Becoming a Lead Artist
Hey all, a Twitter rant turned post here on Polycount. If the path to leadership
interests you, here's a thread on what I've experienced – please
feel free to contribute:
Something that has been on my
mind for a while, as discussed on Character Art Podcast episodes, and
seeing an article that sparked my interest – specifically about the
role of leadership in GameDev and the transition from content
creator to manager
I am very fortunate to be in a company
and part of a team that promotes training, and seemingly am part of
the minority indicated here (
https://medium.com/@someproducer/your-devs-told-me-youre-not-training-them-7cd39cd886c9
) - with multiple offsite, professional training programs and
internal practices to promote my growth as a “Lead”
However,
this does point to an issue that is incredibly difficult to prepare
yourself for, and that is the secondary skills beyond your art and –
eventually – those skills becoming your main tools as the actual
getting your hands dirty takes a backseat.
To be honest,
I'm totally happy being a lead and, frankly, my day to day work
leaning more 80% management stuff and 20% hands on – but it
certainly is a mind fuck as you begin to transition out of being an
artist 100% of the time.
More or less, you've devoted all of
your time to becoming the best artist you can be and assume each
'ranking' in the company just means that person is a better artist.
But the truth is that the higher you get, the less you should
produce.
Behind that art, though, you are developing these
other skills that you generally do not get trained how to. It becomes
a skillset developed over time, years of working with other
departments, seeing life cycles of games, and the experience as a
worker
Those skills, which I'm sure there's a technical
term for, get stronger as time goes on and the transition from “art
all day” to “manager” means you can use those skills to enhance
the output of your team, such as:
Direction - While you
create art, you are learning how to deal with clients (your boss or
otherwise) and the expectations of quality at large scope, not just a
portfolio piece. As well as how art fits into gameplay and tech
requirements.
Process – Generally, you're going to get
out of touch with what the kids are doing. But. You do possess the
ability to see what's important for the project, what the weak spots
are, and making calls on best practices for a unified workflow.
Priority – Over time, honestly, you'll see where to be
cheap. Knowing not everything goes out the door polished, you begin
to learn where to spend the time and what can be lost in the trade
off for time to make other things better.
Scheduling /
Budget – Multiple projects in and you learn to set quality bars,
and measure the average time it will take per asset. From here, you
can begin to set out a healthy course for your team and predict
headcount / cost.
Essentially, you learn on the job
how to sharpen these skills because they are specific to your job.
You get better at the trade, you can predict the timing, you know
that designers want x and what a visual target is, but then there are
things like:
Difficult Conversations – You need to keep
things on the level, and professionally correct situations that will
hurt the team, or the project. This is usually something new to leads
and – honestly – something that makes many uncomfortable.
Defending the Team – If you
handle scheduling, you most likely also need to work with new
requests to make the team not overworked. This is difficult because
everyone wants the cool thing – but learning to say “Yes, and...”
isn't easy.
Tasking – You manage what assets go where, who is responsible for which asset, if someone is getting bored making hair for months, who needs a challenge, who needs to improve on x. It becomes a skill to recognize opportunities for growth
Delegation – Possibly, the most
common weakness in Leads as you need to learn to let go of ownership
and stop being the point person for all possible things. It's easier
said than done, but can be an opportunity to grow a team member
Reviews – Multiple times a year, you will need to sit
with your team and give them formal feedback that affects salary and
helps chart career growth. It is incredibly important as you can set
goals, record progress and talk 1:1
Hiring - You need to sift through many portfolios, do the interviews, and ultimately be the final say on who joins the team, who ultimately joins the company for years..
Skills like this usually come from internal and external training – and some aren't actively used until the time arises (i.e. under performance), and become a big part of the job. Some like it, some don't. Personally, I do – but it's been a transition
My point being – consider your
path from all angles. If the idea of dealing with people more than
art sounds horrible, you may be better suited as a Principal Artist
where it's more about best practices and mentoring
For
me, the reason why I like it is that I get joy out of being the
support class (I play a Medic) and feel that I have a bigger impact
on the games development by managing a team more than being a single
artist.
Still make art and try to stay relevant – but
my first love is game development and feel that I can be a more
effective problem solver / contributor in that way (and do art when I
can to scratch the itch or try new things for fun)
While
I still make art professionally, it's become more important to me to
give the “coolest thing” to my team and I can stick to smaller
tasks while doing the manager stuff most of the time.
If
you are considering the role, sooner or later, take this into
consideration and try to get ahead of the 'no training' thing. Read
books (Crucial Conversations, Subtle Art..., etc.), ask questions at
work, and start to see things as a team
If you are a
lead, I would encourage the transparency to your team to serve as a
mentor. I've had great bosses in my career that helped shape me and
understand the job before I became a “Lead”
Replies
I had an eye opening experience this summer. I worked my first job where the CEO actually worked alongside us. Why it was eye opening, because it felt extra motivating to see someone whose primary responsibility could be just sitting in an office all day doing nothing but paperwork and organizing meetings with clients, but for the same job I was doing he was also right there and putting in the same amount of effort he expected out of us.
Again, not disagreeing with your core message. It just felt very "human" to see people who are normally known for being in the shadows still find the time to work with ordinary employees.
I would have even more reason to work harder if I saw an environment or character lead come out from a business meeting, then sat next to my group and put in all his effort towards help building a game or movie.
Over the years I had enough different team and department leads or other bosses. I've studied business economics and got my look at those typical leadership approaches. The one thing I've learned (and sadly most new leads have not) is that the books are nice, but if you stick to them you will fail. Stop treating lessons like a bible you have to hang on to. As a lead you need to see and understand what is happening around you and understand your job is to service the team so it can get to its full potential. No two team members are the same, no two projects are - and even most of the times no two consecutive days are the same.
Be aware and adjust yourself, your methods and your team to those challenges instead of sticking to some book someone wrote based on his own challenges and experiences. Learn from those experiences, which means understand what happened, why it did and how it was approached to be solved - if you don't analize each step of the way from such a lecture and just repeat what others did, you will be on the wrong path 9/10 times with varying degrees of failure awaiting you.
One of the best skills anyone looking to become a great lead should develop is emotional intelligence. Being able to recognize where people are at on a daily basis and react to that in a way that motivates while still helping to guide the ship is super important. Ontop of that you need to be able to communicate in a way that works with the people working below you, and also those further up the chain.
I would say the further up the chain you go, you spend more time focused on the macro, not the micro. ex: "oh shit, what is the progress status of our five level kits and do we have everything planned out for this area to hit in X months time" vs "hmmmm is the rust on this one tiny bolt perfect enough yet, ohh ill add another vent here"
You really need to have a solid overview of the project as a whole instead of just being focused in on one little level/area/character. Taking off the horse blinders is a skill on it's own, especially for many creatives who thrive on intense levels of detailed focus.
and like gav said, you are probably going to have to defend your team members from decisions made from left field throughout the course of production. essentially you are providing air cover so the troops on the ground can get the job done.
on a final note: on the topic of the CEO working on art or some task like that....if it was a AAA studio that would scare the shit out of me. It shows a complete lack of business acumen and the ability to delegate. As a CEO your time should entirely be spent on the macro high level, their time is too valuable to be spent doing something that they pay people essentially $20-50 an hour to do. It would be like the captain of a ship trying to steer it from the cargo hold. I get it if its a small scale startup and resources are stretched to the max, sometimes that's just reality, but even in those cases, they should probably just hire someone and focus on the high level business if they want to succeed.
I have worked on projects before where a director or someone who used to make art wanted to "help out" and took on some art work, after not having actually made any art in 3+ years.......yea...all those assets had to be re-done but no one wanted to speak up because of the persons position at the company.
I work in a company where my Lead Artist is someone that have no clue in what the pipeline consists, how we start a project and how we end it. The scripts and tools (most created in-house) that we use to speed-up the process, the shader creation, node usability and methods is something that completely goes over her head. This happens because that's the way she works, she is a teoric kind of "artist". She delegates work and when she tries to do some herself, she ends up asking for help, because she doesn't know the steps to make things done. And I find this very odd to happen...How can a person like this be Lead Artist in anything.
Sorry about the rant, but there are tough days
But it was important to see all insights you guys gave about being a Lead Artist, and I see many things in common with the OP, since I also see myself as a effective problem solver for all aspects of the project (even though I'm responsible for the final quality of the project and other things).
I do see myself as a Lead, and I'm sure I would do a much better job, because, honestly, in some aspects I do her job already. Of course that the non-artist work that involves being Lead, makes me consider it, because I enjoy doing what I do and be part of the pipeline and also be part of the research and development of new tools and methods to optimize our process and quality.
I was the lead for a small team of five artists ( three with less than a year of industry experience, one with 12+, and myself with eight). I wasn't originally the lead and it constantly felt like I was putting out fires. Eventually I was put into the position (after asking), so that I could try to improve, not only my quality of life, but the others I was working with, and the product itself. This was my first official lead position. Walking into it from past experiences, here are some of the things I picked up / learned along the way.
Know what's going on beyond your team. Be Proactive. Ask what others are working on or looking forward to - Things are happening outside of your own team that will inevitably come knocking. Know what is happening so you can tailor your teams schedule to accommodate outside departments needs and get the right people involved.
Never send anyone on a task blind. Understand the task, it's goals, and importance before you delegate them to others. Ask the questions the person your delegating it to might not know to ask. Make sure the foundation and game plan from other departments for the task is already set in motion before handing it off.
Things change quickly. Changes in game design can affect the bigger picture. Make sure you're kept in the loop. Keep yourself tied into emails, DMs, or have small meetings where people discuss what they're working on. You don't have to micromanage the conversation, just stay informed and available. If they're changing quickly and often, don't be afraid to push it back to design and reallocate.
Be the gate keeper. You're accountable even if you didn't do it. Things go overlooked all the time so it's your responsibility as a lead to double check work. This includes the decisions your team members make in going about their tasks. If a task is delegated and a new system emerges that is redundant or over budget, you need to make sure it's pulled back and find a better solution if it already exists.
Focus forward, but keep the past in mind. Sometimes problems come up that are unforeseeable. Placing blame or becoming visibly frustrated can echo out and affect morale. Look for a solution and pivot. Write it down, keep it for a postmortem and try not to let it happen again. Muscle through and keep the team motivated. This really allowed us to make iterations easier at milestones.
Accept decisions. You can't control everything or please everyone. Listen to your team and share your concerns with higher ups. Ultimately you're only responsible for a portion things. Don't fear monger or stonewall your producer, your team or others. Let them know what you're worried about, work with what you've got, and move on.
You don't need to be a phenomenal artist to be a good lead artist. Making games is a process, when you've done it a couple of times, you get a feel for when things are ready to move forward or need to marinate longer. Know your team, trust them and their abilities and the process. Put them where they're strongest and offer them opportunities to improve their weaknesses. Most importantly, know your own weaknesses, and find ways to strengthen them.
Hopefully this is helpful in some way. I'm really proud of the work were were able to accomplish once everyone was in sync.
My first lead was a really good guy, he had all that was needed to be on that position. But he didn't have the time to do art and felt his skills would disappear completely after a couple of years. He still wanted to be a good artist to a degree. What he did was check with every member of the team what they did, what they learned and how they improved their skills. Basically, the team filled him with knowledge daily and he learned new stuff from us.
I'd encourage any lead to do the same, because if you don't have time to sit for 5 hours doing art like an artist does, your team can be your personal free tutorial. Of course, not to take too much time from anybody, but people usually like when you ask them how and what they're doing. Be that a gun, prop, concept or a whole level.
Another thing that this guy was awesome for was when he introduced team meetings, usually at the start of the work day at a time when every team member was present. All would gather in a circle. We had a sword, person with a sword could talk, others would listen. It's not a mandatory item for the meeting, but it's cool
So, everyone would say what they did, how they did it, how much time they spent on it, even if they failed. The whole process if you wanted to know. It kept the team alive, plus the lead got updated daily.
I'm guessing that most of the leads have an excel document or something similar to keep them updated on the team doings, but believe me, these meetings are essential if you want your team to thrive. It makes every member feel important, even if they are a junior because someone will still hear them and not just order them. I think Pixar has a similar approach, on a larger scale, but that doesn't mean a lead can't do it with his team.
By the way, it's not brainier, but this guy that was my lead went on to become the head of the department.
But,
I've been in a situation like PoLLuX mentioned too.
My second lead was good at management stuff and was fighting for the team, for which I had great respect, but terrible artist and almost none technical skills. The problem is that compared to her, me and a few of other team members were way more experienced in art, but were pressured to do art the way she did art before becoming a lead. Company believed that no art skills were needed for a lead position. Most agree with this, but you can't pressure other artist just because of your position. In a sense, she did not get updated on the art skills, stark contrast to my first lead.
I'm usually not the guy to argue, plus you can't outright say to your lead that they are wrong it they won't listen to your side of the story.
In the end, I did the art her way and it took more time to produce and didn't look good. Guess what, I had to re do it. She didn't blame me, which was fair, but it was driving me nuts. I thought I'd go berserk after some time. We were losing productive time.
I left that company in the end, heard it started to crumble. Friends that stayed there told me a similar story, only in other departments.
@Niknesh and @PoLLuX - I feel like a lesson leaders, usually new leads or directors, need to learn is listening to your team. Ultimately, you have final say over where something is heading, but chances are your team knows the execution part better than you do. Plus, it gives a sense of autonomy and freedom for artists to make the right call / fail and learn from the mistake under whichever boundaries you've set. In both of your cases, it's a bit...unfortunate. Leads certainly don't need to be the best artist, most times they aren't, but they should know about the general pipeline, be able to communicate direction, and listen to the people doing 'the thing' every day to gather the best information to make the right decision.
Thanks for your insight.