we're told to pick whatever area we want to specialise in and focus on that. My problem is not knowing which area I WANT to specialise in. I like character modelling, I like environment modelling, I like texturing, I like Level Design. I like all of it!
So is a "Generalist" a negative thing? If I really can't decide which area I enjoy the most. Or is this a choice I can make down the road a bit? I've another 3 years of college to go before I'm out in the big bad world again.
Anyway, just wanted to get in and introduce myself. Any advice is much appreciated and be as brutally honest as possible please, I can take it!
It's not a question of whether I want to be in this industry or not. I AM going to be in this industry
Replies
Specialization... it's hard to become reasonably good at any one skill, without spending a good amount of time focusing on that skill. Save the generalist mentality for later. Pick one, and get really good at it. That will get your foot in the door. Then you can branch out, and round out.
My 2 cents.
First of all; Greetings and Salutations;
Welcome to the Polycount, here you will find fellows who may help you fine tune your game art needs.
Picking a specialty should be easy. I would suggest you to grab a sketch book and a pencil and draw whatever you like and see what you are comfy with so you'll know what you are comfy with and what do you struggle with, at least that's the way I do it. The things that I struggle the most I break them down to the basics and then take things from there.
Although you dont need to worry about the concepting, it is a good idea to lay down your idea on a piece of paper and it doesnt have to be that kick ass art that you see which also de-motivates you in a sort of way, that level of skill is only necessary if you are being paid to make the concept art of the games because that concept art then is either sold to the fans of the games and / or is used in some sort of way in a game.
What got my attention was:
If you are already on this path, then I would recommend continuing on with what you are doing right now before worrying about the specialty unless you are now pushing to break in.
Yeah I still have 3 years until I make my push into breaking in. I think maybe it's the fact that I'm doing a Game Design course, rather than a specific game art/game programming course that has me a bit unsure about things. Since we cover a broad range of subjects there is a lot to narrow down.
Been reading through some threads on here though and I've gotten a much better idea of what i should be focusing on, namely Hazardous' post here :
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1569240&postcount=75
His harsh truths are quite accurate haha!
Hopefully in the future I'll have work to show on here and get some valuable feedback, and get to know some members, that is the purpose of this place after all