Using fanart for portfolio?

DerkaWeverka

I am a environment artist about to graduate and I was wondering if it would be wise to make environments of my favorite games for my portfolio?

DerkaWeverka

Specifically Skyrim environments 

miguelnarayan

No.

Ashervisalis

A friend once said if you can make models from video games and do them justice, why wouldn't a company hire you? That was just for props though, I'm not sure how much that would pertain to entire environments.

slosh

Doesn't matter if its fanart or original art...if you do a stellar job, you're in good shape.  If fanart is what can motivate you to finish it to a high level, more power to ya.  

Justin Meisse

What slosh said

I know some artists are against fan art but there's something I noticed, if you make a cool piece of original art, people will like it; if you make a cool piece of fan art it might go viral and get shared on gaming websites. I'm not sure Skyrim is old enough to have that nostalgia factor about it where Kotaku would make a "This is what next gen Skyrim would look like!" kind of post but don't let that deter you.

When I was first learning Substance Painter I made a simple test object, I later realized it looked like a Pokeball so I made a piece of fan art, it's gotten almost 10 times the views and likes on artstation than any other thing I've done. It irks me a little bit because I mostly made it as a joke

DerkaWeverka

Sweet, thanks guys