Guide to Game Art Applications - Part 1 - Portfolios and Job Postings

kierangoodson

Guide to Game Art Applications

I recently celebrated my first anniversary in games and I've been reminiscing about my pre-industry days. I remember the struggles of casting out job applications and the rush of getting bites back from studios. It was difficult to get any form of feedback after applying and responses were hard to come by. Being ghosted by studios was the worst feeling in the world. It took me 11 months of applications and portfolio building to get a job.

So I can still empathise a lot when students and grads message me every week asking for CV, portfolio and job application advice. 

Due to this, I'm always giving out the same feedback over and over again.

Today I’m launching the first part of a three-part guide for anyone preparing job applications within the games industry, particularly for those at entry-level. You can check it out here:

https://www.artstation.com/kierangoodson/blog/mY0N/guide-to-game-art-applications-portfolios-and-job-postings

Thanks,

Kieran Goodson -  Junior Environment Artist at Rebellion | Portfolio | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | Discord: AnHourOfWolves#9100

Zi0

Thats a nice guide, good work!

kierangoodson

Zi0 said:

Thats a nice guide, good work!

Thank you for reading!

fdfxd2

Definitely useful advice here,, I guess having all my old work on a pdf would be more efficient than having them on a google drive, I feel a bit dumb for not realising this in the first place

But I do have a question though, related to your second point.

 I've never actually seen a job posting for a prop artist. Not in Linked In, Polycount's job board, Artstation,etc, like literally  I've only ever seen about 2 posts directly ask for a vehicle or weapons artist. So it wouldn't be dumb in that case to pivot more to environment art and maybe add some decent environment art pieces while keeping the rest of your portfolio, right?

kierangoodson

@fdfxd2
Thanks! For me I had old work on my website with a private link that I could quickly throw up onto the screen.  

Prop Artist positions are rare(r). I know Ubisoft and Cloud Imperium offers them quite often. Rebellion has offered Photogrammetry Artist positions in the past, and many roles at outsourcing studios will be tailored towards Prop Artists and 3D Generalists. 

There is definitely an overlap between environment art and prop art because props are a fundamental part our skill set. As the environment artist position is more common then it could be sensible to pivot here. But know what to expect - there are no maybes about it, if you're labelling yourself an environment artist then you need to showcase environments because it's an different specialisation that combines so many different skills into one place and requires a different mindset.

- Modelling (open sub div, organic, hard-surface, sculpting) 
- Texturing (uniquely unwrapped assets, trims, tileable materials) 
- Engine (vertex painting, LODs and lightmaps, shader setup, optimisation, different custom systems within here depending on the studio)
- Set-dressing 
- Composition (and sensitivity to things like level design and shape language)
- Lighting 

These are the base skills. It's often bigger picture, highly collaborative, be-as-resourceful-as-you-can type of work. Forgive me if I'm about to simplify the role as I don't have experience here but Prop Art seems to be very focused, individual and time-sensitive work. They're different specialisations for a reason and I hope I've managed to highlight that to some degree.

Every studio calls their positions different things so don't forget to check the job postings for the responsibilities - you might find a prop artist role that isn't called a prop artist! 

Thanks again for taking an interest in my series. 

(PS: Big fan of your hover bike- can't say I've ever seen anything like it before and it's presented really nicely!)