Leap of Faith in finding job opportunity
I've been a graduate from college now for almost 2 years with a Computer Animation degree. I've been steadily increasing my knowledge and skills in 3D modeling, texturing, and sculpting since graduation. Not many job opportunities here in Florida as opposed to LA or maybe NY. Visited LA a month ago would definitely live there given a job opportunity...is moving out to LA my next step before given an job? My primary goal is to work for a Game Studio. Would love the opportunity to shadow artists at a studio, unfortunately you're not allowed to follow the Disney characters around the Theme Park all day...who made that rule up?! lol
Thanks
Here's my portfolio site if you'd like to check it out: www.cheynecg.wordpress.com
Let me know what you think!
Thanks
Here's my portfolio site if you'd like to check it out: www.cheynecg.wordpress.com
Let me know what you think!
Replies
Make your portfolio purely a portfolio. It's supposed to be a gallery that shows off your best work. Put some more complete artwork in there that's relevant to the job you're looking for. Simplify your site so that your artwork is easy to find. Look through the threads around polycount here. Most people have their portfolio linked in their signature. Check out their stuff and compare it to yours. Follow their example, but still make it your own. Also, post your WIPs in the P&P section. That's a good way to get those that are in the industry to look at your work style and see your skills as you work through a project.
Your header says you're a character artist yet you have more environments than characters and the characters you do have are not game ready assets. This portfolio basically tells your potential employer that you know almost half of a production pipeline, and not the important half. That's not good enough.
I really don't think getting off wordpress isn't going to matter at this point. 2 unfinished models isn't a portfolio no matter what format you put it in. Your priority right now should be to make more art, better art, FINISHED art.
This right here is probably hurting you the most. Be who you say you are. If you want to be a character artist, then make characters for your portfolio. Nobody looking for a character artist is going to be interested in your photo-realistic, pre-rendered, environments. They probably don't even want to see real time environments. They want to see characters, great characters.
I would keep working on your art. Polycount is full of professional artists and their portfolios are a good indication of the quality bar that you need in order to be employable in this industry. I am not sure if relocating to a more favourable job market geographically will do much good without the work to show for it.
Let your portfolio speak, it should tell everything the prospective employer needs to know.
Moving to LA is only going to make it more difficult to work on your portfolio. LA is only one of many places where games are made, don't discount other areas. You'd do better to live somewhere cheaper where you can work 40 hours a week and come home and spend another 30 on your portfolio, rather than LA where you're going to have to work more hours to maintain living expenses and have less time to devote to your portfolio.
Find a couple of artists you really admire and strive to be as good as they are. Stop convincing yourself there is a backdoor way into the industry outside of simply having a stellar portfolio - there isn't, and if there is, getting there will be easier with a stellar portfolio.
I'm going to be blunt, your portfolio as it stands right now won't land you a job.
If you plan to go for a character artist position:
This is what you're portfolio is current geared toward but isn't cutting it. These positions are extremely hard to come by and the competition is pretty fierce. You need a few more finished pieces, and by that I mean you need examples of low poly unwrapped and baked models, preferably rendered in a realtime engine like UDK, crytek, marmoset or some other free engine.
If you plan to go for an environment artist:
You need environment art and props.
Know that prop artists typically get hired late in projects to help fill out environments their duties and responsibilities are pretty light, model XX by YY, and they are typically the first to be let go when the project ships. If you're lucky and manage to hang on you might work your way up into a full blown environment artists position. They normally handle the layout of levels, they know whatever editor they are using really well and do a great job of balancing the tech of the game with the designers vision.
If you plan to go for a animator position:
You need animation.
It will help if you know more than just animation such as rigging and skinning, but at some studios (normally the bigger ones) that can be a separate job. However at most places animation and rigging go hand in hand and you'll need to balance a lot of tech with a lot of animation skill. Personally I think its a bit unrealistic to require that and I think that most people in charge tend to look at animation with a bit of ignorance and think any monkey can do it, then they're left scratching their heads wondering why a part time intern churned out crap...
TL;DR
Overall, your blog is not a portfolio. As a portfolio stand in, it lacks direction focus and finished pieces.
I use wordpress for my portfolio, however it's customized (code written by me and my brother) to fit my needs.
I'd like to add that in the MMO world, the environment side is typically split into Environment artists that do environment art as well as props and World Builders that sculpt terrain and place meshes; I've seen some studios classify world building as a design position while others classify it as art.