Is it normal for in studio employed 3d artist to work on.....

focus_method

.....sculpting /modeling/retopo/texturing of :
organic characters,
props,
blendshapes,
clothes,
hard surface  weapons
rocks
houses

I have started a journey in a studio which is a groupation of thq nordic and after one year good number of people got layed off, some of them decided to leave, we as  3d artists started working on all of these mentioned above. It became super hard and exhausting even im very passionate 4 this. Not just 4 me but 4 all of us mostly because of tight deadlines.

As far as i know u have like blendshape artists, then weapon artists,then character artists, then environment artist separated. We dont do grooming luckily

zetheros

if you're a 3d generalist, this sounds normal. I frequently do environment assets alongside monsters, weapons and character armour. If the work is becoming too much for the allowed deadlines, you need to let your lead know, especially if you're taking on the work of recently laid off coworkers, that demands extra pay and longer deadlines if they are unwilling to hire more staff, as this would be accepting additional responsibilities for no additional pay

Alex_J

is your studio paying the maximum that they can pay you, or are the paying the minimum that they can pay you? 

Your effort should be proportional to that. 

Personally the only way I am going to exhaust myself at a job is if I am a partner - e.g. a percentage of profits are coming back to me, and that I have full and complete trust in the rest of the team to deliver the project as visioned, and I have full confidence in the project itself to earn enough profit to make the hard work worth the effort. In other words, a highly unlikely scenario. 

If you are working for the ability to keep working for another month it doesn't make sense to do more than what you agreed upon in contract and not more. It just makes you a sucker to do extra for a team that isn't playing for you. Obviously standing up for yourself is useless if you can be replaced so if you can't communicate with all of the others stuck in same situation and create a group consensus about what to do, all you can do is just put up with it.

focus_method

 i live in small country which is not in EU,  in balkan , so its a different standard and living system. Its hard to spoeak of wages u know, its different.

focus_method

and also im curious is it normal to not be given finished assets approved by clients to add them on your personal portfolio? 
i have spoken with leads on this topic they told me portfolio is useless these days.
🤔

chien

not really useless, if applying to a new company they demand for that
but notice if someone have worke on the publish game or several game, they didn't bother to even ask and just interview them and before know it, they just get the offer. in fact, most people who worked on publish game didn't really update their artstations for longest time. i don't care much about portfolio alot, i'm more interested in solve issue and change workflow and process get something done.