Lacking direction

Smiling_Neko

Greetings everyone!

This thread is inspired in part by another thread I've found here but also by my general career situation for the past 18 months. I've studied Game Art and graduated in 2018. I haven't yet applied for any studio position which has in part to do with my living situation but also because at the time of graduation my portfolio was far from ready. Instead I've gotten what most would refer to as a 'day job' and worked on my portfolio in my spare time. However I've become more and more reluctant to the idea of pursuing any studio position for the exact reason mentioned in the thread I linked earlier - the industry just seems extremely toxic towards younger artists which may have the skills, but lack the experience. As a young and motivated artist I feel like there is no reason to apply for any studio position in the first place when every application I send in goes right into the bin. I'm actually thinking about starting freelancing on the side to make a little extra money - not only for game studios, that would be pretty pointless due to my lack of industry experience - until I figure a way out of this dilemma. I feel pretty much alone with this problem, so I would like to know if anyone here is / was in a similar situation and what you did to get out of feeling like you were lacking direction and didn't know where to start.

Have a nice day!

Taylor Brown

I don't have the answers for you but at a minimum you need to know you aren't alone. There's likely thousands of threads talking about this sort of thing just on Polycount alone and thousands more students pumped out of art schools every year who never make a thread. It can be hard as fuck to get in especially when you've no connections and it all feels so opaque. If you really want it though, you can work toward it. You might not end up at Naughty Dog or some other big name, or even in games, but if your dream is to be a paid production artist then you can do it. Its up to you if want to just let it all fade away, though. Thats fine by the way, this work can be a real pain in the ass and at the end of the day it's still work. Set your goal and start making baby steps towards it.

Edit: Forgot to mention that it can be assumed that a lot of working artists went through the same shot as you till they got hired. It sounds dramatic but there is like a shared trauma in that regard.

Smiling_Neko

Thanks a lot for the words of motivation! My goal for this year will be to create a steady stream of income with the skills I have and further expand my skillset in general. Only time will tell where I'll land then. As I've said, I don't solely focus on getting a career in the games industry, I love 3D art in general and I'd prevent myself from some very valuable opportunities.

Zi0

Smiling_Neko said:

I feel like there is no reason to apply for any studio position in the first place when every application I send in goes right into the bin

Sadly that's how it works, most companies get a lot of portfolios on a daily basis and HR/Recruiters/Office Managers are not able to write everyone back which can seem kind of rude but dont take it personally. Just keep improving and eventually you will get there

Alex_J

You might be surprised if you start working on selling work. The quality bar for AAA is really high but that doesn't mean you aren't a market worthy artist right now. There is big difference between the quality necessary for the next tomb raider and the basic 3d assets joe-blow indie developer needs. Not very long ago my art was so awful I felt embarrassed to even show it here. Even still there was people out there who thought it was good enough to pay actual money for. I still don't consider myself very good compared to most people here but I am able to make about minimum wage from selling a few assets on stores + a game. Not a lot but it's a start. And consider your time investment. If you are gonna be making art for hours on end most days, might as well try to get some of that time back in money sooner rather than later.

I think it might not be as direct a path to a big studio job as if you only spend all your time trying to make top quality AAA art, but certainly learning a thing or two about the market, about salesmanship, about finance, and about the real demands of making content for games is all good stuff that may help you in long run.

garcellano

Yeah, it's a ball-game starting out. It depends on where you're applying. 
Grab some experience first. The rest will come through later. There's more to it than just game studio exp.
Office exp, daily work, schedule, working with a team, etc. 
For game studios, it might be a thing that's been going on, with Senior devs and Junior devs.
Depending on the studio, if they really want to stay, I can't imagine a Senior dev wanting to be replaced. I guess that's when some leave and form their own studio, and so on and so on.
Sometimes it's an easy simple story for entry-level devs breaking in the industry, and others it just takes some time. 

Smiling_Neko

@ZiO
I don't take this personally, but as you've said, it does seem very rude, especially towards more talented artists. I've heard a lot of people complaining about this and I get their point. I guess it's a general mentality-issue for both the people who apply and for the studios.

@Alex Javor
I Really appreciate your attitude! When I attended university pretty much all of my teachers said the same thing: we tend to see our own skill lever as much lower than it actually is. I've always tried to take this into consideration when evalutating my own skill level. I'd personally say I'm definitely ready for making that step and I've seen some people with worse portfolios who do the same thing more successfully. Plus, as I've said, I already have a day job, so I don't have much to lose. I've read a lot of threads where people actually advise against doing freelance work without any industry experience, but that was mostly adressed towards artists who wanted to go full-time right from the start and mostly stick to one area of 3D art (mainly games). I wouldn't really say it's a bad idea at all, if someone has a good plan and can generate many different sources of income, instead of being limited to just doing one thing. And to me it doesn't really matter, because I enjoy 3D art no matter what medium it is made for.

@garcellano
Of couse it's not just the skills in 3D art alone that count, there are a lot of soft skills connected to this as well. Luckily, we've recieved a lot of help in that regard at university, we always had to work in teams and we most definitely had to work daily if we wanted to get good grades. I'd say that university helped me more in attaining those skills than actual 3D-related skills, because I did a lot of that on the side and by practicing. The industry is still a bit different of course, but I'd say I have a solid foundation.