by being able to model things, you'd already set yourself apart from the endless stream of artists running our of school each year. you wouldn't believe the amount of applications we reject, simply because people are too addicted to zbrush.
Hm, I think "poor work" is a bit relative, as there's always the circumstances of its creation, like the intend/brief and how much resources/time was had. Of course there are a certain expectations for high budget games characters, and if expressed goal is to hit that bar, that's the measure tape then. Heck, could start by…
You can also look through ubisoft NXT showcases to explore candidates that were hired at apprentice level, https://www.youtube.com/@UbisoftToronto/search?query=NXT Good example of how varied the standard of proficiency expected is. The prize for this competition is a 3/4 month apprenticeship at 19$/hr as a model artist at…
Clothing and shaders you can learn about alongside anatomy. I expect you will be using Marvelous designer for clothing and shaders would start with substance painter for textures. While character creator (the software I recommend) would cover a lot of ground, you could also look into the metahuman workflow.…