How's my progress?
Hi everyone. I would like to know what you think of my progress from almost a year ago to this point. I got ZBrush last August and have been working mainly on organic sculpting and anatomy thus far. Here are a few of my pieces in order from my first project to my latest finished project. Is this progress fast enough for eleven months? I start college at the Savannah College of Art and Design in two months, so I will be studying game art full-time very soon. I'm nervous that I'll be starting out like a noob because I can't really hard-surface model in a package like Max or Maya yet nor can I efficiently create real-time assets. I know that's why I'm going to school for this stuff, but I feel like I should be better than I am now before I start at SCAD. All I have are these pretty renders of models that can't be used in-game yet. I hope some of you aspiring artists can relate and that some of you pros can give me some advice as to where I should go next. Thanks in advance.
Replies
Your self analysis is what I'd agree with. The next steps are to make sure you can actually make useable game assets: low poly models, textures, rigged (if you can), etc. Also, if you want to slowly dip into high poly modeling with subdivision modeling, work on a character that has hard surface clothing like armor or plates.
For texturing, look into what is Physically-Based Rendering, and what software can help you texture low poly assets in that rendering objective.
I don't know what SCAD's specific resources are, but I've personally found making actual games to be VERY effective to forcing you to learn about actual game art development outside of classes. If you want, reach out to USC Games in an email and ask if you can join any available Advanced Final Games projects on a volunteer basis. You can possibly work on USC games like this:
I used to be Art Director on The Maestros and I personally would have liked to worked with some SCAD artists on the game during my tenure.
Those USC Games opportunities sound great. I couldn't agree more with your statement that actually developing games and forcing yourself to learn the process is very effective. Though I haven't actually been part of the development of a game, I know that simply having the first-hand experience with the process is very valuable. I'll definitely give this a look.