Beccatherose - Fundamental Art Tutorials & Blog

beccatherose · Aug 2018

Hey everyone! I've been making minitutorials over on Patreon for a while and wanted to have a main thread for them here on Polycount. If you'd like to see more, consider throwing a dollar or five my way each month so I can keep these coming ^_^ Enjoy!

beccatherose · Aug 2018

lotet · Aug 2018

This is awesome! thanks for sharing

William3DArtist · Aug 2018

This is a great tutorial! Short and simple! Easy to understand! I like the cut tutorial. Any insight on cracks and how they work on wood or rock?

Torch · Aug 2018

Ahmahgad....these are amazing. Thank you Becca

ant1fact · Aug 2018

Great tips, thank you!

Nolt · Aug 2018

Whoa, this is great! Thanks!

zld1990 · Aug 2018

Great! Looking forward to the follow-up

RN · Aug 2018

That reflective sphere is amazing, I really like it.

Since you're talking about fundamentals, I wanted to suggest making a piece on how you gather and use reference, like when you needed to know what a wood plank looks like or where should the highlights go on blood splatters.
Just to make it clear to your audience that you're painting things after observing them in real life (visual facts), that that's the go-to resource, training your eye to understand how materials work.

I always enjoyed watching your thread on the 2D forum, I hope to see more.

beccatherose · Aug 2018

Next tutorial is now public: painting translucent liquids 101 over at https://www.patreon.com/posts/tutorial-liquids-20413593! Many GIFs included, as always.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ri/xe2t25ncxxab.gif

beccatherose · Oct 2018

New minitutorials on patreon.com/beccatherose

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ed/rf8kmfjxhzks.png

beccatherose · Oct 2018

Blogged some lessons that I've learned while freelancing!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/cl/26x0cuxs6ip1.png

Read the full post here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/freelance-101-21273506
"At the end of the day, the best things you can do to find work is to keep creating, post consistently, push your online presence, and build genuine relationships with people. This stuff requires patience. A lot of it. Sticking to it and being willing to accept feedback will help you build a positive reputation and a professional network."

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/xk/4ya3toq077mz.png

Read the full post here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/freelance-101-21273182
"The most important piece of information to know is that as a freelancer, you should charge more than what you would be paid in-house. You're paying out of pocket for a ton of things that the company would normally cover, and they know that. A lot of folks are surprised when told that fulltime freelancers should charge what they need to in order to make profit, but it's all much clearer when you do the math..."

beccatherose · Oct 2018

I've also been blogging some more in-depth posts about art fundamentals, which you can check out at the links below!

Read about my approach to color composition here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/blog-choosing-21354673
"Colors are a HUGE topic when dipping your toes into painting and they can be really intimidating for new artists. I want to break down some basic color theory/psychology and explain my general approach to laying down the color foundation for a good design..."

And you can read the basics of the how/what/why's of master studies here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/blog-master-20981026
"Studies can of course get as grainy and pixel-perfect as you want them to be, but focus on what you want to get out of the exercise. Don't be afraid to spend just a few minutes or literal DAYS on an individual piece."

beccatherose · May 2019

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/e2/pqyd24ozp5rm.png

My entire content index for my Patreon, Gamasutra, curiouscat, tumblr, and twitter posts can be seen here.

beccatherose · May 2019

New Freelance 101 posts:

Image: https://c10.patreonusercontent.com/3/eyJ3IjoxNjAwfQ%3D%3D/patreon-media/p/post/25692890/2445b940aec8478dad839e01c6cfa53f/2.jpg?token-time=1560470400&token-hash=k00gCRroIbOav0JyO93A90w1K5woWiLK4xZv1nUD0fw%3D

5 Needed Traits to be a Successful Freelancer

You as a person must be adaptable. Being able to work with a wide range of client types and personalities is essential, so having the soft skills to stay professional in high-pressure situations and being able to dissect the needs of your client are really important. Since you're working with so many different people, you're going to bump into very different types of people. The more of a people-pleaser you can be (without compromising your time, ethics, self-perception, or standards,) the better off you are. Be pleasant to work with so they'll want to hire you again in the future!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/7i/5dn20v74oeor.png

My Daily Routine as a Freelancer

My work comes in a lot of different forms. I do a variety of paintovers for environment designs, illustrations for physical games, character designs, prop designs, and so forth. I think it's really important to be relatively flexible as a freelancer so that you can work a wide variety of jobs, but it's still good to have a focus. I'd be pretty confident saying that my primary strength is stylized prop and creature designs, but if you actually look at my portfolio, there's a lot more there. This way, I can say yes to a lot more jobs. It really pushes my marketability.

beccatherose · May 2019

(Sorry for the spam, just trying to catch up

)
I started a new post series specifically for students that covers lessons game college programs fail to cover.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/yv/mxfuj7eiiog0.png

1st Day of Class

We're going to cover the 3 things that every aspiring game artist needs to hear from the very beginning so that you have more realistic expectations and a clearer path going forward. Some of this might seem like common sense, but they're all very important things to do so you're set in the right direction.

beccatherose · May 2019

Painting round gem minitutorial. More gem tuts incoming!

Image: https://c10.patreonusercontent.com/3/e30%3D/patreon-media/p/post/27192270/cfa6fcc43d84481bb58ba6ed98248b76/4.jpg?token-time=1560470400&token-hash=I92P8y8Lsz9FxWshOvFCCzhqMO-ByTQZlNFmtOH6mRw%3D

beccatherose · May 2019

(All caught up! Whew)

Entry-Level Portfolio Examples

What does junior-level art ACTUALLY look like? It's a question that I've seen many times, so I asked the game dev Twitterverse to share the work they were making when they broke into the industry.
I have compiled a few of those examples here, but I really recommend checking out all of the responses in that thread. SO many wonderful people took the time to respond and it provides a ton of insight into the expectations for junior-level workers.
This is not a complete or perfect list...and expectations vary by year, company, and job, so take these examples with a grain of salt.