Seeking career and skill guidance
polycounter lvl 11
Hello everyone and Happy New Year.
My name is Dennis and I'm an aspiring 3D character artist. You can see some of my work here:
http://dennisbatol.blogspot.com/
I've been learning 3D for 5 years now and doing freelance for 4 although for very small indie projects. It's been one hell of a ride. Right now I'm at a point where I feel the need to grow both in terms of skillset and career path. I want to land bigger projects or work for major companies now but I'm not sure how to take things further.
Skillset: This year I'm not sure if I should study and
-go deeper into anatomy studies
-learn game engines (particularly UE4), lighting, rendering and shaders
-learn cloth and hair and programs for such (Marvelous Designer)
-learn rigging and animation
-go deeper into texturing (PBR)
-learn hand painted texturing
Which would raise my chances of getting hired? I'd love to study them all but I can't do everything at once. I figured I'd rather expand slowly than be crappy at everything. I'm most interested in making creatures and monsters though for video games. I don't have any preference for specific games nor companies but game with art and theme such as Diablo, Witcher, Skyrim, Dragon Age are what appeals to me the most.
Networking and application:
I usually just look for jobs on 3D sites Polycount included. I have started applying to companies via gamedevmap. I'm also not sure how to use LinkedIn just yet so I've just been adding game company recruiters for now.
Any advice would be greatly received and appreciated. Thank you all for reading.
My name is Dennis and I'm an aspiring 3D character artist. You can see some of my work here:
http://dennisbatol.blogspot.com/
I've been learning 3D for 5 years now and doing freelance for 4 although for very small indie projects. It's been one hell of a ride. Right now I'm at a point where I feel the need to grow both in terms of skillset and career path. I want to land bigger projects or work for major companies now but I'm not sure how to take things further.
Skillset: This year I'm not sure if I should study and
-go deeper into anatomy studies
-learn game engines (particularly UE4), lighting, rendering and shaders
-learn cloth and hair and programs for such (Marvelous Designer)
-learn rigging and animation
-go deeper into texturing (PBR)
-learn hand painted texturing
Which would raise my chances of getting hired? I'd love to study them all but I can't do everything at once. I figured I'd rather expand slowly than be crappy at everything. I'm most interested in making creatures and monsters though for video games. I don't have any preference for specific games nor companies but game with art and theme such as Diablo, Witcher, Skyrim, Dragon Age are what appeals to me the most.
Networking and application:
I usually just look for jobs on 3D sites Polycount included. I have started applying to companies via gamedevmap. I'm also not sure how to use LinkedIn just yet so I've just been adding game company recruiters for now.
Any advice would be greatly received and appreciated. Thank you all for reading.
Replies
If I were you, I'd focus most on texturing and making sure you can get very good material definition. PBR shading/texturing is actually a pretty simple set of concepts, but they take a little bit of time to sink in. The best thing about PBR is that it's easy to define different materials with small changes to things like gloss and specular levels.
Learning to sculpt cloth as well as digging into Marvelous Designer are both very good ideas. It's rare that you'll make a character who wouldn't benefit from very well done cloth work, so it's a great area to focus on.
And, of course, anatomy studies should be something you try to do pretty often. They'll benefit you greatly, and they're things you can do between projects, or as preparation for upcoming projects. They don't have to be lengthy studies, either. An afternoon of sculpting and trying to understand a muscle group or two will usually do a lot more for you than dumping months into a single "perfect" anatomy sculpt.