When is the perfect time to start doing my portfolio, having in mind that you have a job as well?

kalosy

  Hey, guys. I'm new here. I've been doing 3D, specifically Character Art, for almost a year and I'm more than certain I want to pursue that goal. I was in a uni for a year with Game Art but quickly realised what a mistake it was (almost all of you are already familiar with this topic). After dropping out, I completely went reset mode to learn every discipline necessary to become a Character Artist - anatomy, modeling, texturing, you name it. I feel I'm really improving, especially when Scott Eaton himself told me I'm doing my shit right when I met him at a CG event, showing my sketchbook of anatomy studies. 

 The thing that really bothers me every day is the moment I have to start adding pieces to my portfolio. I still have a lot of things to improve. For example, I started doing a mech bust but I stopped after a certain time because I realised my baking and high->low poly workflow isn't developed yet. Since I want to mix hard surface with characters (sci-fi, cyberpunk style), I thought this was the best piece to start with. That's when I decided to watch Simon Fuchs' Military Radio tutorial with the intention to properly learn modeling, baking and texturing. The problem is that following along the tutorial is very time-consuming, having to pause every minute to catch up and I've still haven't even watched 5h of the tutorial from 30h, I think. 

 I'm still 20 years old and I realise I have all the time ahead of me, but right now, I even have a job at an ISP company, having to be there 9-10h for 6 days a week. I planned this as my investment for the future since I want to move to another town where you have CA and Ubisoft, making it a great opportunity to make networking, especially at events, but studying 3D and having such a job at the same time makes it quite intense. It's all my decision, though. I didn't even need to find a job since I have a place to stay in with my parents, but I'm not very certain if it would be more rewarding to just fully dedicate my time doing a portfolio piece right now and learn from it, rather than watching tutorials and courses, and then starting my portfolio. I try to value every single minute that I have reaching my goals, scheduling my day, but as my time gets limited with external factors, I become very anxious and confused if I'm on the right track to fully build up my skills to become a Character Artist. 
 
What's your take on this topic? Should I take advantage of the circumstances (place to stay in, free time) and start doing my portfolio, or embrace the tough road of slowly building up my skills to feel more confident in starting a piece? 

(BTW, this is what I'm doing right now. I have an artstation, but those pieces there are uni project which aren't something to be proud of https://www.artstation.com/kalosy

TheGabmeister

I was in a similar position as you, either to take advantage of the free time and space, or to take a job not related to 3D while learning at a very slow pace. I took the first route, so the advice that I'll give you is based on that. Maybe someone else can give advice on the other route.

Anyway, when I went full 3D everyday around 4-6 hours per weekday, it took me roughly 2-3 years to reach a point where I was proud of what I was creating. It look me a lot of time because I self-studied through everything, never had a background in computers or art (I was a Civil Engineer), and I was also starting my own company.

Throughout my 3 years of learning, I was involved in about 50 3D projects, some of which were single props, some were entire levels. Within those projects, only 4 reached a quality that I would consider "portfolio ready." You can see these four through the ArtStation link in my signature below. The others were either unfinished or didn't reach a certain degree of quality because I was still learning. The good thing is that today, I've finally polished enough skills to create some nice looking scenes.

So yeah, If I were in your position, I'd take advantage of the circumstances. Create character art for 1-2 more years, join communities, network with people, and participate in 3D challenges. Afterwards, come back here and share with us your progress.

oglu

You should work constantly on your Portfolio. Considering you need around 200+ hours to finish a character it does take a long time if you have todo it while working on a day job. For me its not possible to create more than one Character a year. 
My wife and my two kids + building a house are eating all the time.

Biomag

I think most people spend too much time watching tutorials. Go to a tutorial to answer your questions, but rather work on your own projects to see what the questions will actually be.

Since I've started to go for a job in the industry I was always doing projects after work. Even now that I have an industry job, I am still spending on average ~20 hours per week doing own projects. The thing is - you have to have specific goals for your project that are synced with your learning goals. If you want to learn anatomy don't do a mech, do a barbarian instead or a comic hero in his/her latex suit. If you want to learn Marvelous do something modern, where you can pick up a lot of patterns from the internet to learn how they are done. If want to learn hard surface do either something focused on armor or something cyberpunkish... Don't do overly complicated projects, rather small and simple so you can focus on your learning and don't get tempted to take short cuts just to finish the project. In the end reaching the necessary quality level won't be achieved through shortcuts  - ever. Having a couple of small polished projects takes you much further than a few mediocre big ones.

This way you will be building up your portfolio while learning. The more time you spend on it the better, but the time factor is mostly determined by your financial situation, so you have to know how much time you can afford. Keep in mind what most seniors always say - 'its a Marathon not a sprint". So make sure if you reach the part for the final push you have the financial stamina for the sprint.

kalosy

Biomag said:

I think most people spend too much time watching tutorials. Go to a tutorial to answer your questions, but rather work on your own projects to see what the questions will actually be.

Since I've started to go for a job in the industry I was always doing projects after work. Even now that I have an industry job, I am still spending on average ~20 hours per week doing own projects. The thing is - you have to have specific goals for your project that are synced with your learning goals. If you want to learn anatomy don't do a mech, do a barbarian instead or a comic hero in his/her latex suit. If you want to learn Marvelous do something modern, where you can pick up a lot of patterns from the internet to learn how they are done. If want to learn hard surface do either something focused on armor or something cyberpunkish... Don't do overly complicated projects, rather small and simple so you can focus on your learning and don't get tempted to take short cuts just to finish the project. In the end reaching the necessary quality level won't be achieved through shortcuts  - ever. Having a couple of small polished projects takes you much further than a few mediocre big ones.

This way you will be building up your portfolio while learning. The more time you spend on it the better, but the time factor is mostly determined by your financial situation, so you have to know how much time you can afford. Keep in mind what most seniors always say - 'its a Marathon not a sprint". So make sure if you reach the part for the final push you have the financial stamina for the sprint.

  I love the quote. I agree, a mech doesn't suit really well with anatomy right now. The concept pick wasn't very thoughtful at first, so you have a point. On the other hand, I want to focus on making futuristic, sci-fi characters. The mech that I'm doing is required to have some good baking and retopo skills, which at the moment I'm trying to learn. This is why as I already mentioned I'm watching the Military Radio tutorial by Simon Fuchs, so I can have better understanding of hard surface modeling, HP to LP workflow, and baking. This way, I can create proper assets that fits a character like a weapon, or a small attachment. Would it be wiser if I watch tutorials mostly focused on ZBrush hard surface character sculpting, or something else?

Alex_J

+1 to @Biomag 's response. Felt like he was speaking directly to me.

I did a big complicated project for portfolio purposes, but it was too much challenge for where I was at the time and just like he said, I didn't do all of it as professionally as it should have been done simply because of burnout (I spent 2,000 hours on it). So it was still a great learning experience, but it's not as good of a portfolio piece as it should be. Had I just done like one item from the larger scene, it would be an impeccable portfolio piece.

Sounds like you are thinking things through and making smart decisions. I'd say to grind it out, keep your job, save up some money, and then once you are pretty solid with all the fundamentals of 3d (baking, hard surface modeling, anatomy scultping), only then quit the job and live with the rents for 6 months to a year to focus 100% on making some top tier portfolio pieces.

Biomag

@kalosy
Credit goes to a lot of smarter people than me for that quote But it's definitely on point.

To learn hard surface modelling and baking you don't need to do a full mech. It sounds sexy and exciting until you realize that the difficult parts are those parts you thought were simple. Most probably your first hard surface model won't survive a portfolio review anyway. So if its about hard surface and baking do the simple radio. Learn the principles in small pieces and once you are confident enough to work with hard surface techniques you can switch to more complicated designs.

And when it comes to tutorials - watch it once, then start working on it and see where the issues are and check those issues again in the tutorial. Be careful to not become one of those artists that spend days on watching tutorials, reading on tips and tricks and gathering cool references without doing anything actively on their own project. Its a trap I've seen so many fall into. That or also overthinking everything to the point where they block themselves waiting for the perfect answer to solve all their issues.

alexk

Going to repeat what the replies have said. Be careful with your time watching tutorials. It's very easy to sink into the trap where you think that you need to watch multiple 10+ hr tutorials before you can do work. I fell into that hole while I was learning. Don't be afraid to fast forward the videos and spend more time working on your own projects instead. For example, Simon Fuch's video may be 30hrs long, but the base technique that he teaches and uses through the entire video is maybe only a few hours long.

I'm also going to ramble a bit regarding studying and having a job, so do your own research and alot of soul searching before you take any of the follow advice! I'm self taught, it took me about 2 or 2.5 years before getting hired and I stayed with my parents all that time. I ain't going to lie, getting up to a industry level takes a shit long time of studying. Not just passive studying, but consecutive, consistent studying where you are always improving. I had a few part time jobs during my studying and I was not able to keep up with my studying and when I felt like I had the confidence to make that final push, I quit my job and never took another part time job after. It paid off because I'm currently in my 9th year in the industry, but there are countless other people who do the same thing and never get employed. You're 20 years old now, and yes you have all the time in the world. But the difference is that if you stayed with your parents and study full time, you could be employed within 2 to 3 years. If you keep your job and try to study, that might be 4 or 5 or more years before you're at industry level. And many people will experience burn out because doing a 40hr job then trying to cram in 3d Art studying during the weekend, then back your job is brutal. But... there are people who have done that. So, if you are lucky enough to live with your parents or can work out a deal with them, so you can study full time for the next 2 or 3 years, I would do it. But be certain... like.. absolutely certain that this is what you want for a career and that at least you are at a level where other character artists, like Scott Eaton, can say that you have potential. Again, this is my own personal opinion from someone who also was able to stay with their parents to study full time. 

Ex-Ray

Since you've mentioned you have some foundational skills that you need to improve on, it makes sense to carry on with the current job. Get some work history for your CV, improve your soft skills, save up money, treat it as a backup career. 

You'll want to build up momentum in your 3D in this time so that should you quit, you are less likely to ask questions and just execute portfolio worthy pieces. 

I have experience in this, I think I spent a year before I quit prepping up, watching tuts and doing small exercises to see the results with my own eyes, then experiment and see what the outcome was. Use tuts as a base for further curiousity and self learning which becomes useful later on. 

I then spent under a year full time on my portfolio, granted it was slow going at the beginning but I picked up pace. It's true the latter projects are so much better and quicker as you just know what to do, and builds on the skills from the previous one.

So in summary, use this time as training. Walk before you can run. If later on you know in your mind and heart you have the potential to run then do it. At least you have some safety net as mention above.

All the best.