What are the skills needed to land a job as a Junior 3D Character Artist?

p.francescoven

Hi guys, I was wondering what are the skills needed for a Junior 3D Character artist to be hired, I've searched around but couldn't find much! 
What are your experiences? 

Elithenia

first of all. 
What kind of junior character artist? 
Stylised? Realistic? xD

Search for Junior portfolios on Artstation. See what they do and what they use. 

Brian "Panda" Choi

Make production art that can be put into a game.

That encompasses everything.  What do you feel like is missing from what I said?

By the time I got to my first full time job with InXile, I did the following:

Worked on 4 completed, shipped-ish games, 1 of which saw action at GDC and another that was Steam Greenlit, at USC.  Student Art Director for 2 years.

Had a portfolio.

Contract artist on 2 Disneyland attractions, contract artist on multiple other games inclduing What Remains of Edith Finch.

Still took me two and a half years to fiind a full time position as the junior guy.

JordanN

I honestly would take off the "junior" part and just concentrate on "3D Character Art" requirements.

If you have the relevant skills, why limit yourself to one category? You learn more by copying the best/veteran artists, and a senior job would imply that (someone who has shipped multiple titles).  Now imagine you make a portfolio out of the gate that demonstrates you WANT to make characters that have unrivaled production. You would be able to negotiate better when it comes to the job interview, even if you ultimately settle with a junior role....

 

Spoon

When you can take a character from concept art to fully implemented in a game engine, while matching the visual (and sometimes technical)  quality of the studio you are applying for, then you will be considered a candidate, generally speaking.

Eric Chadwick

I hope this helps
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/PortfolioContents

p.francescoven

Eric Chadwick said:

I hope this helps
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/PortfolioContents

it does! Thank you

Domslice

@Spoon makes a good point here with matching a design. It shows a number of skills, some of which may not be obvious at first glance. To faithfully recreate from concept to production friendly model takes a degree of intuition re. deformation and edge flow. It's not simply a matter of making it look like 'x'. 

So with this in mind I'd say concentrate on good topology first. 

There are other equally important things but the above is what jumped out to me!