Starting Graduate School - Advice?

AustinLabarbera

Hey everyone, I am happy to say that I have been accepted into UCF's graduate school FIEA. Tomorrow is my first day and I would love some advice on what I should focus on during the 16 months I will be spending there.  

I am focusing on 3D Art however I do not know if I want to focus on hard-surface modeling or environment art. Currently, my portfolio is more environment art focused. However, I did spend 2 years working at an automotive company working on various different military and commercial vehicle models that I unfortunately cannot show in my portfolio. I feel I might end up choosing hard surface modeling. 

My plan at FIEA is to focus on boosting my networking skills as they offer a bunch of resources to communicate and get feedback in person from professional 3D artists, and take 16 months to iron out my skills and graduate with a 'game industry ready' portfolio. I wouldn't mind to work in simulation as it is similar to my previous career and the school is located in Orlando. However, I would like my time at FIEA to open doors to the gaming industry. 

Here is my current portfolio: http://www.austinlabarbera.com/ 
I believe at FIEA they have their students track their progress by creating a blog. I will also be sharing my progress on my sketchbook here on Polycount.

If anyone has any advice on what I need to work on to improve my skills to make my goals reachable, or if anyone has been to this school or a similar one and wants to chime in that would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks everyone!

sacboi

Inspiration coupled with standard too reach, for me at least as a hard surface (mechanical) modeller the following pretty much sums up quite clearly, what can be achieved:

http://www.torfrick.com/

http://www.timbergholz.com/index.html

http://www.faustodesign.com/

http://www.bulgarov.com/

AustinLabarbera

Thanks for the links! Really cool and inspiring stuff!

sharsein

Coming from someone with an MFA in Digital Art at a different school:

• Prioritize getting summer internships. Make time to apply for them during the year. It may become tempting to take summer classes to finish early/on time. Do this only if you get rejected. You may be able to sign up for classes and then back out if you get accepted
• Also network with engineers, best way for this is to make a game with them. Demand for engineers > demand for artists, so they will get a job before you and make more $$ than you. Which means they can afford to pay you for freelance work on their passion projects. Plus they're cool people too.
• Each semester, choose one class that you want to especially excel in. For all other classes, design projects that are relatively low in scope so you can do quality work in less time. 
• Leave at minimum 24hrs to focus solely on professional presentation of each assignment. Good composition that tells a story and good lightning can turn a crap 3d model into a work of art but not vice versa.
• Being able to 3d print parts that can be precisely assembled together will also open more doors outside the game industry

AustinLabarbera

Thank you so much for your tips!