Self taught, need guidance!

Larry

Hello guys, so i went from full time to part time in my job as a salesman, because i always had a passion for 3d. I started learning by myself since the beggining of 2017, and this is my latest project, puttng together everything i learned in modeling, sculpting and some basic rgging and rendering. Now i want to do a research on materials and how to make them look realistic, but besides that, what other things are there that i should learn or do better in order to do this professionally? I have a very low self esteem on this, since i cannot attend a school and have someone tell me what to learn and critique my work, so i dont know what is acceptable in this industry and what to go for. So could you guys tell me the terminology that i should look for and learn? Thank you in advance, this is my latest project.

jonnavidson

I think this is a good start, but what is it you are aiming for?

chrisradsby

I think it's super cool, very artsy!

Usually you have to aim for something, Games or Movies? Character Artist? Environment Artist? Prop Artist? 
Either way you have to specialize in something, it's hard to be a master of everything in this industry. It's better off you get good enough to get hired in one specific area.

Larry

I am not aiming for anything specifically at the moment, i can say i like modeling but i see ALOT of really good people out there being extraordinary in that specific area,creating hard-to-tell realistic models and with the research i've done i see that modelers are the majority of people competing in the 3d world. Now I'm only just exploring all of the areas mostly for peripheral knowledge, to implement it to modeling and help people who will contnue the pipeline so i believe i have to be a generalist before i specialise in anything. But i kinda seem interested in texturing, modeling props and characters and vfx but i cannot seem to find any specific tutorials or things to help me in texturing, so i could start with trial and error, as i've seen this works best in the area.I haven't yet explored animation since i believe i should do it after i've learned just about all the rest... If anyone has any insight for me, i saw a post here in polycount that had 100 texture cubes so i'm gonna actually try and recreate as many materials as i can in cubes. But what about VFX?

Larry

I think i would try gaming, since i believe movies require alot more detail and i dont know if i will ever be able to make it there just being self taught, although i'd love to be the modeler of Khaleesi's dragons.So i will for the moment settle to gaming. But i cannot say that i dislike any part of the pipeline, i love all of the things, from creating concept art, to fully make a model.I also strongly like VFX, but i havent explored it at all, nor animation yet.If i can say i am not fond of something, that would be enviromental art, but i haven't really explored it as well to totally rule it out, but im propably not going that direction. Other than the post on polycount with the 100 textured cubes, that i'm gonna research and recreate myself, i haven't found any specific info on how to get to the next level of texturing, and all this gloss, specular, bump, masks etc seem kind of frustrating and unfamiliar to me

Edit: on a side note, I couldn't get rid of some dots that appear on the walls in rendering, do you have an idea on what might be wrong?