Starting a portfolio / Finding a job
polycounter lvl 4
I'm aspiring to become a 3D artist. I've been doing modeling for around 6 months now and i want to find a job that allows me to learn more and become a better artist.
I'm doing a video game design and programming course atm and can't really model characters yet.
So the question is, how do i start a portfolio? What should i focus on putting there? What was your first job that involved modeling and such? and what should i look for as a first job on it?
I'm doing a video game design and programming course atm and can't really model characters yet.
So the question is, how do i start a portfolio? What should i focus on putting there? What was your first job that involved modeling and such? and what should i look for as a first job on it?
Replies
DO you want to be a character artist? texture artist? enviroment artist? prop artist? etc.
At the end of the day you should know how to do all of these things, but depending on what you want to get hired for, you need to choose one.
And once you've got a few pieces(at minimum) then you can start worrying about building a portfolio.
I want to become an enviroment artist, forgot to mention that, and that's what im focusing on the most, even if i dont have any specialized education in it for now.
Another one of my questions was, where should i start? Where could i look for smaller jobs,even if they're not paid? Or should i just focus on practising by myself for now?
Sorry if my questions are too vague.
I'm also gonna try to post some of my modeling for feedback later on this week.
With the flexible schedule to work around my schooling, I would go to school in the morning and work from like 1pm till about 6 or 7 each day, then go home and do homework and portfolio work, nearly 7 days a week. It was grueling and truthfully I burnt myself out. That all happened between graduating high school in 2011 till about mid 2013. Then left the indie studio to focus full time on port and school. Dropped out of school with some very minimal savings to live off of and gave myself a few months to land a job. About 7 months later, pushed myself hard enough to land at Activision Blizzard.
I made next to no money at all at the indie studio, but that was not what it was about. It was about the experience. I learned SO much. Got to make games at the very core, a person with many different hats but was the inhouse primary artist with a team of programmers around me. Was able to learn basics of programming after work hours from coworkers, and spent the rest of the time pushing my workflows and skill set. You learn a LOT faster and more efficiently in an actual production environment surrounded by like minded individuals. I learned more in a month at the studio than I did in 2 years at school.
The one piece of advice I give to all new devs going through school for art or design is, do not worry about making honor roll. Worry about getting a job. School is supplementary to your job acquisition. I dropped out and am working in a AAA env currently. I am not saying to drop out, I am just really pushing the point of making sure that you have your priorities straight, as a lot of new devs focus too much on school and the class work rather than the fact that they are there to get a JOB. If you can get top marks in school AND kill it with your portfolio work, more power to you. Just partition your energy wisely.
Sorry for the wall of text, TL;DR:
- Don't waste time trying to get an A in school if it is taking time away from building your art skills as a whole.
- Work outside of school as much as possible, absorb Polycount and tutorials across the interwebz. Post often to get critique (something I need to do more as well).
- Join mod and indie teams as much as possible, exposure to production workflows is KEY to breaking in.
Your answer was the most inspirational thing i've read all day, mainly because you ended up working for my favourite major developer and where I aspire to work at someday.
I'll try to get into modding and spend all the time i can actually practising.
Good to hear
Main point, keep your head up. The trials of breaking in and maintaining a solid job in this career field is testing. Once again, worth it. We get to make video games!
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Game_Industry