Graduating Industrial Design, Looking into Entertainment Design
Hi everyone,
I am a graduating student from Humber College, Toronto and for the past 4 years I been focused on the transportation design sector in the industrial design program. I really enjoyed my time learning in the field but I question myself really wanting to work there for the rest of my life. I always appreciated the character and environment design in cinematic and games ever since I was a kid and I was thinking today would be a good time to develop a portfolio towards this field.
So what I am asking is what does this particular industry want to see in my portfolio from this design switch and how can I direct to their appeal?
Thank you
I am a graduating student from Humber College, Toronto and for the past 4 years I been focused on the transportation design sector in the industrial design program. I really enjoyed my time learning in the field but I question myself really wanting to work there for the rest of my life. I always appreciated the character and environment design in cinematic and games ever since I was a kid and I was thinking today would be a good time to develop a portfolio towards this field.
So what I am asking is what does this particular industry want to see in my portfolio from this design switch and how can I direct to their appeal?
Thank you
Replies
First of: I have no experience in this field and I am really bad at making character. So, take my words with a grain of salt.
If I were to hire someone I would try to find someone with a specific style that would fit my game or my project. So, what do you like to do, realistic, pixelated, cartoon'y art? Focus on figuring that out.
The other problem that you might run into is that you have to choose and focus on a specific field since character and environmental design are huge subjects. Find your strengths. If you notice your are equally good at creating characters and environment, choose a path to become an expert at it. For a small company it's great to have a multi talented person, especially when you are working for yourself. Larger studios will try to find someone that is an expert at a certain thing.
I hope this clears things up, and I am sorry if this information let you down. I personally work with code c++, character creation, environmental, art creation, sculpting and so on... I do a lot of things, but I am not really a master at any of them. I know how to get things done. in other words an expert would crush me to the ground if I were go up against him in an interview.
Have a good rest of the day!
It will give you a ton of practical ideas as to how to focus your portfolio(s) moreso than art books or random google images/pinterest sourced inspiration.
Good luck.
PS
Secondary tip, don't submit your student portfolio to big studios especially if you hadn't had the chance for industry pros to look at it and give you feedback. It's probably only good for the indie space and random small budget freelancing.
Anyways, the first artist that comes to mind is Ethan Evans. He's a concept artist over at Bosskey and is kiling it. He started as an industrial designer.
http://ethanmevans.blogspot.com/
If you're really good at industrial design your skills should easily transfer over to hard surface concepting (maybe not character and organic environment). If you're not, then it probably won't matter.
Which is why it's impossible to give good and focused advice without a portfolio to look at..
Game studios (artists in general) want to see good work that shows promise. If your industrial design stuff is badass and your drafting and solidworks/cad/fusion skills are on point, then you would probably have no problem being a concept artist. Furthermore, your designs would probably have more thought put into the functionality of the design, which can make translating the work to 3d much easier for the artists down the line.