Paying the Bills... How to Get a Job?

nightelf125

Hey guys! Just curious, what does everyone here do to pay the bills while they work towards their game art? Do you have another job that keeps you stable? Are you in an unhappy day job situation? If so, any advice for me would be great as I'm trying to get some kind of other job. Hopefully one that has some growth room in terms of salary yet lets me work on game art as much as possible. I thought about maybe getting some certifications in IT or something since I'm not a fan of coding. I have a game design degree, so I'm in a tricky spot where it's hard to get an entry level job in any other industry that actually pays...again would love any advice, thanks guys!

Ruz

I had a crappy part time job at TK Maxx for about a year before I first got a job. hated it but it paid the bills

Joebewon

I think first and foremost you should check 
http://www.gamedevmap.com/ 
to see what studios are around you and if there are studios near you, check your work and see if that's a place you'd wanna work for.  

If you don't feel qualified or feel suited for some of those studios, depending on your 3D or graphic art skills start to look around at design studios near you.  Having skills using 3D software or the Adobe products can carry over into other job settings.  I'm currently doing automotive work while I work on game art stuff on the side, because bills need to be paid.  

Good luck!

Zack Maxwell

I'm working a day job to pay the bills until my game development becomes more profitable. I think that's common.

I put a lot of effort though in keeping my living expenses as low as I possibly could, in order to minimize the amount of time I need to spend on my day job.

I got a tiny dirt cheap apartment right in the center of town, so I don't need a vehicle.

I avoid buying anything frivolous, or going out to bars/restaurants/movies etc.

My meals mostly consist of things like off-brand granola bars, rice, bread, coffee, oatmeal, multivitamins, etc.

My smart phone has no data plan; I just rely on Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi calling.
I don't have cable. Instead I have Hulu/Netflix to keep myself sane, and I can watch shows on a 2nd monitor while I still work.

Doing stuff like that, with my $10 an hour job, I can afford to work only 20 hours a week. The rest of my time is all spent on game development.

Rockley Bonner

Joined the military and learned game art on the side. Learning to trade stocks with my saved income, no debt, have a portfolio, looking forward to free school soon. Best deccision I made in my life.

Kwramm

I was working freelance a year after getting my degree in 2003, doing web design, graphic design, simple game art, simple animation in Flash. I had licenses of some software that wasn't expensive back then (e.g. Cinema 4D), so I could use it commercially. My rationale was to do work that allows me to learn more tools and techniques on the job. Then in my free time I tried to apply this to my folio.

DiegoBAQ

I've been working as a Video Game Artist for like 15 years now. It had always paid the bills, but not much more than that,  I had full-time jobs in small studios here (Argentina) until I got tired, or I mean fired?, a few years back (the company got broke and let go 100 people) and now I'm full-time freelancer, doing it for the past 7 years now!!
It has it's up and downs, and you have to be very careful with the expenses, it's very stressful because it's like you're always "unemployed" but over the years you get used to the fact that something always come along your shore.  You start getting some occult sense of the providence or something. 
I also develop my own games when I got some free time between contracts.
I do try to keep my living expenses in a low-budget. But I'm 35 now, married and with a little daughter. Life get's more expensive over the years, I can't just live from Granola, like Grimwolf, and I don't want to either I already had my 20's and live with my parents with 40 bucks a week for coffee and cigarettes. At some point your career needs to take off and paid for all that effort, and all the signals I receive from the industry is that, IT most probably WONT.  
It's cool to live out of making concepts, models and animations or any other game art,  but at the end of the day you need to live your life also, pay for a place to live, decent food on the table, have some vacations in time to time.  Because if the job don't do that for you,  it will come the time in which you'll be so tired of eating granola and using the same shoes for the last 5 years that you'll end up hating what used to be your passion.
 
It had become so competitive in the last years (I think), and lately I've been getting the most ridiculous budget proposals. People wanting to make the next Fallout 4 and pay $200 for an AAA character.
Get away from sites like Freelancer, Fiver, Upwork, all of those. Those sites are there to exploit people to the level of a slave. It's degrading. I never had 1 good contract from those sites. And I'm sure a lot of this is my fault, but that's why I write this also, because I don't know anymore, being away from the epicenters of the industry has become pretty hard, big companies don't hire free-lancers anymore. 

Good luck to you all!! I always get so inspired from the work I see on this site.

Jonas Ronnegard

DiegoBAQ said:

 big companies don't hire free-lancers anymore. 

I can say for certain that big companies still hire Freelancers, but they don't announce it, they dig around on sites like artstation to find someone they think will fit, as well as hire people they already know can do the job, but yeah from the sidelines it can look like there is no activity.

I haven't used those sites you mentioned, but I dug around before, and yeah it's not sustainable, I guess for someone that is just starting to make their first indy game they have never thought about that a high quality now gen character could cost them 8k. Hope you keep at it and find a company that is willing to treat you fairly.

sziada

atm, till I find a studio job, I am doing freelance and working a day job, I do about 40 hrs a week in the day job and the rest of my time doing small amounts of freelance, but it means I can afford software and equiptment as well as affording to travel and go to events like the Zbrush Summit and other well known events to us fellow Artists. I rarely go out or do anything that isn't work until I travel and get away from it all for a short time. I will continue to grind like this until I can make 3D art my fulltime profession.