Older work and its impact on the hiring process.
polycounter
I've noticed that there remains a general consensus in the game art industry that it is better to discard old artwork and older portfolio's and start over.
In this mindset, I have witnessed many game artists call their older work "piss", "shit", "junk", "trash", "garbage", "potato", "mudpies" and that they are ashamed of the time they were "finding their legs" and are now worrying about "imposter syndrome" as a result.
There is also criticism directed in this way to artist portfolios insisting that its better just to discard the whole portfolio, remove and destroy artwork that in their opinion brings down the entire portfolio and that by not focusing on your best work you are showing that you don't know what "quality" is and recruiters are just tired of looking at your work.
The reality in my experience was very different since there was no real transparency on what the impact of the portfolio actually was and most of the assessment was made on the art test assigned which judged not only the quality of the work but also the approach used by the candidate in a given time frame.
In this mindset, I have witnessed many game artists call their older work "piss", "shit", "junk", "trash", "garbage", "potato", "mudpies" and that they are ashamed of the time they were "finding their legs" and are now worrying about "imposter syndrome" as a result.
There is also criticism directed in this way to artist portfolios insisting that its better just to discard the whole portfolio, remove and destroy artwork that in their opinion brings down the entire portfolio and that by not focusing on your best work you are showing that you don't know what "quality" is and recruiters are just tired of looking at your work.
The reality in my experience was very different since there was no real transparency on what the impact of the portfolio actually was and most of the assessment was made on the art test assigned which judged not only the quality of the work but also the approach used by the candidate in a given time frame.
I feel that every artwork can be improved and it is important to do so with every technology available.
Every effort builds upon the last and there is no honor in discarding artwork that others might consider dated when it can be evolved and presented in a way that keeps it relevant.
I wanted to present a case study here, where by "googling", it was possible to turn this character I made in 2018 into this upgraded version for 2023. I am currently doing this to every character in my portfolio in addition to creating new work.
https://nikhilr.artstation.com/projects/49L0vY
https://youtu.be/1c4HOmfUgrc
I wanted to present a case study here, where by "googling", it was possible to turn this character I made in 2018 into this upgraded version for 2023. I am currently doing this to every character in my portfolio in addition to creating new work.
https://nikhilr.artstation.com/projects/49L0vY
https://youtu.be/1c4HOmfUgrc In my experience in AAA, much of the work I was assigned did require reworking existing or outsourced models, so my approach to consisitently improving older work did help me to become more resourceful and resilient on the job.
In contrast I did notice that many of the hire's that had followed a more generic character art pipeline to create the perfect/top tier/rockstar senior level artwork lacked the ability to jump in and improve characters that were mid production.
For example if they were assigned heads that required topology changes in sculpt reflecting variations in fitness, or age, they found it difficult to make these changes without starting from scratch and had to learn to incorporate more flexibility in their approach.
So while they entered the job looking to make a full character, they had to settle for making the characters clothing or props since they could not work with outsourcing partners to modify exisiting topology and worked best when assigned work that had to be started fresh from concept art.
I feel that we needed a broader conversation on older work, how its perceived in the game industry and how it impacts the hiring process.
In contrast I did notice that many of the hire's that had followed a more generic character art pipeline to create the perfect/top tier/rockstar senior level artwork lacked the ability to jump in and improve characters that were mid production.
For example if they were assigned heads that required topology changes in sculpt reflecting variations in fitness, or age, they found it difficult to make these changes without starting from scratch and had to learn to incorporate more flexibility in their approach.
So while they entered the job looking to make a full character, they had to settle for making the characters clothing or props since they could not work with outsourcing partners to modify exisiting topology and worked best when assigned work that had to be started fresh from concept art.
I feel that we needed a broader conversation on older work, how its perceived in the game industry and how it impacts the hiring process.
What are your perspectives on older work that is improved rather than discarded, does this show that an applicant is more responsible, resourceful and capable than applicants that choose to discard older work?
Replies
Generally when I'm reviewing portfolios to fill a studio vacancy, I'm not enjoying the process. It's a hassle to wade through the mass of candidates. I'd rather be making art. So, it's a bit of a chore.
We'd all love to think the hiring manager is carefully examining each piece in our portfolio, lovingly assessing each detail, giving each model the attention we artists feel our pieces are due. But it's just not the way it works.
We're looking to assess each artist as fast as is humanly possible. So we're looking for shortcuts. What are the artist's strengths (often easier to see), and what are their weaknesses (sometimes tougher to spot). So then the weakest pieces tend to have a stronger weight, and should be omitted.
Having said that, my portfolio does not hew to that advice. I show old stuff to illustrate my experience. It's also hard to discard older work that I spent hours obsessing over, but I should probably be more ruthless.
Anyhow, it's worked OK for me in my career so far. I'm making more now that I ever was before, and still doing work I enjoy. Not in games anymore, but that's actually a good thing, for me.
In my experience, hiring especially for candidates with no previous experience and for non specific roles almost felt like an after thought.
And I've seen a significant difference between how a recruiter approaches hiring compared to the art team (senior/lead)
In my experience recruiters were very diligent focusing their assessment on if my work matched the requires in the job listing. Following this there would be an art test and then I would get to interview.
This approach meant that the portfolios that were assessed were difficult to compare and I can't say if any had hit a bar.
If there was a bar, it wasn't the quality of the work but rather if the metrics in the listing were met.
So every candidate was rightly assessed for their individual merits and then given an art test.
For example here are some candidates that did the EA art test
Ryan Lindsay (5 years ago) - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rR2vo2
Angus Tsang (2 years ago) - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rAgKEm
Dimitri (5 years ago) - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rRlbre
This was mine (2 years ago), the portfolio I used was the one that is current (minus the upgraded Zhou Yu character, I had applied in 2018 and received art test in 2019 was hired in 2022)
If you compare our portfolio's there's nothing there that suggests that any one of us was more a "Star Artist" or "had senior level art" than the other when we were hired.
And each of us has portfolio work that one could easily point out and say "weakest piece - delete portfolio"
I don't believe Ryan Lindsay was hired, but the others were my coworkers.
From this is is very evident that the impact of the portfolio doesn't seem to be as consistent as is popularly made out to be.
Meaning your work doesn't have to be senior level to get hired for a junior role or any level for that matter.
Its not very clear to me what senior level actually is when it comes to portfolios.
Here is a senior character artist position
https://ea.gr8people.com/jobs/179897/senior-character-artist-ea-sports
Knowing seniors personally, there is a lot of emphasis on industry experience, published game titles, mentorship and working with outsourcing partners
And this applies to several other studio's, looking through the portfolios of candidates that were hired at various levels, I can't see any indication that every single one was hired because their work was considered "senior level" on the first impressions of its quality alone. (i.e if it was top tier/ next gen/ world class)
If it was done for a published video game then it had more obvious senior level weight since this included industry experience and published game titles.
Many senior artists retained and showcased work that elicited a variety of perspectives when it comes to first impressions.
https://kotaku.com/cammy-will-see-you-now-1824272928
https://kotaku.com/guile-cammy-coming-to-fortnite-look-weird-1847418071
Personally I see that as progression or experimentation, so unless the work is downright criminal I don't see any real reason to discard it and humiliate the artist who created it.
I have noticed that once you have industry experience, the portfolio criticism is more flexible and forgiving though it really depends on who is giving it.
I do understand artists trying to play it safe, but I believe the emphasis for hiring needs to be on seeing balance instead of extremes atleast when it comes down to portfolios.
So instead of only seeing strenghts and weaknesses, better to assess the work for progression and growing potential.
I genuinely feel that assessing a portfolio is a very superficial way to judge a candidate for strengths and weaknesses.
An Art test properly administered and executed seems more thorough. (Should be paid though)
The art test metric was more on "doing the best you can given the time frame to achieve the likeness using all available tech and workflows"
The pipeline process in studio is considerably different, so the art test was precise, practical and flexible in what it was assessing.
I can certainly say that each candidate was reviewed individually, and if a comparison was to be made it didn't centre on the portfolio but more an overall assessment of the candidates suitability for the job given the budget allocated.
The Budget in the end seemed to be the single most important variable that impacted hiring and retention and it was affected by a wide variety of factors across several departments.
It is also what is responsible for the layoff's we've been seeing this year.
We had the luxury of hiring 10 artists to come on-site for what amounted to a 3-month paid art test. We trained them from scratch on how to use 3ds Max and our internal toolset. 90% of them ended up being hired after the 3 months.
Since we were able to train them, that meant I was able to assess artists coming straight out of school, or with zero work experience. We gave a simple unpaid art test: compose and light an untextured scene using whatever 3d software you want, using our models provided in FBX format.
So I assessed them mostly on potential rather than specific skills, and used a video interview to assess communication skills. Then the 3-month art test.
But really, the hiring process is about so much more than portfolio alone. Communication skills matter a ton. Would I want to work side-by-side with this person for months? Can they communicate effectively, or do they mumble or avoid answering simple questions or do they seem stoned and unfocused? There are a ton of factors beyond portfolio.
its why I didn't agree on the perspective that the portfolio for a junior needs to have senior level art.
Many students graduating with me would hold back from applying because they felt that their work didn't look like senior level art, when it reality it didn't need to be because of several factors beyond portfolio that mattered to the hiring process.
They were also not encouraged to apply saying that if they applied with a portfolio that wasn't good enough their poor performance would end up on their permanent record at a studio, like they had committed some sort of crime.
Horrible advice and there was a lot of peer pressure to be a rockstar artist and a ton of misinformation about the hiring process.
This also meant that they ended up discarding a ton of pieces for issues that could easily have been resolved as the tech and workflows improved.
I do feel that by and large many hiring managers do look at potential and this top tier, rockstar, world class nonsense really needs to be ground into dust.
Its more about whether people looking at the portfolio would prioritise knowing the progression of artwork, which is pretty self evident if they look through a portfolio organised by date.
And generally, because the portfolio is mainly used to justify handing out an art test, the advice of nuking everything is more related to ones own perception of older artwork rather than the general consense it can be made out to be.
A lot of production work is non destructive, so can be modified and evolved infinitely, this kind of thinking is important since it is used in studio.
For example, if I wanted to use the characters I've made with different outfits (weapons, armor, mech suits) by prioritising a workflow that makes this process seamless I can very quickly build production ready concepts which is a huge advantage for more effectively presenting my ideas.
I feel this goes more towards character concepting and visualization which is an area I want to grow in, since at the moment the work avaiable to me doesn't have the creative freedom I'm looking for though I do enjoy it for the technical aspects and problem solving.
Workflows available to artists have advanced to accomodate older work, and I don't feel that many are aware of this, and I do feel its imporant to get rid of redundancies.
For example in my current workflow, I am able to automate the bulk of the modeling, rigging and animation process, allowing me quickly capture the overall look to focus on fine tuning the details.
As I am working with a fully rigged model that has a non destructive skinning workflow, I can easily move back and forth making any adjustments I need and the ability to add body and facial animation seamlessly also improves my presentation.
Its a steep learning curve and a lot of problem solving, both of which I enjoy.
I feel that the workflow improvements I've made would showcase a wider ranger of work and skill, hopefully enabling me to be hired beyond the level I was hired at before so I can take on more responsibility.
But I do wish the advice on porfolios for artists looking to get their first job was more specific rather than just giving a high five for a great first impression. But this is on the artist to ask for and they might not always get the right advice.
I think this a misunderstanding, or a flawed way to frame it.
It's not so much that juniors need to magically have senior skills in order to apply ; it's just that given how incredibly low the barrier to entry is for CG art (the cost for the software is now literally zero / any cheapo but well-maintained computer can run it / computing power is not a limitation anymore for anyone to produce great quality model and images / and online art education is freely available for anyone motivated enough to look for it), there is a very high chance that someone applying for a so-called "junior" position will be competing against other very motivated applicants (either out of school or completely self-taught) that have art and tech skills far above that of the average student coming out of art school.
As for the topic of showing older work : I think showing old work done at lower specs is pretty damn cool, and makes for a great conversation starter. But I really don't see the point of showing something that one thinks looks bad/off. IMHO this would be literally wasting the time of the person conducting the interview.
The challenge I'm finding is how to assess art as being at senior level.
If the barrier to enter is that low, why is that juniors with no industry experience but with clearly senior level art are hired as juniors?
I've seen seniors being hired for internships and this seems to be more of an issue with a saturated industry where game artists aren't being evaluated for their full potential, or atleast their full potential doesn't matter as much as the budget studio's have to work with to hire and retain artists which is far lower than the budget put to marketing the game and the studio.
Heck, so many of the artists laid off were promoted as being the greatest in the industry but we couldn't count on a single executive taking a pay cut to retain them.
So while its true that these junior postions are getting applicants that are clearly over qualified when it comes to their portfolios, I'm not entirely clear about how much weight a portolio actually has on the final decision to hire a canditate as opposed to what its impact is on first impressions which can be variable.
So a blanket statement like "as a junior you need senior level art" doesn't make a whole lof of sense to me because nobody really knows how the portfolio is actually assessed internally.
There's a thread here on polycount,
https://polycount.com/discussion/187512/recently-hired-in-aaa-show-us-your-portfolio
Looking through this it is not clear at all if each portfolio was assessed on its individual merits, comparitively or not at all.
But certainly as artists it is important to keep pushing the bar you set for yourself to surpass.
I did notice that the artist that I truly do consider as distinguised (Mike Nash, Paul Pepera, Vitaly Bulgarov) didn't really care about what level their art was at, since to them, they are their art are perpetually a work in progress.
And I can't blame artists, especially ones getting their first job, for feeling that it all came down to their portfolio, I felt the same way and it was promoted like this by recruiters and seniors with clear marketing lingo that clearly didn't seem to reflect on the compensation in many cases.
As artists I felt its important to provide this full perspective to new hire's so they can more clearly understand what they have to work with.
Like I can certainly assess seniority as a position since there are very clear metrics for this in the industry and its all listed in job postings and internal career tracks.
From the metrics I know from EA, to be hired at a senior position, it was a combination of headcount and budget, industry experience, published titles and personal work in that order, that decided if I would be hired.
Not entirely sure how it is in other studios, but I was encouraged to keep applying since the order these metrics are applied in can be flexible depending on timing and market.
Personally for new hires with no industry experience I feel that a portfolio provides a very superficial assessment of an artists ability to be a corporate employee and should only be used to validate assigning an arttest as part of the hiring process.
Following this there is a probation period which gives the best idea of how capable the employee actually is.
And artists do have to jump about a few times to get the compensation and responsibility they want and this is because the industry lacks a union to establish a parity across the board.
For people with industry experience and published titles I don't think the portfolio matters as much for personal work as compared to professional work or atleast its likely more impacted by the competition at that level.
I'm also not sure if they are asked to do art tests, and most times if it didn't work out it was because of disagreements on compensation and relocation requirements.
I certainly received more interest to poach me when I was employed.
Many times an employee would be poached by a different studio and given higher compensation and seniority, and then this employee would be hired back by their previous company with even better terms for what is essentially the same job and responsibility they had to begin with.
Even if this is seen as a net benefit to the individual this is a practice, I personally detest it because of the damage that it does to the team and project when an employee leaves mid contract for reasons that are clearly selfish.
Then again it can be a lifeline for some.
Also, Junior doesn't mean "not great at the job". It just means : very good at the job, but just getting started career-wise, and without enough knowledge of team dynamics to be hired directly at a higher position.
Could you perhaps clarify your question/point ? The "old work" topic is pretty straightforward I think : if it's old but cool, showing it is cool. If it's old by cringe, showing it is a waste of time for the interviewer.
After all, preparing a portfolio for an interview is an exercise in curation, and this alone can say a lot about the applicant. If they insist on showing old (bad) work just to show how much they progressed, that's a bit of a red flag since the new (good) work is what matters.
https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/o4/japoualefusy.png
What is specifically this 2018>2023 upgrade you are talking about ? Presenting this as a case study of an upgraded model would only leave the interviewer puzzled because the two states are identical. This could actually be more detrimental to the interview than simply showing the single version that you rate as your best ...
My point was that I felt that a portfolio was at best a superficial and subjective way of assessing a candidates potential, more could be gauged from the candidates performance in the art test and during probation.
Like at best the portfolio gave the impression that the candidate was good enough, not very good at the job though might have the potential to be.
But in the end what really mattered was the budget and headcount.
It didn't seem to me that companies were hiring the greatest rockstars (even if this was insisted by their marketing teams), rather they hoped to find artists good enough that could adapt to internal pipelines and would be easy to work with and communicate
About hiring directly to senior, I suppose it comes down to familiarity, so this probably justify's hiring a senior artist from one company to another at a senior level since they have industry experience.
So even if they don't have knowledge of team dynamics at the studio they are joining, their previous experience at the other studio may be similar.
For me, I'm hoping that addressing where I'm lacking makes a difference, and since I know others internally, it would be easier to communicate improvements alongside showcasing them visually.
I was meaning showing old work for comparison purposes, and certainly choosing to improve it is on a case to case basis.
I've noticed that for many artists, old work has considerable shame attached to it which shouldn't be the case since it really is possible to improve on it with modern workflows.
So comments like "This work brings down the whole portfolio" shouldn't have to mean destroying the work in question.
More setting it aside until it can be brought out of retirement and improved on.
About old work looking cool or cringe, I think the assessment needs to be more detailed.
For example in with work that is old compared to newer works.
The viewers in this article
https://kotaku.com/cammy-will-see-you-now-1824272928
were horrified.
However the commentary on the artstation is quite unanimous in approval for a variety of reasons.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Z8nZw
And certainly its a different crowd, but the initial first impression is... I mean I'm more on the artstation camp focusing on the technical merits, but many people lost sleep that day to horrible nightmares featuring Camy.
A friend of mine had to play hours of street fighter beating up Camy just to get the image out of his mind.
Imagine if the critique on this piece was "it brings down the whole portfolio, he should leave the industry, what an utter waste of an interviewers time, nuke the whole portfolio"
Which makes little sense considering the many many examples of work that has significant merit.
Its important to see the creators intent and focus in the piece, rather than dismissing it since its cringe.
Hence I have a problem with limiting a critique to superficial commentary like "work needs to be like senior" or they have to be "star students"
I personally found this advice stopping students from applying when in reality many studios were looking for a reason to give an art test and the bar was far lower that what is popularly projected in social media.
Also a lot of portfolio assessment seemed more subjective which is a serious issue considering a subjective portfolio critique isn't matching hiring metrics established at the studio and there is a greater chance of bias, especially in affirmative action hiring.
If its about showing old work to illustrate progression, it should be indicated as such at the end of the presentation as a case study.
Sorry I just posted the image, here is a link to a page with more comparisons.
https://nikhilr.artstation.com/projects/49L0vY
The upgrade is still a work in progress, so I do mean to update that post with more focus on the upgraded model followed by the comparison as a case study.
The upgrades were in the model,
topology has been completely revamped for improved facial and body rigging and animation.
Shaders and textures were enhanced to better showcase the detail using improved lighting.
And the workflow
Non destructive workflow between Zbrush -> character creator -> Unreal 5 which I found to be really efficient and replicates some of what I used in studio more closely while being very user friendly.
The main differences are in what I am expected to focus on to apply for a senior position. (blend shapes, facial expressions, hair geometry)
This model was already considered as one of my better realistic models, so I was asked to focus on blend shapes which you can see in this facial animation demonstration,
The process to do this with the original model was very tedious, I would say metahuman was the next best bet, but even that came with many problems so I preferred character creator.
I'm currently working on the hair.
The 2019 Zhou Yu character
(I mislabled the date as 2018, its 2019 since that's the date of the last render for the old version, I've corrected this on artstation)
was seen as one of my better realistic models at the time though it was created after I received an art test based on a portfolio with the 2018 model of Khan Noonien Singh below (comparison shown)
Neither model wasn't indicative of whether they were good for animation, which I'm hoping to make more apparent with the 2023 versions which are fully optimized for facial and body animation and I can demonstrate a range of expressions and blend shapes.
You are not showing a single screenshot showcasing the topology of the character.
Rima : an employer is not a teacher.
I'll add the wireframe comparison for the body once I am done the skinning process.
Its much easier to have consistent topology across all characters of different styles.
2019 on left, 2023 on right
The hiring system is portfolio assessment -> art test -> 2 interviews
Portfolio assessment
There was no feedback available on this until after I was an employee.
When I showcased my progression internally to seniors, leads I was able to get feedback on the improvements I made and what I could do to push it further.
About showing progression in portfolio,
While recruiters were looking more at the resume and confirmed if the candidates profile matched what was listed in the job listing.
Art reviewers (senior artists, leads and art directors) were looking at the quality of the work with regards to what was considered sufficient to be given an art test.
So if you have characters that hit those metrics (software used), that was considered sufficient to be given an art test.
Showing progression for a candidate applying for a first job wasn't mandatory, and the focus was more on the candidates performance in the art test.
If I was applying for a second engagment/higher position, they said that showing progression helped since it allowed them to better assess where I was and what I did to get to where I am now.
But its important to present the progression as a case study that doesn't confuse recruiters.
One approach is to have it in a blog, or at the end of a model presentation.
So certainly they do care at EA atleast and it isn't actively discouraged.
Art test
This was done very specific to art test requirements so I wasn't asked to show any work in progress to illustrate progression.
Interview
This is where progression really mattered, and it was useful to have work in progress or earlier iterations to show how the model improved and my approach to character creation.
Of course you need to come prepared with this and it certainly adds weight to the assessment of your work.
I felt at EA it was critical to show this given how much of the art is repurposed and reworked.
I didn't really understand this perspective,
While most employees certainly don't have teaching degrees, several employees I worked at EA were teachers at local game dev schools or had previous teaching experience at various levels. At a more formal level, some seniors were assigned as mentors and there was significant teaching involved when it came to coordinating workflow and processes with other studios and outsourcers.
So at EA, every employee was a student and every employee was simultaneous a teacher since it really was a collective collaborative effort and everyone was always learning and sharing what they knew from their experiences in life and game development.
What mattered was taking the initiative to learn and teach, and there were more formal initiatives like skill swaps and workshops to organise and attend. There was a budget set aside for this.
And most new hires required a full overhaul of their process to adapt to internal pipeline and workflows.
So there was a lot of teaching involved.
A job in not a university/school/apprenticeship. People are hired for the skills they have, not for some nebulous "potential". If I am looking for someone to do some retopo or baking, I am not going to hire someone who "shows potential" for that skillset, or someone who barely started learning it. I'll be looking for someone how knows how to do it well. Pipeline-specific things that one may need to learn or teach on the job are really quite trivial, and really have not much relationship to what a portfolio demonstrates.
It's not that the employer "cares" or not about progression ; it's just that when looking for someone with a particular skill, "progression" is irrelevant. If someone has portfolio pieces with wonky topology and UVs, it would make no sense to hire them for retopo and UV job - regardless of how much worse their modeling and UVs were earlier.
I'd go as far as saying that things like modeling and UVs are binary anyways : there's no real middle ground between being good at it and poor at it. After all, even though game art is incredibly technical, the core technical fundamentals (modeling, UVs) can be self-taught in a matter of months/a year. So someone still doing wonky topology and UVs after years of doing game art show the opposite of potential. Rather it demonstrates a lack of discipline and dedication.
Interestingly, my experience was completely different, as were many of my colleagues in AAA.
The was no manual retopo or uv needed, since proprietary plug-ins took care of most of the heavy work.
The bulk of the work was reviewing and updating outsource assets. Very rarely was something made custom in studio and that was if there was nothing in the asset library to modify and reuse.
Many of the tasks you mentioned were made near redundant by plug-ins we used.
Not that we didn't know how to retopo or make uv's and even those had to be made following very strict guidelines learned in studio, it's just that since they were so repetitive tech artists had built tools to automate them.
So I certainly wasn't hired for the skills I had, but rather my potential to adapt to the studios workflow and processes.
In this regard progression really mattered since it showed my eagerness to learn and adapt.
The skills I had I certainly couldn't use them the way I did to make my portfolio.
Also learning pipeline specific workflows were not trivial, it was quite the learning curve and you are correct about it having little to do with the portfolio.
In fact it had little to do with the art test as well.
I suppose it really comes down to the studio you work at and if they are using proprietary tools and workflows.
I think its a good thing that many studios are automating repetitive tasks since it increases efficiency.
For freelance work it's likely you'd need to have a more hands on approach but there are ways to automate them depending on the tools and plugins used that I find many aren't as aware of.
*Of course* there are pipelines that don't involve manual retopo and UVs. My point is, *IF* I am looking for someone to do retopo and UVs work (or any other task), I am not going to hire someone who's bad at it just because they used to be even worse at it in the past. I am simply going to hire the best person I can find for the task, as demonstrated by their work. And ironically ... that person probably has the best potential to be great at other things too.
Let's say someone gets hired as an associate/implementation artist, involved in a very heavily automated pipeline like the one you describe - not involving any manual modeling and no sculpting whatsoever. Yet, that person demonstrates a great eye for structure and shape hierarchy through the way they build awesome low-spec Dreamcast-style lowpoly passion models in their free time. Or perhaps their are doing great sculpting studies or handpainted fanart of this or that game/movie - basically bettering themselves outside (and far beyond) the scope of job they were hired for. And maybe this person is asking their coworkers for art advice during lunch time, and so on.
This person would then become a perfect candidate when an internal position opens up for, say, being part of the core team of a new project entering pre-production, for which there is no automation or basemeshes (or even art style) established just yet. *That's* the kind of potential that an AD/Art lead would be keeping their eyes peeled for !
At that time there would be more logistical information to work with such as headcounts, budgets, project duration and internal restructuring to work with.
Why would you hire someone for a job they might do in the future when they may be bored/incompetant with the job they are assigned now?
Not to say that we shouldn't encourage artists to develop a great eye for structure and shape hierarchy but isn't there a higher chance that such a candidate might end up leaving a company if they find an opportunity for these skills elsewhere?
Like there is significant risk I'm hiring with this mentality unless retention isn't an issue.
There's always an opportunity to develop relevant skills on the job too.
My focus was more on the minimal actually needed in a portfolio to be given an art test and I'm still not seeing any real evidence or consensus that the work needs to be senior level, or if there even is a "senior level" that is respected across the board.
I think this comes down to lack of transparency in the hiring process which is a whole different beast that is very difficult to resolve. Very few are actually willing to speak about this or work place polititics openly, though it is possible to get more perspective on this through glassdoor.
There is a difference in expectations on people getting their first jobs/ early in their careers vs people with significant/relevant experience. Certainly more subjectivity and speculation than in any other industry I've worked in.
This topic was more on how to repurpose older work using new tech solutions using methods that are currently used in many AAA studios as opposed to a purely conventional approach and discussing what makes an candidate a top tier rockstar and if that is a necessity to be hired.
You're doing the exact same misinterpretation again ...
I am not saying that an associate demonstrating good art skills on the side would be the *absolute, without a doubt, in all cases, all the time* ultimate best candidate to become part of the core team for the preproduction of a new project. What I am saying is that out of two internal candidates currently doing grunt work as associates, the one with great art/anatomy skills doing passion game art projects on the side and constantly bettering themselves has more chances to be picked up for an internal opening that the one who doesn't do any of that.
"I think this comes down to lack of transparency in the hiring process".
The hiring process doesn't need to be any more "transparent" IMHO. All one needs to do to be hired for an art job is to match the quality of the projects they aim to be hired on. And when it comes to more technical positions (things like retopo or any other not-so-artistic tasks), the ability of an applicant can be assessed with just a handful of model screenshots. Landing the job may not be easy, but it is quite straightforward ...
"At that time there would be more logistical information to work with such as headcounts, budgets, project duration and internal restructuring to work with."
These are more tangible than subjective speculation around how a candidates skills that aren't useful now may become useful later because they have passion and the studio takes the initiative to accommodate this passion.
It felt far fetched that a studio may abandon its automated workflows to allow a more manual approach to anatomy by candidates skilled in anatomy studies when the whole purpose of automation is to end subjectivity in the appraisal of artistic quality and create uniformity atleast when it comes to modeling from concept.
In my experience tech art always took priority in deciding the most efficient approach to finding automated solutions and there was a much higher budget allocated to that than towards passion or skill of a model artist using conventional workflows.
Not saying passion shouldn't be considered, but at least in my experience it was the art test (not the portfolio) that established the skill level of the candidate and the interview was used to gauge other skills that would be relevant to the current project.
Also it was difficult to gauge the impact of skill, passion and potential to employee retention.
The single two most important factors that impacted retention were headcount and budget, and when it came to the employee many of them stayed with companies because they were passionate about the product/license regardless of what they contributed to it.
I didn't really meet anyone who would voluntarity leave to pursue their passion unless they got a better offer from a different company regardless if that offer included a provision to pursue their passion there.
The majority applicants were drawn to the games/ brand and were gamers themselves and very few were willing to speak about how different the actual dev work was compared to what expectations they had or were set through marketing. Hence the emphasis on greater transparency across the board which could be established through unionization.
At EA there was no work I would call "grunt work", everyone from junior to lead did much the same work at different capacities.
The main difference was the experience on the job meant that higher ups had better understanding, took more volume, had more responsibility, accountability and authority and were able to mentor associates on best practices, work flows and working with outsourcing partners.
All of the grunt work was taken care of through automation and plugins.
Event the outsourcers didn't do grunt work. They just took on higher volumes at lower prices.
I do hope other studios are improving their workflows to increase efficiency.
That way the work assigned is more monitoring and tweaking than doing the heavy lifting.
I felt that the EA process was far more transparent than at other studios which didn't have art tests.
There was no expectation to match the quality of a studios art in a portfolio, and the art test expectation was to do the best possible.
I provided examples above where you can see the difference in the work submitted.
Neither of us were required to match the quality expected but we certainly seemed to have reached the minimum needed
Having senior level work as a junior was not a requirement.
Maybe EA is just more sensible and realistic when it comes to hiring.
Hence what I've been saying that there is no need to be a star artist to get hired or atleast that isn't applying uniformly across the board.
Alex's summary was very on point in the other post on unconventional criticism and i feel that speculative hiring practices aren't very professional.
... what ?
- - - - -
Alright, the Christmas spirit came upon me and I think I am finally starting to understand these various portfolio-related threads, and why some of the advice given to the OP may or may not apply.
Not every studio has the same expectation for jobs, and not every studio uses the EA Sports terminology, whatever it may mean. This may not seem obvious for people from the outside but this is a rather widely know situation for people who've been through a few studios.
Also, not every team/studio makes their art team members (I am purposedly not using the term "junior" here, because it is meaningless ; and I am not using the term "artist" either) start with months/years of asset implementation tasks for which artistic skills are irrelevant. Some studios do indeed need implementation workers, taking the implementation weight off the shoulders of "artist-artists" (the ones in charge of art tasks requiring knowledge of color theory, anatomy, and all things art-related to the job of interpreting a piece of concept art and turning it into a beautiful game model) ; some don't. For instance I've been at studios where implementation people were really necessary, because the engine import process was a waste of time and ressources so it made sense to have people dedicated to that (and I am eternally grateful for them, as they allowed the art team to operate very smoothly). While at others places, the pipeline was so integrated that not a single minute was spent doing manual import. In such a case an "implementation artist"/associate could be in charge of setting up bakes for instance. But someone hired as a "junior artist" wouldn't necessarily have to go through that before being assigned "art-art" tasks. In this case being a junior simply means having less studio experience than veterans, but being just as good as them art-wise (i.e. the thing you refer to as "being a rockstar").
So *of course*, at a studio where the art quality of a portfolio is irrelevant and most of the production is automated through the use of a character creation toolset, the applicants will not be judged on the aesthetics of their work - because it would be, as said, irrelevant. But this is a very specific case not at all representative of all game art jobs.
When people advise an applicant to take some time to better their artistic eye/anatomy, they *of course* mean it in the context of potential jobs where said artistic eye is relevant. There are absolutely such jobs out there, and they are absolutely reachable as a first job/out of school, as a so-called "Junior" hitting the ground running. And for such jobs, a successful application is not at all about reaching some nebulous minimum skill level. It is about being able to stand out well above the rest.
That's really all it is,
Its why I felt that there needs to be more transparency in the hiring process and more awareness of what actually are the responsibilities and workflows within studios.
And certainly its upto the candidate to do more research. This can become challenging many artists currently employed aren't willing to be open about their experience for a variety of reasons.
I just don't find a whole lot of consensus or emphasis on what the reality actually is, and it becomes necessary to go into specifics rather than applying a broader brush to what it actually takes to get into the industry.
Using the common advice of "you have to be a star", or that "a particular artist was hired because they were stars" many artists might stop trying because they burn out trying to be something they don't need to be to get a job thats overhyped for marketing reasons.
While I cetainly support hiring for skill as well as potential, I feel that this mentality should apply differently depending on the scope of the work and established studio practices/resources. (not to forget workplace politics)
Its exactly as Alex said which hits hard given the layoffs we're experiencing.
It does help to inquire about the hiring process from recruiters/employees and look through reviews on sites like glassdoor before applying.
And I don't think the lack of transparency will change atleast not directly from companies involved, so its important for artists with experience to share their experiences so candidates applying have a better idea of what to expect.
This topic was just me sharing ways I've found to upgrade older work using tools and workflows I've found to be really useful and comparable to ones I used during my employment.
I personally didn't find any benefit in discarding my older work (which was the the advice I was given) and my experience with this approach has so far been very positive.
At some point you have to use common sense though. Just because someone gave you bad advice doesn't mean that said advice is the norm. And perhaps just perhaps, when people mentioned to not show old work, they maybe meant specifically "old-bad" work, and they were trying to help you avoid being trapped in a sunk cost fallacy. And perhaps the advice to not show an old piece related *specifically* to a piece from your portfolio that was indeed hurting it and lowering your chances compared to other candidates with a more curated folio.
Of course old work can we reworked to better standards. It's obvious and not even something to wonder about.
However, insisting on showing the "before" state is quite universally a bad idea I think. It only shows a lack of confidence and somewhat of a "not quite out of school" mindset - like hoping for a good grade from a teacher as a reward for progression as opposed to simply demonstrating ones skills to a potential employer.
That's why the samurai "case study" is IMHO counter-productive in the way you are presenting it. By insisting on showing the "old" version, you only demonstrate how little improvement was made. Whereas if you only showed the current version, it would be perceived as a competent model, just in need of a little more artistic polish and improved presentation.
So yes, in this case showing "old" work is indeed a bad idea IMHO and could have a negative impact, even though there was nothing inherently wrong with the idea of reworking the piece to begin with.
And on a more personal sidenote, i think its a better approach to make new art pieces rather that rehasing old ones, idk, something about it just feels weird, I think it is not a good look when an artist is not adding new art pieces in their portfolio for years at a time, it sends a signal that the person is not improving in their own free time or is not interested i guess. once again, i mention it only from the position of prop artists, because props should't take too much of a time to avoid just doing a new one. i know that characters usually take much more time
- What aspect of the model is being upgraded
- The working files are easily accessible
- Awareness of tools and workflows that have proven results or have potential.
- The time you can afford to spend on this task
- If this practice affords more in the long term.
- An artists general attitude to older work and social perceptions
For example, back in game dev schools we were all assigned fire hydrants as the first model assignment, and if I were to be entirely honest, none of us were satisfied with the outcome.
There was no substance painter, the workflow was 3ds max for modeling, photoshop for texturing and UDK for rendering.
Can I upgrade this? sure
Would it have equal impact as a next gen fire hydrant? It depends on what the objective is.
The process of upgrading in this case might focus on technical aspects and help with learning new tools.
There's still the matter of making it appealing which has more to do with marketing than technical skill.
So a next gen fire hydrant for watch dogs 2 might have less impact than a next gen fire hydrant that transforms into a robot and fights magical arsonists (See Promare)
I still don't know what next gen really means,
but the whole point of upgrading this piece isn't just to learn and use new technologies and workflows but to add modifications that might enhance its appeal.
Kinda like what Batman did to the batcave after Ra's Al Ghul burnt it down.
From the list above, the first 4 are very practical and tangible, the last one "An artists general attitude to older work and social perceptions" was the single biggest deterrent to upgrading that I found and was highly personal.
Many of my colleagues couldn't bare to look at older work given the humiliation they suffered attempting to get it critiqued. They also generally lost interest given what they felt could get more attention and how social media impacts what you choose to focus on.
Personally for me, working at EA definitely influenced my decision to consider upgrading older work since this is very routine in the studio's workflow. Of course having the right tools to accomplish this is a big motivator.
I'm still not at that stage when I can increase the appeal of my upgraded characters, since I'm focusing on technical and visual upgrades, but I have plans to give them newer outfits that range from sci fi armors of various designs to conceptual explorations of creature concepts.
I'm approaching this gradually since I am aware of what is needed to reapply.
With EA i'm looking for a second engagment at an intermediate level, so upgrading work makes more sense to me.
I'm not entirely sure what impact a portfolio that hasn't been upgraded with newer work actually has, I've adressed this in the post below since its a longer discussion on how portfolios are evaluated and there are many perceptions on this.
And certainly characters used to take more time but with newer tools its way faster and very non destructive and flexible so upgrading older work has become a whole lot more appealing to me.
I was able to have all of my work evaluated for a default "this is your worst piece, you shouldn't have it in your portfolio." except the dog that had universal appeal.
Of course I only took this advice seriously if it came with additional advice on what the work was lacking specifically and what I could do to improve it.
After my experience at EA and also conferring with colleagues from other AAA studios, I've found that there is no real consensus on how much impact a portfolio actually has on the hiring process for junior artists.
I find it varies for junior positions especially ones that require a mandatory art test.
Now setting aside aspects that are more impactful like
headcount, budget, diversity hiring practices for companies
&
referrals, prior industry experience, published titles for candidates
At EA the process is
portfolio -> art test -> interview
The portfolio is only evaluated for the purposes of giving the art test.
A recuiter spends the time needed to review the work and see if it matches the requirements in the listing.
Then an art test is granted following which it is evaluated by internal teams
Then an interview may be granted if headcount and budget allows for it.
Any candidate that is rejected at any stage is kept on file.
Receiving a rejection email doesn't mean that a candidates portfolio was deemed insufficient by comparison or otherwise.
The portfolio may be approved and deemed sufficient, but a rejection can happen for a variety of reasons.
This is where imposter syndrome usually takes over for artists who blame themselves and each other for their portfolio being the cause of the rejection despite having no confirmation from a studio on this whatsoever.
Like in my personal experience it took 2 years following the art test in 2019, to be asked to interview in 2021 when the pandemic had created more favorable market conditions for hiring.
Does this mean that if my portfolio had been "star artist" quality, they would have lovingly set aside budget in 2019 and maybe even fired a few people to accomodate me? Not necessarily.
Like personally I feel that each situation needs to be evaluated with credible information instead of speculation since there is no transparency in the hiring process when it comes to portfolios.
Its difficult to assume that hiring in every case is focused on finding the best possible star candidate for a longer term engagament but this is simply not the case across the board, so its important to do more research on company hiring processes prior to applying to set realistic expectations.
Its an interesting perspective.
I would only really show the before state within a case study at the end of a presentation or a seperate topic and I do have to curate my portfolio to accomodate this.
I'm finding it difficult to understand how showing a before state would be a bad idea for the reasons you'd mentioned, since at the studio this was common practice with every model assigned.
A major part of the workflow was to show older work besides the newer iteration for comparsion and approval so I feel that demonstrating this competancy within a porfolio should have weight even if its not expected to be the focus.
In that sense when I see a polished portfolio with perfect pieces and little to no information on the process, I find it difficult to evaluate what level a candidate applying is actually at and whether the candidate can work iteratively.
In my experience the portfolio was evaluated for the minimal skills required to be granted an art test.
The art test was then used to evaluate for more specific skills and the approach a candidate uses in a controlled setting.
Where I did get to speak about progression and demonstrate it with examples was during the interview.
I don't necessarily expect every recruiter to prioritise a case study.
In fact after researching on how much time recuriters and art teams actually spend reviewing portfolios it is very variable and heavily impacted by headcount and budget than artistic merit especially in AAA studios with high turnover and applications.
So certainly best not to include anything that might create confusion or be counterproductive, but with no real tangible information about this from the actual hiring team, I find it best not to speculate and work with information I have from the studio.
For other companies, I would expect a similar approach since I feel its more professional, but I can certainly work with their needs provided they are transparent about them.
I personally didn't find any benefit in discarding my older work (which was the the advice I was given) and my experience with this approach has so far been very positive.
I'm not actually sure why it went off topic or came across as me validating my work.
Sorry if showcasing the reality of my hiring experience comes across as a bit of a downer considering how the game industry hypes itself.
In the end companies are businesses and operate like the corporates they are.
Not necessarily a bad thing, but I certainly didn't feel good about all the star senior artists with years of experience that were layed off this year, that I'm now expected to compete with for junior to intermediate positions.
And yes it is true that my upgrades are targeted towards EA since my chances of getting hired there are better given previous experience and references and I was made aware of what exactly I needed to improve to join for a second engagment.
But this process can be applied accross the board and really does compare well to AAA workflows by doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
EA is my best reference point since its a direct experience so certainly more tangible and a sound point of reference for comparison with other studios that do follow very similar pipelines.
I also haven't read many posts that delve into hiring processes in detail, or how pipelines in AAA studios are heavily automated with plugins and proprietary tech and is a major collective effort not just with internal teams but with 100's of outsources that don't necessarily receive any production credits.
And I felt that the actual impact of portfolio is, in my opinion, highly exaggerated compared to the reality of its assessment during the hiring process.
You could go through this thread,
https://polycount.com/discussion/187512/recently-hired-in-aaa-show-us-your-portfolio/p1
and it becomes pretty clear that there is no real consensus on what is considered good work, but some vague understanding of what is good enough which is far lower than what many might categorise as senior level star artist work.
"... and it becomes pretty clear that there is no real consensus on what is considered good work"
I disagree. Even a single picture can be enough to classify an applicant as belonging to either of two categories :
1 - artists that demonstrates great skills and potential, who are constantly bettering themselves through art study, and applying all this to their portfolio pieces.
2 - applicants who are more of the "tech enthusiast" types, who perhaps came into game art mostly because they enjoy playing videogames and are mostly thinking of game art skills as bullet points (and are probably wasting a lot of time, because their focus might not be in the right place).
Of course it possible to transition from one category to the other, and everyone starts from 0 by definition ; but yeah as said things are pretty clear and straightforward to assess for reviewers. Even seemingly minor things like the contrast of pictures, the care given to the lighting, or even the color chosen as a background for model screenshots are dead giveaways. Garish images done without much thought tell a lot.
So yes, the quality of a portfolio is IMHO very straightfordward to assess. And no, there will never be any checklist for applicants to go through to be 100000000% sure that their work is good. But thankfully enough, more senior and experienced people will be more than happy to help and suggest various courses of action, all very achievable for any motivated individual.
- - - - -
Some more thoughts about this samurai case study again if I may.
Even though you made it go through the EA Sports pipeline that you've learned on the job, there are still many things that may make a reviewer see it as being barely an upgrade at all. After all, reprojecting a head to a better/standard topology is just a matter of a few hours worth of work ; and even the generation of 50ish blendshapes for facial performance can be done in less than a day when using the proper tools and source assets. So at the end of the day the only thing left to make this upgrade worthy is to make the presentation as good as possible. Yet ... you haven't even taken the time to map the neck bone for the full range of head movement, resulting in a very barebones video demo. So in the end this upgrade comes out more like an early WIP. Reviewers (AD, tech art lead, 3D art lead) will notice this instantly, I think. Where is the awesome cinematic shot that shows the character in the best way possible ? Where are the clean, careful taken and assembled screenshots of the highres source ? Where are the nerd-pleasing wireframe shots showing the love of game art craft ?
(Of course I understand that the above may sound harsh but I think being honest about these things is really quite important ...)
In some other studio there may be a person whose job it is to apply their best artistic taste and the measure of how good that taste is will be the target audiences reaction when they watch a trailer or similar. Still that is not super easy to quantify what the effect of spending an extra twenty hours on lighting or post process is, one way or another. One thing we know for sure is that you can make art that nearly all artist think is bad and consumers will absolutely love it. So I think there is a danger of artist getting too high on their own stink and the result could be that they explode a budget as they stay focused on things that won't have any effect.
I don't know, this sounds like some sort of fantasy to me. All the cases of "working too many hours for not enough pay" situations I've ever personally witnessed (emphasis on personally) were always self-inflicted by people who somehow convinced themselves that doing unpaid overtime was a normal thing - as opposed to being something coming from higher ups. Just because some studios are being accused of this and that by so-called game journalists doesn't mean that it is necessarily true. As a matter of fact, expecting someone to put in extra hours for free is completely counter-productive because is makes accurate planning impossible. A decent producer absolutely does *not* want anyone to put 20 hours into something that was supposed to take only 10.
One thing I've certainly witnessed though, is unprofessional people going directly to an artist for a "small request" as opposed to going through the proper team lead first. But it only really takes a single firm "please go submit this request to X, and they'll put it in the planning" answer to put these people back on track.
"ten senior artist argue endlessly over other merits of any particular games art."
I've personally never witnessed that either, and this sounds like something coming straight out of someone's imagination. Have you actually witnessed this ? People with experience and a well-developed artistic eye tend to be fully in agreement on that sort of stuff - mostly because it isn't rocket science really. It's complex and multi-facetted for sure, but it's not some kind of obscure cynically kept secret either. One could say that it is subjective, but professionals are able to contextualize things. First instance I doubt that ten senior artists would argue about the Cammy fan art with cartoony/MetalSlug proportions mentioned earlier and call it a "thing of nightmares" like gamers would. They would be able to see what the artist intended, with all the necessary context that the average gamer wouldn't be able to grasp.
Aren't you French though and working and France? If that is true, do you think stronger labor laws make for a better work environment there? I am sure it varies greatly based on laws and culture as well from place to place.
Now on the topic of art skills : I actually find it remarkable how quickly things can click, resulting in impressive personal transformations for artists over the span of a period as short as a year. Like people all of a sudden putting a lot of care into presenting their screenshots, whereas not long before that they might have taken a "well it's just a screenshot showing a wireframe, who cares about the background color !" kind of attitude. The Dota2 and TF2 Steam Workshops (at their peak, about 5ish years ago) used to be incredible breeding grounds for just that : people just starting out with game art having to compete with others based on the merit of their craft alone, hence not only mastering a rather technical game art pipeline fast (with the help of their peers) but also learning how to do great model presentations and even polished promotional images, either on their own or as a team. This stuff is just amazing - and these artists make for great hires.
I didn't mention "enthusiasts" as some kind of derogatory term. I mean specifically "tech enthusiasts" (like people being excited for a new operating system or the latest phone), who might be curious about game production (because it relates to the tech stuff they like) and might therefore be distracted by software and this or that pipeline instead of putting their time into the many affordable things that would supercharge their art skills - like the aforementioned participation in Steam Workshop efforts, or more simply things like taking a clay sculpting class, or being curious about color theory and stepping into a library to pick up a book about it.
"...what he was told..."
I think that's the core of the issue. IMHO people tend to get into (sterile) disagreements when they insist on using labels with absolute meanings, when a label is really just supposed to be a conversational aid. I like to think of this as "argument ad dictionarium" : people who think they know everything about a field just because they looked up the definition of a term, which in practice is far from telling the full story.
As said : not every junior position means low-skill ; not every studio is being run like EA-sports, doing athlete scans and stadium crowds ; not all artists coming out of art school will have the same skill level ; and not every opening (junior or otherwise) will have the same requirement (as you rightly noted with the case of your own projects).
So to me blaming studios for this and that immediately sounds like a coping mechanism. Also, a portfolio review is IMHO not to be seen as some kind of magical validation. During hiring it obviously serves as a first filter, but outside of that it serves as a fantastic opportunity to get some very valuable advice from experienced people. So straight out ignoring said advice because it doesn't seem relevant to reach some kind of minimum requirement is IMHO a recipe for wasting time and effort. At some point one has to be humble enough to realize that perhaps, people with more experience and in charge of hiring talent aren't all some cynical, fantasized evil ultra-capitalist monsters, and are actually worth listening to ...
About the character model I posted, the upgrade is a work in progress, so I'll be updating the post on artstation as I make upgrades.
Thanks for the suggestions on presentation, I will take it into advisement.
At the moment I'm not too concerned if a recruiter comes across my portfolio and finds fault with it given its not ready for new applications.
The applications I made last year have already been reviewed, that portfolio didn't have the post about the upgrade.
The only feedback I have for that portfolio is from EA which approved the portfolio and maintains it in my application file until I provide an update.
For the other studios the AAA ones are ubisoft, gameloft, coalition and there are a few outsourcing studios and indie studios I've applied to.
gameloft had shown interest when I was an EA, had some openings but I haven't received any rejection, the application is still in process (about 6 months now)
Ubisoft approved the portfolio but said they opening they had was no longer available and that they would contact me when it opens.
Indie studios have been mixed, the general impression I have is that it is a very competitive time, so I'm not really having my hopes up and I'm focusing on finding ways to upgrade my work.
I didn't receive any reply from Coalition, though their positon keeps going up every few weeks.
Honestly I think I would stand a better chance joining the above with a referral, regardless of what my portfolio looks like, but its not a good idea to get trapped in endless speculation unless I'm given a valid reason for rejection which isn't a boilerplate email I can't reply to.
It took 2 years to complete my hiring process with EA. So I'm not too concerned aboujt whether a update portfolio would change this, but having worked there it does provide the best chance of being hired and since I received feedback from there, applying it to my work and reapplying makes the most sense at this time.
------------
About my experience in the industry,
I do feel that the emphasis on portfolios is grossly exaggerated by studio marketing and artists employed there.
And luckily I didn't face this at EA atleast not from the artists employed there.
Portfolio's are likely thorougly analysed by alert and experienced senior creative professionals at other studios, in my experience I've only seen them being glossed over very briskly during busy schedules for a very superficial determination of the candidates readiness to be assigned an art test.
This is not just for EA sports but applied to other EA subsidaries as well.
Its not like reviewers didn't care, they just viewed it as a routine step in the hiring process, not something to obsess over and certainly not when the task doesn't provide additional compensation and has to be done during a work day.
As a policy, an art test provided enough vetting and made it uniform across candidates which I feel was very sensible.
You cannot get an art test unless you meet the minimum requirement and the hiring process moving forward may have nothing to do with your art test apprisal or what your portfolio has or doesn't have.
For example, towards the end of my contract I applied for a senior character artist positon at EA with the understanding that my portfolio was suffcient but could not proceed with the hiring process because they were still working things out with what they were actually budgeting for.
Even though the position was listed, they hadn't quite decided how much of the character art work would be outsourced.
Its not like they had any incentive to rush their determination of that just to accomodate me, and it doesn't have anything to do with where I stand artwork wise.
If the budget hasn't been allocated and the headcount isn't decided, then it just won't happen.
Even if an art director feels I'm a star candidate or I married his sister, I have to wait just like everyone else.
It might happen later, maybe, maybe not.
This is not something most companies will openly mention on job listings which will continue to linger for months resetting to receive applications which are maintained in application records even if they aren't going to be reviewed for months and there's a ton of applications to review before them, with new ones being received every week after.
This proved challenging when I was looking to refer candidates, I refered many to art posititions and the only one that came through was the tech art one since that was seen as high priority but employees have no way of knowing when it comes to referrals.
I don't think this is wrong, even if can be better managed. So much can change in a moment when it comes to recruiting.
Employee hiring cycles also influence stock prices, they have to balance internal revenue reviews with allocations to recruitment with projects falling through, so budgeting for this can suddenly fall apart and HR can go for weeks without hearing from payroll, since the concern is more on exisiting employees not on candidates with star potential that may or may not make a significant difference to justify allocating budget.
Thus, its not just my portfolio that on the bulletin board. Its a massive corporate machine, if I walked up to them with a garbage portfolio and a million in investment from a sheik in Saudi Arabia they'd hire me on the spot.
I also feel that overly critical art directors may needlessly impede the hiring process and interfere with established pipelines causing delays that conflict with budgeting and meeting milestones. Its difficult to agree on how much criticism is acceptable, studios do provide avenues to avert a crisis situation that is pretty robust.
While an art director may be the best judge of a candidates suitability it may not always align with studios requirements. There is a lot of politics at play but it is always measured with how much budget you can throw at it.
This is why when it came to hiring, the project manager had significant input as well. It was insufficient to work on the premise of my art being cool and my having artistic potential, if it didn't make sense to allocate any budget to support this premise now, or rather, if there was no budget to allocate, it just didn't matter,
I can always ask and reapply later.
The art test is looked over in more detail, but the consensus is to find a candidate that is good enough and can start asap, not go out looking for the greatest artist in the known universe.
If you are such an incredible artist/ have industry experience it does help to retain autonomy since your skills and credibility do make more financial sense to AAA companies to invest in from an outsourcing perspective.
For example Keos Masons is undoubtedly a well respected and highly sought after outsource studio, and is regularly contracted for their character work by many AAA studios.
But you don't see a studio offering them a million dollars to employ them or create an exclusive contract just because they are top tier, game industry veteran rockstars.
Certainly they charge a higher rate and have agency on who they choose to work with, but at least from a business stand point financially it makes more sense to work with them in this way.
And they know this too and pride their autonomy. They also maintain a side business selling highly detailed sculptures of their personal art.
In fact this is likely the only case where their autonomy and portfolio's truly matter with regards to brand identity.
For the rest of us who are applying to become employees, its wonderful to pride our artistic merits and massage our egos, but we're applying to corporate jobs that are pretty cool with hiring someone when they need to hire someone and that someone can be good enough so they can write them off on their books as a tax deductible business expense, laying them off later to raise their stock prices.
Also my industry designation NOC code is 52111 - Graphic arts technicians not 53122 - Painters, Sculptors, and Other Visual Artists, so a company that employs me isn't required to encourage my creative autonomy or even value it in the hiring process, they are using me to make money and I am providing them a service they are paying for and this is a better experience with some companies than others.
Personally I think of my self as between codes, so my priority is to find a good work life balance, be useful and have transferable and marketable skills.
There is no real celing to personal artistic development, I'm just finding that it isn't translating 1:1 to my responsibilities at the workplace, which is not something I was aware of before joining though it was somewhat indicated to me at the interview.
I'm a certain that with a longer engagement I can make a meaningful difference to increasing game industry transparency.
And I strongly feel that buzzwords like "top/god tier", "star, rockstar, superstar", "hustle", "culture fit" really ought to be retired permanently or atleast they shouldn't be common parlance among artists.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7146511889202561024/
I will be making a more comprehensive case study with more comparison images once they are out of WIP and certainly be improving on the presentation so it has greater impact.
The good thing about the workflow is that posing for presentation becomes a lot easier, I also have full range of blendshapes and expressions which I can add seamlessly and full body animation.
With the older workflow this proved difficult since the topology wasn't optimal or atleast it wasn't transferable like it is now.
Previously without actual rigging it was challenging to pose a model dynamically.
I understand that the current presentation for zhou yu certainly feels the same given what is available on artstation, but it is incomplete since I've yet to do his hair (the original model didn't have any hair) and add more dynamic animation samples.
I'll also change his pose to be more dynamic than the earlier one to make them more distinct.
With the company I'm reapplying to I would present it to the leads I worked with since this is meant to address the changes they requested, so it should certainly get the most visibility with them.
I don't know how other studios would react but I am hoping they see the models for their own merits even if they don't read through the case studies.
So far my experience with portfolio apprisals has been very mixed in the hiring process. I am hoping its seen as sufficient to be granted an art test.
I am adding 2 female models and 1 new hard surface piece which should round it out nicely.
As I run each piece through the new workflow I'm deciding if they are worth presenting.
Its a great learning experience since its helping me see issues I wasn't aware of before and since each model is being pushed towards being animation ready (for real this time) I think this should prepare me for greater responsibility at the workplace.
For instance, here is an upgrade of the much despised Gamagori model I made in 2017, (WIP)
In 2017 I had only taken the characters anatomy as far as I needed to add clothing, but I've thought to show it more this time.
I had also done the detailing in substance painter using its basic skin shader and very rudimentary variations in details since I felt it was enough at the time.
Now I have a much faster method to add anatomical details at very high resolution so this is a good way to test that out too.
The sculpt does not yet have details, I will add them soon and the workflow also allows me to blend my anatomical form and musculature with scan data with additional tweaking using morphs, so I am approaching creating anatomy very differently from how I used to before.
I will need to check the head/face with the upgraded shader and texture to decide if I ought to change it.
I've never really understood this saying.
If we were to apply it to work in studio, we've be cursing ourselves constantly given how many revisions need to be done on a piece before it is declared as finished.
I've also never really had an opportunity to present work like I would in a portfolio since once I'm done my part it is sent forward and by the time it gets its greenlight it might look totally different from what it was when I worked on it.
This is also why for professional work we see finished shots with the customary "The character art was a collective effort and I want to thank _____ and ____ for _____"
Sometimes I wish that NDA's were more flexible so we could actually show our professional working contributions in their true weak unfinished state instead of the super polished visuals we get once the game is published.
I mean what I had assessed from senior/ lead before it was sent down the pipeline didn't even look like what went into game given the rendering tech for the engine was constantly being improved affecting every facet of the character art which had to be revised constantly to keep up.
It is so different from what we do for our porfolio's, but I've been able to replicate studio workflow in my upgrading process.
Important discussion though to better understand the reality of the hiring process.
I still feel that the older model captured the personality better, (could not find the old hair texture file)
The anatomy is more realistic and I've added pore and skin details that were more generic in the 2017 version. I had just used substance skin in its default settings.
2017 version anatomy was more stylized and trying to mimic his concept art proportions.
It was only created as a base for the clothing, so now I've finished it and given it a full body skin texture.
With the 2024 upgrade I've tried to strike a balance, and simulated the clothing over the musculature
While the face structure is still the same, I feel it that with better shading and lighting the model does overall have a much higher degree of polish.
Hair is still WIP and I'm thinking about different solutions for metal (more matte, possibly painted)
This update feels more aligned to my objective though, and a great base to build the other uniforms.