Question for Character Artists in the Field

yoyomon

Hey all. My name is Leng, and I’m currently studying to become a 3D artist, character art in particular. I’ve been lurking around here and other forums for quite some time gathering useful tips ‘n tricks and general information.

I’m curious about how life is like working at a studio as a character artist. I’ve browsed through sites like Gamasutra but searching for information there like looking for a needle in a haystack. I noticed that there seems to be a good amount of character artists here that are in the industry, and I’d like to ask how it’s like to work in the industry.

For instance, how’s a typical work day like? How much work is expected for a person on a normal day? As a character artist, are you expected to create some environment and asset art? Do you partake in concepting? What’s the length of time normally given for the completion of a character from concepting to completion? After a project has been completed, is there typically a new project already lined up to keep things going?

I’ll probably have some more questions as we go

yoyomon

Snefer

I' say what is expected totally depends on the company, the project, and yourself. Some companies are working really slow, some really fast. None of your questions can really be answered with a clear answer.

A character can take from one day to one month to complete, totally depends on what game/importance/schedule you are on. An unimportant background-character for an RTS does obviously not have the same time budget as a main character for a 3rd-person AAA-title, for example. Sometimes you partake in concepting, sometimes you dont, depending on how your team is layed out. For smaller projects its probably more common than the huge titles where everyone have a more defined role. And sometimes there is a new project waiting, sometimes not, it all comes down to project management and circumstance

Frenzy

i never partake in concept artist work , but i always ask him advise about right way of my model (mass, proportion, silhouette , color)

rawkstar

Depends on the company, the type of game and team structure. At smaller companies you will be expected to do more and you may have more leeway to jump around different disciplines, at a bigger company you may be relegated to performing 1 specific task, like some of the bigger companies out there separate modeling from texturing altogether, so all you'll have to do is come in and texture stuff all day and almost never even touch a 3d app, unless you need to bake maps or do uvs... on smaller teams you might be expected to do everything, along with concepting alot of the time because there may not be a designated concept artist or maybe he's busy doing other stuff.