Some Guidance would be appreciated

AmaTimTim

Hi so I am aspiring 3D artist. I've got my Diploma in 3D animation and I am in my final year for my Bachelors Degree. I am in a safe space this year due to me having loads of free time and no external stress factors. I want some guidance on how I can spend this year as proactively as I can and I'll be transparent as possible.

Here is my portfolio:

timdesign.artstation.com

So I'm aware that my portfolio needs a lot of work. I'm comfortable in Maya and Substance painter and very proficient with Photoshop. Currently learning ZBrush through a FlippedNormals course, planning to learn some other software as well. 

So here's my goal. I want to be able to work as a 3D artist in-house or within the industry, basically anywhere that'll help me grow as an artist. I'm more of a generalist at the moment and I haven't found the particular field I want to specialize in yet. This could be because I want to be skilled in numerous different areas as an artist and believe with enough time and effort I can acquire said skills. I find character design interesting but fear that the 3D industry might be over saturated with character artists. I can also see my myself working as an environment or prop artist. 

I want to make the best out of this year so I want to know how I can do that. What are some things I should keep in mind? Do I have any naive misconceptions that I should let go of?  

I'm acutely aware of how much I still have to learn including anatomy and other fundamentals, but I'm willing and hungry to learn.  

defragger

Hi there,

regardless of specialization (character or props) you should learn high-poly -> low-poly (retopo) / baking workflow.

Spent as much time working on your skills and learning as you can. Basically you have to put in a few thousand hours ... in germany we have a saying "no master has yet fallen from the sky". Post your work in 3d showcase if you need feedback.

Taylor Brown

Yeah I agree with defragger. There's a lot of fundamentals that need to be covered. Just as an exercise in pushing yourself, id focus on doing one top grade asset. Choose a game or artist whose work you like and set it as a quality bar you want to reach. You'll figure out what you want to focus on in time. 

Ashervisalis

Yo, good luck in your journey! For your portfolio, remove all projects except for the Death Race car. You gotta decide on environment vs character vs whatever else you might be interested in. You won't become good enough to get a job at one thing if you're focusing on a lot of things. If you focus on modeling, whether enviro or character, start working off other's concepts.

Ex-Ray

As you still have another year to go, in your spare time I would just do loads of quick turnaround exercises covering all aspects of asset creation. Focused exercises with an emphasis on one thing, examples like; as defragger mentoned high to low normal map bakes, just subd modelling, just unwrapping, just improving material definition. etc.

No pressure exercises, with the aim of researching and understanding the art and the tech (Also have fun with it too.) Just think of it as training as you still want to put all your effort in your final year projects.

Once you have created your final year portfolio and graduated you quickly and seamlessly transition to this 'training' and expand/advance it so you don't lose any momentum, so that you can quickly replace your degree work with unique, personal art work differentiating you from your colleagues.