When to Apply for Work

Solid_Otter

Hi, everyone! I just had a few questions about looking for work. I've been taking my time with my portfolio for the past 9 months and trying not to rush through things. I feel I've made a little progress, but I don't think I'm quite there yet. I only have 3 pieces up and only one of them is fully textured. 

My main question would be: Is it worth applying for positions when you have so little work on your artstation, or should I just wait until I have 2-3 solid pieces before I even consider applying? Should I just keep grinding the fundies for now?
Also, is there a particular time of year jobs start to open up? It feels like this is the case with intern work, but I'm not sure about non-intern positions.
Sorry if this has been discussed before.
Thanks!

Biomag

I took a short look at your portfolio and I don't think it is there yet. Basically what studios want to see is that you can match their style. This means you are there when you can put your work among images from them without sticking out too much.

Also no WIPs. Make sure you have ~2 absolutely polished models. You don't need a big portfolio, but it has to be up to the standard of the studio you are applying for. Focus on this. Once you get to this level you get a little bit more room to add just sculpts or smaller projects, but you should have at ~2 full characters from high poly to texture to presentation.

alexk

You can apply whenever you want. Whether you get a response is another thing. High quality work will get noticed regardless of when you apply. The best chance of getting a reply back is when your work starts to look like the quality in shipped AAA titles.

NikhilR

alexk said:

High quality work will get noticed regardless of when you apply. 

Not if you're applying to studios in Toronto.

alexk

NikhilR said:

alexk said:

High quality work will get noticed regardless of when you apply. 

Not if you're applying to studios in Toronto.

lol, sorry to hear that! 

NikhilR

alexk said:

NikhilR said:

alexk said:

High quality work will get noticed regardless of when you apply. 

Not if you're applying to studios in Toronto.

lol, sorry to hear that! 

Probably not that they don't care, its just that if you apply through regular channels your work gets swamped under literally thousands of applications. 

Not that its any easier if you have someone on the inside since way too many people are trying that approach too. 

I still have applications in Toronto that are about 6 months to a year old that haven't even been looked at. Irritating thing is I can't cancel them and reapply, they have to reject me first, so at the moment they're just sitting there, lol.

 Pretty challenging situation, there's literally thousands of artists, some of them really good, without work (well they work min wage jobs) 

Many have moved to other provinces.
I'm now in Montreal, and its way better.

Interestingly Toronto is the province with the highest number of Game Development colleges, many of them publicly funded. There's just not enough studios.
 Even the studios get grant money from the government (well just one studio) but it hasn't improved the situation at all.

Solid_Otter

Thanks for the input, guys. I'll keep weorking on the folio

PixelMasher

you need more finished work that shows you can make final game ready assets. right now you have a collection of sculpts that look unfinished. studies and busts are a good way to learn but you need to be able to demonstrate you can create fully finished, textured character models and get them in a realtime engine consistently. that is why people say you should have 3-5 rock solid characters as a minimum.

remember you are competing for jobs against people already in the industry who are working already, your work needs to show you can execute on their level if you want to get a job. don't look at other student/learner portfolios as a comparison, that's pretty irrelevant as most of them are not up to the quality expected by studios anyways.

just keep pumping out art and making progress good luck!

Dahanolll

You should definitely work on your portfolios. But if you want to get an internship, it can be a good start (depending on the company of course). But in such cases, your CV is also considered. You can even see something among https://edureviewer.com/best-resume-writing-services/ for making a better resume. After all, your interest in further work in this direction will also be important for the internship, and these are various courses, seminars, and participation in case studies. 

Dahanolll

  

Dahanolll

Good luck!

Solid_Otter

@PixelMasher
Sorry for the late reply! Got a bit side tracked. 
You're right. Going to keep my nose to the grindstone till I have more completed characters. 

garcellano

Yeah, I'd recommend have a solid character model, textured and rendered.

Depending on the studio's you're looking after, it might be too soon to jump the gun. I've done this before, but just imagine applying to a AAA studio, with not enough work to show, getting rejected, not updating much after that, and applying again 6 months later. I want to say that the more you apply, the more they'll recognize your portfolio.

Make a strong piece that shows what you know.

Just a quick story time, I had to do something like this when I left the vfx/film world. Made some hard-surface models that eventually led me to a job doing hard-surface models lol (at a military training sim company, game-ish related). After that, maybe about a year later, made an environment art piece that eventually led me to where I'm at now, as an environment artist.

It is the simplest thing that you can think of.

What you put on your resume, when you apply, show it on your portfolio.