Should I be good in multiple areas or just one or two?

sublimeeee

This is going to be a really dumb question but is it better to market yourself under one or two disciplines when job hunting e.g. 3D character animator or as multiple different area e.g. 2d/3d animator and vfx artist?

I am asking as in my head having one or two is better then multiple but literally everyone else in my university classes are putting down multiple and I am getting confused on whats the better option.

oglu

That pepends on your goal. Big studios are searching for specialized artists. Smaller studios do like Allrounder. 

Best is to be good in one disziplin and have a good overview of the whole pipeline.

It also depends on how easy you pickup a new discipline. First you need to be as good as the others in your main. 

Meloncov

As Oglu says, it does depend on the job. That being said, I've seen a lot of students struggle to get jobs because they've spread themselves too thin. I've never seen a student struggle to find work because they focused too narrowly.

PixelMasher

if you focus all your time and energy on getting really good at one skill set you will get to an employable level of skill a LOT faster than if you try and do it all, in which case each skill will slowly level up instead of focusing on one core job you want to get. I keep seeing character artists trying to include some environment work in their portfolio in hopes that it will make them more employable, or vice versa, but it rarely works out. 

A lot of the times it seems to stem from the frustration of not getting a job in the discipline they are passionate about, so they try and look for an "easier" route to getting a job. but because they have spread themselves thin in their time and focus, both their environment work and character work tend to look bland/unfinished/rushed etc. 

having a broader skillset can make you more employable but I would think of it more as having a primary skill, like character modeling and then some adjacent useful skills like rigging or technical character art related skills. but at the end of the day, you are gonna have to be great at your primary skill for them to consider hiring you anyways. so get that primary skillset to an insanely high level by focusing on developing that first. if you want to make characters, make 10-20 characters a year. your first 5 are going to suck, but you are going to learn something new with each project that you can use to level up your skills. same for environments. the mindset for each is totally different, so you will lose momentum on those skills if you are constantly jumping around between env, characters, props etc.

are there artists who can do amazing environment AND character work? absolutely. I have seen a ton of great portfolios filled with characters, props and environments, but they are usually from people who have been working in the industry for 10-20 years and have mastered one discipline and expanded outwards to master more skills. trying to do it all as someone who is learning is a quick way to plunge yourself into overwhelm and end up frustrated.

If you are super new to game art, it can be good to taste everything and figure out what it is you actually enjoy doing, if you are not sure of that yet. take a year and just dabble around, but make the mental note that that first year is just about tasting and not really going to have a big impact on developing your actual employable skillset. so a big part of this whole equation is patience. Look at this as you are signing yourself up for AT LEAST a 5 year learning journey. 

it took me 6 years of learning and skill development before I got my first job and made a dime off my art. the first couple years I was dabbling in the jack of all trades route, and then when I got focused on just making environment art, I got my skills to industry level quality a lot faster than the previous years output.

at the end of the day if I was to bet on 2 different students on who would get a job first, I would put all my money all day on the one focusing on one core discipline vs the jack of all trades. 

Alex_J

If you got time and contacts to make a small game project (i.e. something 6 months or less), that is a great way to get over many of the technical hurdles you may face as a beginner and intermediate. Also it will build confidence, and deeper understanding of how art works in games. Also you get published title to add to your resume. 

Is it fastest.way to a job? Probably not, but it does build thorough understanding and is a ton of fun too. If you aren't on mega.time crunch, I'd recommend it just for experience. 

When you camping, they say ten minutes spent preparing your bed will equal many hours of good sleep. Idea is, take a bit extra.time to give yourself a.strong beginning, and it will make all the difference down the line. 

After that you focus strong on your core skill or whatever, but now you know which way is up.

slosh

I would focus on one thing first.  Unless you're a savant of some sort, learning multiple things will just make you mediocre in all of them.  Focus on what you enjoy the most first and then branch out.  But that usually means getting a job at that one thing first and then possibly learning other aspects related to that specialty.  You might be able to become more of a generalist following that initial job.

NikhilR

I would recommend the small game project idea also, if anything focus on a portion of it, gives a good idea of deadlines.
Getting a job in games involves a lot of bs, so I wouldn't necessary count on your portfolio to make that happen.
You should still do what you can to become a better artist.

Biomag

Valve has it in its employee handbook - and I completely agree with the concept of it - be a T-personality.

Imagine it as a table with all skill disciplines lined up in a row and each row beneath it representing the depth of knowledge in those disciplines. So a T-personality would be someone how has a basic understanding level of all parts of game development, but actually is specialized in one of the disciplines. This gives you the ability to communicate with other departments, while actually you are an experect in your job. And that is also what most companies look for.

At the end of the day nobody cares what you call yourself if your portfolio doesn't live up to the title. The portfolio has to live up to the standard of those focused on the discipline, so as stated by others for juniors its pretty unrealistic to spread out over several skillsets. Best way to understand what the industry is looking for is to check what job openings companies have that you want to work for. No need to guess/assume what is needed. The studios put it up for everybody to read