Advice on picking a specialization.

Szubert

Hi, I'm not sure if I should post this here or in Career & Education, but if anyone would be so kind, I would really appreciate advice on choosing a career direction based on my portfolio.

I've been a hobbyist for a few years and I've enjoyed trying out different aspects of 3D, so as of now, I have a pretty generalist skill set. I've created props, environments, characters, rigged, animated, and programmed. I've also recently completed a small game project in UE.

Now, I think it would be a good time to pick a specialization (I've heard that specializing might be a faster way to find a job), but I have no clue which. I like pretty much all of them, so I mean this purely in terms of finding a job as soon as possible.

It would be really helpful if anyone could advise me on:
1. What job position would be the quickest to obtain from my current position?
2. What projects should I remove from my portfolio?
Or just generally what I could change.

My portfolio: https://www.artstation.com/szubert

Thanks in advance.

Ashervisalis

Hey bud! There are some cool ideas and such in your portfolio. Specializing it really the only way to your first job. Unless you're absolutely killing it in every department, you're going to want to focus on environments, or characters, or animation, or rigging, etc. Don't go for the fastest specialization to achieve, go for what you want to do, what you enjoy. There is still a bit of a journey for you before you nail down a professional portfolio, so whichever skill you choose to hone in on, you will be able to dedicate enough learning time to that.

Vertrucio

More practically, I highly recommend focusing on Environment/World Art early on, but only if you really can see yourself enjoying it. I've been looking through a lot of job positions this year and most of the junior and mid positions open are mostly environment postiions. The other ones are looking for Seniors level. Props/weapons definitely want senior level talent and the few roles available tend to be grabbed by people laid off.

But once you get into a role, remember that it's going to take a lot of your time and energy in the day. So it'll be difficult to continue working on more stuff to transition to other roles.

Szubert

Hi, thanks for your answers, they’ve been helpful. I will do further research on requirements on entry level positions in each field and try to decide from there (having to light the scenes well shied me away from environments but I might give it a second shot). 

Can you advise me on what my strong/weak aspects are or what works should I delete from my portfolio? I have no clue where else I could get feedback and I fear I might be too attached to my own work.

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

hwaminjung

If you don't have a specific specialization you prefer, then I would listen to Vertrucio's advice and go in the direction of considering an environment position, or something adjacent to modelling, such as a lighting artist.
Right now the job market is in a extremely bad state for people trying to break in into the industry, so it might be wise to focus on the specializations that are avaliable.
I've also come to learn that many character artists (what I am trying to do) have gone into the industry as something else entirely, and proved themselves to be trusted to move on to characters later down the line.
I know you mentioned you shied away from lighting, but in reality you will need to know lighting even for characters/props, and there is a ton of more technical skills you need to know for all the specializations.

As for portfolio, I would remove the lava sword, bullpup shotgun and ghoul. I think they are a minus on your portfolio. Something like the catapult is okay, but try to have more attention to detail to really show your care in the workmanship.

Vertrucio

Remove the NPCs as well. They aren't interesting in terms of anatomy, or style.

The cave you have is okay, but there's a lot of mistakes. Like the stalactites and stalagmites should all be pointing straight up and down, as they form by water carrying minerals depositing them as they drip straight down over a very long time. Because of that, they also usually form above and below each other and have varying sizes. And work on the lighting.

Lighting is easy to experiment and learn, you just add lights to a scene, keeping in mind the 3 light setup. Don't shy away from it.

Szubert

Thank you, I've taken this feedback to heart and will do my best to improve in the future.
I appreciate all the help, finding a direction has taken quite a load off my shoulders, thanks again