Help me choose my career path

cracked_polygon · Jun 2020

Mostly Interested in - Concept Arts and Illustrations (character-focused) and 3D Characters and props

Current skillz - Prop modeling and texturing and a little bit of sculpting as well; very basic drawing skillz

Favorite Artists - Jeehyung Lee ( https://www.artstation.com/jeehyung )

David Paget ( https://www.artstation.com/davepaget )

Maciej Kuciara ( https://www.artstation.com/maciej )

My weakness - Don't like spending too much time on a single work and get bored pretty quickly (this doesn't mean I am not serious about my career though)

Here's my work - https://www.artstation.com/crackedpolygon

zachagreg · Jun 2020

So first off you need to bring down your scope. No one starts out professionally doing those 4 things. Pick one, maybe 2 if they are complimentary to each other.

Your skills and interests do not align currently, what do you want to do. You will be doing it 8 hrs+ a day, every work day, for years. Make sure you actually like doing it.

If you want to work characters in either 3D or 2D you need a solid understanding of anatomy as well as the tools needed to make either form. Having a solid foundation in the fundamentals of art is also a must in my opinion. If I were you I would start with the foundations and then work my way up after doing studies and personal experiments with style.

I would personally recommend these two books: https://shop.3dtotal.com/art-fundamentals-2nd-edition

https://shop.3dtotal.com/beyond-art-fundamentals

Combined they show give very clear examples and breakdowns of the fundamental concepts you will need and use throughout the rest of your art career. They both trend towards 2d and traditional art rather than digital and 3D but that is because a lot of the core foundations are applied there. After all your screen is 2d at the end of the day.

The artists that you look up are all character and concept oriented. Analyze this, your motives, and your own passions to tell you what is right for what you want to study.

Your weakness, hard truth you need to hop off that horse real fast. It absolutely applies to your career. If you cannot follow through on the short term how do you expect yourself to follow through on the long term. If you don't like doing something why do you strive towards it? The reality of it is you will be given assets and expected to work on them until completion and incorporate both given feedback and your artistry into that asset to make it shine. That means iterations and visiting things multiple times and sometimes spending a while on a piece to get it right.

If you don't like spending time on a single piece and get bored of your own work do you really enjoy doing it? I would recommend reading this by PixelMasher here on Polycount. https://www.polygon-academy.com/tips-for-artists-struggling-with-motivation/

cracked_polygon · Jun 2020

zachagreg said:

So first off you need to bring down your scope. No one starts out professionally doing those 4 things. Pick one, maybe 2 if they are complimentary to each other.

Your skills and interests do not align currently, what do you want to do. You will be doing it 8 hrs+ a day, every work day, for years. Make sure you actually like doing it.

If you want to work characters in either 3D or 2D you need a solid understanding of anatomy as well as the tools needed to make either form. Having a solid foundation in the fundamentals of art is also a must in my opinion. If I were you I would start with the foundations and then work my way up after doing studies and personal experiments with style.

I would personally recommend these two books: https://shop.3dtotal.com/art-fundamentals-2nd-edition
https://shop.3dtotal.com/beyond-art-fundamentals

Combined they show give very clear examples and breakdowns of the fundamental concepts you will need and use throughout the rest of your art career. They both trend towards 2d and traditional art rather than digital and 3D but that is because a lot of the core foundations are applied there. After all your screen is 2d at the end of the day.

The artists that you look up are all character and concept oriented. Analyze this, your motives, and your own passions to tell you what is right for what you want to study.

Your weakness, hard truth you need to hop off that horse real fast. It absolutely applies to your career. If you cannot follow through on the short term how do you expect yourself to follow through on the long term. If you don't like doing something why do you strive towards it? The reality of it is you will be given assets and expected to work on them until completion and incorporate both given feedback and your artistry into that asset to make it shine. That means iterations and visiting things multiple times and sometimes spending a while on a piece to get it right.

If you don't like spending time on a single piece and get bored of your own work do you really enjoy doing it? I would recommend reading this by PixelMasher here on Polycount. https://www.polygon-academy.com/tips-for-artists-struggling-with-motivation/

Thank you very much for explaining it soo well, I will definately reanalyze what I like and what I wanna do and would be more disciplined and patience at my approach

AND I just noticed one more thing about me that I really love the word "and" XD

Alex_J · Jun 2020

you've got to do the work before you'll really know if you like to do it all day everyday.

consider doing a big project that would require you to do all of these different disciplines. This is also a good way to challenge yourself to overcome personal issues and see a project through to the finish.

there is point where it's not very much fun at all and you just got to finish the work. That's where you want to get to - there will be parts of the project you still like to do, and other parts that are like pulling teeth. Those parts that you always enjoy doing pretty much no matter what is probably what would make the most sense for you to pursue as career.

cracked_polygon · Jun 2020

Alex Javor said:

you've got to do the work before you'll really know if you like to do it all day everyday.

consider doing a big project that would require you to do all of these different disciplines. This is also a good way to challenge yourself to overcome personal issues and see a project through to the finish.

there is point where it's not very much fun at all and you just got to finish the work. That's where you want to get to - there will be parts of the project you still like to do, and other parts that are like pulling teeth. Those parts that you always enjoy doing pretty much no matter what is probably what would make the most sense for you to pursue as career.

I have already tried doing everything from poly modeling to texturing from rigging to animation and even weight painting, but now I only have couple years left to find some job and really want to focus on a single thing.

zachagreg · Jun 2020

cracked_polygon said:

Alex Javor said:

you've got to do the work before you'll really know if you like to do it all day everyday.

consider doing a big project that would require you to do all of these different disciplines. This is also a good way to challenge yourself to overcome personal issues and see a project through to the finish.

there is point where it's not very much fun at all and you just got to finish the work. That's where you want to get to - there will be parts of the project you still like to do, and other parts that are like pulling teeth. Those parts that you always enjoy doing pretty much no matter what is probably what would make the most sense for you to pursue as career.

I have already tried doing everything from poly modeling to texturing from rigging to animation and even weight painting, but now I only have couple years left to find some job and really want to focus on a single thing.

Alex is correct though, you can see a character through to the end that will work on character, props and concept. It's less about trying things and more about study and being critical about what you're doing and studying. If you look objectively at your portfolio it is very clear that even on a stylized front your work is not hitting the mark.

You only improve through repetition, failure, small wins and being critical of what you are making. Look at your reference and what you've created and be able to say to yourself, "That doesn't look right, let me try again." A huge pit fall for newer artists is they just keep plowing through mediocre assets over and over thinking that just making things will make them better. It won't unless you are being critical of yourself. If you can't do that you need to ask for critique from others so that they can point out the areas that are in need of improvement and then work those.

It takes conscious effort and commitment towards that single thing that will make the difference. Even if you don't do a full character starting from concept, doing a character from start to finish will still teach you workflow, anatomy, props, sculpting, unwrapping, texturing, rendering, presentation, and post process. As well as all of the hurdles that come between. Knowing that flow will help you with the next project and the next and so on. Then you can see areas in your finished, focused work that need improvement. At that point you need to take a step back and objectively find the things you need to improve on. Then study those areas do small anatomy sculpts focusing on parts of the body, take small assets and work on material observation and definition.

With stylized work I would also suggest not fooling yourself into thinking you don't need to make things physically accurate. Stylization is not a cheat of reality but rather an exaggeration of reality, having a solid understanding of the musculature of a human will allow you to stylize it.

cracked_polygon · Jun 2020

zachagreg said:

cracked_polygon said:

Alex Javor said:

you've got to do the work before you'll really know if you like to do it all day everyday.

consider doing a big project that would require you to do all of these different disciplines. This is also a good way to challenge yourself to overcome personal issues and see a project through to the finish.

there is point where it's not very much fun at all and you just got to finish the work. That's where you want to get to - there will be parts of the project you still like to do, and other parts that are like pulling teeth. Those parts that you always enjoy doing pretty much no matter what is probably what would make the most sense for you to pursue as career.

I have already tried doing everything from poly modeling to texturing from rigging to animation and even weight painting, but now I only have couple years left to find some job and really want to focus on a single thing.

Alex is correct though, you can see a character through to the end that will work on character, props and concept. It's less about trying things and more about study and being critical about what you're doing and studying. If you look objectively at your portfolio it is very clear that even on a stylized front your work is not hitting the mark.

You only improve through repetition, failure, small wins and being critical of what you are making. Look at your reference and what you've created and be able to say to yourself, "That doesn't look right, let me try again." A huge pit fall for newer artists is they just keep plowing through mediocre assets over and over thinking that just making things will make them better. It won't unless you are being critical of yourself. If you can't do that you need to ask for critique from others so that they can point out the areas that are in need of improvement and then work those.

It takes conscious effort and commitment towards that single thing that will make the difference. Even if you don't do a full character starting from concept, doing a character from start to finish will still teach you workflow, anatomy, props, sculpting, unwrapping, texturing, rendering, presentation, and post process. As well as all of the hurdles that come between. Knowing that flow will help you with the next project and the next and so on. Then you can see areas in your finished, focused work that need improvement. At that point you need to take a step back and objectively find the things you need to improve on. Then study those areas do small anatomy sculpts focusing on parts of the body, take small assets and work on material observation and definition.

With stylized work I would also suggest not fooling yourself into thinking you don't need to make things physically accurate. Stylization is not a cheat of reality but rather an exaggeration of reality, having a solid understanding of the musculature of a human will allow you to stylize it.

Thank you soo much for helping me out

Help me choose my career path

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