Guidance needed!

oligstar

Ok, a few weeks ago my dads friend who is head of games art f or a games company once told me, as i am on my way to a career in the games industry i should check polycount.com and give it a go i had no idea what he meant until now, if anybody out there has any advice for me on where to start, i must say i have no idea what to do, a bit of advice would be greatly appriciated, what skills im going to need to work on and how i am going to go around doing this.

thanks a lot to whoever replies to this post. !

Rick Stirling

What skills and knowledge have you got at the minute?

Wells

step 1: pimp your shit in the p&p section
step 2: follow critiques
step 3: WIN

Richard Kain

The Pimping and Preview section is your best friend. It's all about the feedback. Work on your own pieces, and pimp them. Get feedback, digest it, and then adjust your work based on what you learn from the feedback. The more you repeat this process the better your overall work and technique will improve. Continue this process until your portfolio is hot stuff.

The Pimping and Preview section is also excellent for finding inspiration, and seeing what level the rest of your contemporaries are at. Some of the best of the best post their work here. And they often show the steps that they took in achieving their legendary pieces. Following pieces you like is a great way to get an idea of how to make your own pieces effectively.

The Tech Talk section is the place to go for specific technical issues and bugs that you might run into while working. It is also a great place to go for recommendations on software packages and game engines. In an industry driven by technology, this section is indispensable.

aesir

The way this place helped me when I was starting out, was that I was exposed to all these awesome artists, and then I went about trying to be like them.

Thegodzero

note: More than likely your first few posts in PnP will result in not getting any replys or just a few if your lucky, you just have to keep working forward. Also if you disregard all the crits given to you you wont get any more.

Marnik

Fellow Nooblet here, I've been lurking for a while and I've gotta say, the PnP section has some really inspirational stuff. Even if your art isn't as advanced as some of the others posted there, just keep at it and working on it. If there's something you can't figure out on your own, post it and surely enough it'll be critiqued by someone. It's what I'm doing, unfortunately I don't have a scanner or a tablet yet, so I'm stuck trying to critique my own stuff or bringing it to some of my teachers.

ru4it

Dont just check out the P&P check out the sketchbook part too! there is one person there that has some sweet art!

oligstar

i have no skills whatsoever i can draw okish thats about it lol, thats why i need some help on where to start

Rick Stirling

http://www.rsart.co.uk/2008/01/22/what-software-do-i-need/

Michael Knubben

I think people were confused about how far along you were when you said you were 'on your way to a career in the games industry'

Anyway, Rick, no mention of Silo in that post?

Mark Dygert

You really need to figure out what discipline within the industry you want to work. With little artistic talent it will be hard, but not impossible to get a job as an artist.

So I suggest looking into:

Design: Very hard to get into.
Programing: Lots of education, lots of openings also.
Technical Artist: Learn some scripting, work on automation, remove road blocks.
Artist: Sounds like you'll need a lot of training, much of which will need to be through self discovery with a good helping of guidance. This is a good place to stick around.
Q/A: Very low skill set needed but some pretty fierce competition. Not actually like playing games all day. Also low pay, and first to go when times get lean.