Specialising Art Skills
polycounter
Firstly. Sorry for long post. Hope it aint too boring or pointless.
Ok. I'm a "Jack of all trades, Master of None". Which has proven to be very handy, as I like being able to adapt to new skills and it also helps me get jobs having a wide variety of skill. But its always been my goal to specialise at some point. I've been in the games industry for 3 years now and I think its time I started moving toward a specific skill in my profession and in my personnal work. For now my job requires that I have alot of skills and obviously I'll keep practicing other skills but I really need to focus myself toward something I think.
But what skill do I focus on?
Thing is, The reason I'm a Jack of all trades is that I can never settle on one skill from project to project. I see a nice model and say.."Oh..i'll do something like that next", or I see a nice 2D concept and try that, then I see a nice animation and decide to learn some rigging skills. You get the idea.
I have a fair idea of where I want to be in a few years time. Basically a 2D concept artist with 3D skills backing it up. So thats that sorted.
But what area of concept art then? Characters, Enviroments, Hard Surfaces (vehicles, props, guns, robots, etc...)
Well. I'd like to do all of them. And will probably have to in a concept art job unless I land a really specific role. But recently I've been thinking about doing Hard surface concepting. I havent really done alot in the past tbh. It tends to be more characters. But I think hard surface is probably my strongest disapline..Anyway. I'm going to start doing alot more robots, guns, etc and see if I find it rewarding enough. I think I will and hopefully I wont be distracted.
My Questions:
Was it your job that specialised you or was it your decision to focus in one direction?
Did any of you specialised artist suddenly find yourself too specialised and wish you'd been more of a Jack of all trades?
Should I just tell myself. "You are only going to do Robots for the next year or so!..ok?.....ok....".
I know this is alot to do with myself just getting on with it. But any other advice or stories on how you focused your skills would help alot.
Cheers
Ok. I'm a "Jack of all trades, Master of None". Which has proven to be very handy, as I like being able to adapt to new skills and it also helps me get jobs having a wide variety of skill. But its always been my goal to specialise at some point. I've been in the games industry for 3 years now and I think its time I started moving toward a specific skill in my profession and in my personnal work. For now my job requires that I have alot of skills and obviously I'll keep practicing other skills but I really need to focus myself toward something I think.
But what skill do I focus on?
Thing is, The reason I'm a Jack of all trades is that I can never settle on one skill from project to project. I see a nice model and say.."Oh..i'll do something like that next", or I see a nice 2D concept and try that, then I see a nice animation and decide to learn some rigging skills. You get the idea.
I have a fair idea of where I want to be in a few years time. Basically a 2D concept artist with 3D skills backing it up. So thats that sorted.
But what area of concept art then? Characters, Enviroments, Hard Surfaces (vehicles, props, guns, robots, etc...)
Well. I'd like to do all of them. And will probably have to in a concept art job unless I land a really specific role. But recently I've been thinking about doing Hard surface concepting. I havent really done alot in the past tbh. It tends to be more characters. But I think hard surface is probably my strongest disapline..Anyway. I'm going to start doing alot more robots, guns, etc and see if I find it rewarding enough. I think I will and hopefully I wont be distracted.
My Questions:
Was it your job that specialised you or was it your decision to focus in one direction?
Did any of you specialised artist suddenly find yourself too specialised and wish you'd been more of a Jack of all trades?
Should I just tell myself. "You are only going to do Robots for the next year or so!..ok?.....ok....".
I know this is alot to do with myself just getting on with it. But any other advice or stories on how you focused your skills would help alot.
Cheers