Paying the Bills... How to Get a Job?
polycounter lvl 6
Hey guys! Just curious, what does everyone here do to pay the bills while they work towards their game art? Do you have another job that keeps you stable? Are you in an unhappy day job situation? If so, any advice for me would be great as I'm trying to get some kind of other job. Hopefully one that has some growth room in terms of salary yet lets me work on game art as much as possible. I thought about maybe getting some certifications in IT or something since I'm not a fan of coding. I have a game design degree, so I'm in a tricky spot where it's hard to get an entry level job in any other industry that actually pays...again would love any advice, thanks guys!
Replies
http://www.gamedevmap.com/
to see what studios are around you and if there are studios near you, check your work and see if that's a place you'd wanna work for.
If you don't feel qualified or feel suited for some of those studios, depending on your 3D or graphic art skills start to look around at design studios near you. Having skills using 3D software or the Adobe products can carry over into other job settings. I'm currently doing automotive work while I work on game art stuff on the side, because bills need to be paid.
Good luck!
I don't have cable. Instead I have Hulu/Netflix to keep myself sane, and I can watch shows on a 2nd monitor while I still work.
It has it's up and downs, and you have to be very careful with the expenses, it's very stressful because it's like you're always "unemployed" but over the years you get used to the fact that something always come along your shore. You start getting some occult sense of the providence or something.
I also develop my own games when I got some free time between contracts.
I do try to keep my living expenses in a low-budget. But I'm 35 now, married and with a little daughter. Life get's more expensive over the years, I can't just live from Granola, like Grimwolf, and I don't want to either I already had my 20's and live with my parents with 40 bucks a week for coffee and cigarettes. At some point your career needs to take off and paid for all that effort, and all the signals I receive from the industry is that, IT most probably WONT.
It's cool to live out of making concepts, models and animations or any other game art, but at the end of the day you need to live your life also, pay for a place to live, decent food on the table, have some vacations in time to time. Because if the job don't do that for you, it will come the time in which you'll be so tired of eating granola and using the same shoes for the last 5 years that you'll end up hating what used to be your passion.
It had become so competitive in the last years (I think), and lately I've been getting the most ridiculous budget proposals. People wanting to make the next Fallout 4 and pay $200 for an AAA character.
Get away from sites like Freelancer, Fiver, Upwork, all of those. Those sites are there to exploit people to the level of a slave. It's degrading. I never had 1 good contract from those sites. And I'm sure a lot of this is my fault, but that's why I write this also, because I don't know anymore, being away from the epicenters of the industry has become pretty hard, big companies don't hire free-lancers anymore.
Good luck to you all!! I always get so inspired from the work I see on this site.
I haven't used those sites you mentioned, but I dug around before, and yeah it's not sustainable, I guess for someone that is just starting to make their first indy game they have never thought about that a high quality now gen character could cost them 8k. Hope you keep at it and find a company that is willing to treat you fairly.