Continue royalties work VS Refine portfolio - Need advice
polycounter lvl 7
Hey guys, here's my situation. I've done freelance archviz for a few years, then I found this indie studio, joined in as an environment artist, the contract type is royalties, I thought, fine, at least i'm in game industry now.
So this year I've been working freelance (my old stuff, industrial viz; with a few clients that keep returning, and giving me some kind of stability) and on this indie project. And I'm tired running back and forth between the two. Needless to say, I haven't had any spare time to update my portfolio, it's frustrating, I have learned so much this year, but my portfolio doesn't reflect that.
It was supposed to be 1 year gig (as the project was in development for a few years already when I joined it), to learn how to work in a collective, make connections, and all that jazz. Turns out due to feature creep and some poor decisions the release date is delayed to Q3 2017 (tbd?).
Now, my financial situation is bad, I won't starve, but there's much to improve on that part, freelance is fun, but it's not stable, and doing it only part time doesn't help the situation. And honestly, I don't think the project will be successful enough to pay me decent royalties for 2 years of work, but who knows.
Now my dilemma is this:
Do I continue with my commitment to the project and stay 'till the end?
OR
Do I quit it, refine my portfolio to show my current skills, and try to find a job in a studio?
If I stay in the project there's no guarantee that I'll get another job in it, or will the studio disband.
If I leave it, and focus on my personal work, I'm not sure I'll get a job either.
My friend advised me to take a few days to relax and look at the situation from a fresh perspective. And to make a list of pros and cons of both. Seems reasonable to me. I also need your advice, maybe from someone who has been in a similar position.
Thanks
So this year I've been working freelance (my old stuff, industrial viz; with a few clients that keep returning, and giving me some kind of stability) and on this indie project. And I'm tired running back and forth between the two. Needless to say, I haven't had any spare time to update my portfolio, it's frustrating, I have learned so much this year, but my portfolio doesn't reflect that.
It was supposed to be 1 year gig (as the project was in development for a few years already when I joined it), to learn how to work in a collective, make connections, and all that jazz. Turns out due to feature creep and some poor decisions the release date is delayed to Q3 2017 (tbd?).
Now, my financial situation is bad, I won't starve, but there's much to improve on that part, freelance is fun, but it's not stable, and doing it only part time doesn't help the situation. And honestly, I don't think the project will be successful enough to pay me decent royalties for 2 years of work, but who knows.
Now my dilemma is this:
Do I continue with my commitment to the project and stay 'till the end?
OR
Do I quit it, refine my portfolio to show my current skills, and try to find a job in a studio?
If I stay in the project there's no guarantee that I'll get another job in it, or will the studio disband.
If I leave it, and focus on my personal work, I'm not sure I'll get a job either.
My friend advised me to take a few days to relax and look at the situation from a fresh perspective. And to make a list of pros and cons of both. Seems reasonable to me. I also need your advice, maybe from someone who has been in a similar position.
Thanks
Replies
Royalties sound nice, but lets face it - only few teams know how to finish a project and only a small amount of them knows how to make money. Lets not start counting those who then also know how to make money in the long run. And finally - you did some work for them so if they manage to roll out the game and earn something your name will be in the credits and some payment should be coming in.
Take it with a grain of salt, as I barely know your situation (just what you wrote), but in your place I would move on and work on the portfolio.
- They will probably fail.
- They probably won't make good money.
- They won't aim for high quality.
So, apart from gaining experience of bouncing emails back and forth, or skyping, or working in 'team', or following their 'art director'; I'd rather just make my own cool portfolio pieces that are worth showing off.
I'd probably keep your freelancing and work on your folio... That's what I think.
So yeah, never work on royalty based projects, work hard on your own thing, get to know people in the industry and get hired. There is no reason to spend your efforts on empty promises.