why must I decide?
I see in every portfolio critique to focus on one or the other, character or environment. Now would this be true for someone not aiming to be in the industry ? ( still wanting to improve my skills drastically though)
do I have to decide between those two?
Why cant I do both if I enjoy it. How extreme are the limitations I am facing? I feel like if you understand the detail and modeling techniques of a character turning it around onto the environment isn't too difficult?
Where am I wrong.. What am I missing, I can't bring myself to completely turn away from doing both because I feel like when you make one you also have to make the other.
do I have to decide between those two?
Why cant I do both if I enjoy it. How extreme are the limitations I am facing? I feel like if you understand the detail and modeling techniques of a character turning it around onto the environment isn't too difficult?
Where am I wrong.. What am I missing, I can't bring myself to completely turn away from doing both because I feel like when you make one you also have to make the other.
Replies
The reason most portfolios are one or the other is because it is extremely difficult to get into the industry without specializing. It's very rare to find someone who happens to be an industry level character artist AND an industry level environment artist.
Getting jobs from companies requires you to be more careful with marketing of yourself.
If you present yourself as a multi skilled guy for a job position that only ask for one role you're not necessarily impressing the person evaluating your application. They might think you're not dedicated enough for the role or may even ask for more money than what they've budgeted for that position.
But for jobs that want everything for one cheap price, sure...maybe have your grand portfolio ready for that too.
If you get luck enough to manage both characters and environments then your pretty well off, and everyone once in a while to challenge themselves would step into another field and basically see how hard transferring the mind set for that workflow would be like.
Basically seeing if they want to step into that world more often or leave it to those with the know how and experience.
I guess i generalize though i rather keep to the characters no matter how hard they are i feel i can be a good weapon/prop artist than anything else characters are challenging to me and fun.
I've done a lot of stuff not in the current gen aspect but overall before then and i rather enjoyed making props, on the other hand environments are a TOTALLY different ball game.
I'd love to make a great stand for my characters so perhaps making small environments might help you learn both decently, one you don't take on too much at once and you learn gradually which is how everything should be approached no matter the experience level.
Since you are not looking for a position and nether am I at the moment, I wouldn't say no cause i love this, i left and came back because i can't think of a reason to stop, why would i, this is too much fun whether it be a career or hobby.
With all that mumble-jumble said go crazy, but use a little sense when exploring and take longer than you would even if you get sick of something find something to add that might take you from character to environment and back again.
Hope that helps anyone & everyone.
There's no rule to having either one, its just what some people choose to focus on because its more of a passion for them and they feel they want to excel at that more. Don't get into the mindset thinking character art is harder than environments, each discipline has its own pitfalls and can be just as tough as each other.
There's no reason you can't do both. Just be awesome at whatever you do!
That said, I don't think there's anything wrong with doing more than one discipline only if you know how to balance it. I like environment art but I also like drawing characters from time to time. I'll only use environment art for work though (I agree with the separate portfolios idea).
All the positions I'm ever going to apply to will be around environment so I know only that has to be strong.
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Edit: I should also mention one more thing. If you do choose to learn more, find common ground between them. The reason I feel comfortable with both environment and character art is because a lot of concepts can be shared.
If I find out humans have skin that allows for subsurface scattering, I can use the same technique on non-human objects that share the same properties. Case and point, both grapes and humans have the same material that allows light to pass through them.
+1
There is no reason why you cant do both if you put the time and effort into it. hell being flexible is the best way of keeping sane (or insane depending on how you look at it) in this industry.
just make sure that you are good enough at one of them for a job, and get better at the other while you make money doing the first.
both fields are heavily contested for jobs.