Life after graduation...
I'm here today to ask all of the artists/animators/everyone on Polycount about life after graduation from college in your chosen field. I'm about to enter into my last year of a great 3D college program, but honestly? I'm freaking out! I mean, I have one teacher who always tells us how FEW of us will be successful in our fields (three per class, he tells us, out of 20).
How I see it is this: after high school, you have college, for sure (or, for sure for me). But after college, now what? What was it like for you? were you at the top of your class, and get an insta-job? Or did you wait? or freelance? I have no idea. It kind of feels like the world might explode after college, right now.
BTW: If you see any major typos in this post, it's because I'm writing it in the dark, on my iPad, without my glasses.
How I see it is this: after high school, you have college, for sure (or, for sure for me). But after college, now what? What was it like for you? were you at the top of your class, and get an insta-job? Or did you wait? or freelance? I have no idea. It kind of feels like the world might explode after college, right now.
BTW: If you see any major typos in this post, it's because I'm writing it in the dark, on my iPad, without my glasses.
Replies
May 2011...
I graduate from Academy of Art University... before that I had had an interview for an "internship" with a game company, it didn't pan out.
So, I went home to my parents' house... at home I applied to every job opening I could find... and worked at least 8 hours a day on portfolio pieces...
In July, I got an Art Test from the Gameloft recruiter I had directly emailed and tracked down on Linkedin. My test went very good, and I recieved positive feedback in a few days. And things moved forward. I had 2 phone interviews, then waited two weeks and then was flown out for an in studio interview. Then the next week I was given the offer. That was almost exactly 2 years ago this week. I then relocated at the end of October after my immigration paper work came through. And, I've been here since.
So, it was several months between graduation and starting my job. Don't give up, work you butt off, and most of all don't give up. And make sure you ask for feedback from Polycount.
Well here's my story...
I took a one year Game Art and Design course at Vanarts. After my year was up, I worked on my portfolio but didn't really apply to many jobs (where could I apply to? Haha). Anyways I applied and got hired back at the electronics store I had been working at for 5 years prior to school.
A few months after grad, I started filling in for shifts as a TA at the school. I had the opportunity to demo nDo to a class and I guess my teacher liked my style so I got hired as an instructor for a couple Photoshop courses.
Fast forward six months...and almost exactly one year later I applied to a craigslist ad and got hired at a small mobile studio full time. It's been a lot of fun so far and totally worth the wait.
I think a lot of people sort of give up on this industry after they see no one is getting jobs, but I gotta say it's worth it to keep pushing and working on your folio.
Just got off my last shift today at London Drugs and I gotta say it feels great to chase your dreams!
Do you have any work you can show us? Portfolio? Blog?
From my own experience it was tough. But then I went to a Maya masterclass once and there was this masterclass teacher from Weta who was like "yeah, I've been without a job for almost a year when Weta suddenly called me...". So there's hope. Some people are lucky right away, others have to wait a bit. Just don't give up!
If you have enough time, I would even try to do some small freelance gigs on the side to rack up some experience, prop work, etc. there's a lot of that around
Try be more efficient with the time you're putting in, e.g. get rid of distractions like Facebook, etc. as they just chew up your time. You can even check out the Pomodoro technique for good time management, I found it helped loads: http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/
Again like others have said here, good luck and keep us posted!
Still you have to reach a certain standard and you should push as hard as you can.
Ah! I feel better.
Thanks so much
PS: I plan on uploading some things for critique here soon, but right now... I just don't like anything of mine enough to do that with right now.
You'll also want to re-do most portfolio pieces as you will realise how much better you can do.
Chris entered SVA with a great traditional portfolio that he worked on tirelessly in his high school years before I even met him. When he was at SVA I instantly knew he would be successful in this field, he was driven hard working and did not use school material as his portfolio work he was always making his own work on the side. We worked on our thesis project together for 2 years. Chris and I were getting internships 2 years before even exiting school. This only happened from sheer hard work. A lot of people in school would party all night and have little to show for work. Partying is good but do not let that overwhelm you. So when the time came we were semi prepared for what was to come.
Finally we hit the end of college we had our drinks an laughs and than reality sunk in. We needed stable jobs. In our school we were considered the top students but out in the industry we were just as good as most internship people. So we took internships which later turned into freelance than later... like a year or so turned into full time jobs.
So I think in general resting and taking a break is bad. I had other friends who after being tired to death due to thesis and college work decided to take a couple of months off. I can pretty much say that was a horrible idea, most of those had horrible experiences later on and could not even get internships or freelance. Come out of college running and you will do well imo. Do not expect a full time gig handed to you on a silver platter. Expect internships and freelance or even full time jobs that you do not like 100% to get to that goal you want later down the line.
The biggest mistakes I see from post grads is star eyed students dreaming of working in top companies right from the get go. This is mostly wrong. Chris my friend landed a job at Pixar for his first official full time job. Now he works at Bluesky as a TD. A lot of ex SVA grads see Chris and I as possible goals or the end goal to studies in SVA, people actually use or work to show new student that they too can go to Pixar or ND... And yes you can but the amount of real life fun we had to sacrifice to get to those places was hard, but at the end so worth it.
Grads out of our year in SVA I would say 60%-70% are happy with the jobs they have found I would say the 2/20 ratio is very doom type of mentality, but better to be pessimistic than positive. Work hard get freelance or internships going... work harder than anyone else around you, put your head down and you will be rewarded.
Though it is true right out of college I would only say a few handful had great or considered great jobs at the time. It took the rest of the 70% a few months or a year or more to find a good gig. Even the same year Grads that I thought would never find gigs have found some... They worked hard after school... reality struck them hard! Most people will start to work harder when you have to pay bills
My short story.. I worked a Epic Game contract LD for 1 yr and after Unreal Tournament 2004 was done I decided to go to college for 3D arts in SVA instead of going to be an Envio Artist at UBI soft on a splinter cell project. Gave myself time to build my portfolio, exited college with top ranking and even than I still had to do internships and freelance in till I finally got a gig full time at Crystal Dynamics and now Naughty Dog. I did exit college when the economy was going in down hill spiral...
My Wife Sharlene Lin graduated also with top honors it took her around 2-3 years to finally get the gig she really loved at some VFX movie studios here in Cali. She has done movies such as Avengers and Looper.
So with hard work and really putting your head down will come big rewards. The people who really succeed are the ones that do this. Talent has very little to do with getting these jobs. Since I can argue that many of the 3D artists I know are not amazingly artistically inclined people, but are amazingly technical.
I was looking for that...and I though it was stickied
but, it's not like everything is better at bigger developers, some big developers are bad and some small are bad, as for myself I have gone from big to small, especially since the bigger companies in japan gives the smallest wages, because they know they can find someone that accepts those terms.
Also to be honest I'm working with the most skilled character artists I have ever worked with
so not all skilled people choose the biggest companies.
Anyway, 5 days later I heard back from a CGI studio I had applied for with my final project work. They hired me as a 3D artist and been here for 3 months now. Whilst its not games, and it's not particularly what I enjoy doing due to the lack of creative input I have; its a job and its 3D related. All I have to do now is work on my portfolio and then when I do apply for a games related role; Ill have ticked all the boxes, "education, experience in a studio and a portfolio".
" Fingers crossed ".
Oh and just to add to that; I'm one of 2 who managed a 3D related role... 1 guy got a programming role at a tech company, another got an internship for an augmented reality project. The rest - didn't make contacts, connections or generally not bother; and those who did, did too late.
Get a temporary job, earn some money, build that portfolio - if you thought the final year of college was hard work, you've still got harder work to come (and noone to hold your hand whilst you're doing it). If you work hard on your skills and demonstrate it, keep your eye open for vacancies, because something will come along.
In this country there are around 1-1500 graduates with a game orientated qualification coming out of higher education every year, however there are only 8000 people employed in the games industry here total and the majority of those will not be recent graduates.
After my graduation i took a small family vacation for about a week or so and on the drive going home i got an email from a local studio asking me if i wanted to work for them as a contract artist. now the only reason i think they reached out to me is because one of the former artists (who became a manager) had graduated from the same school as me, and he kept tabs on the graduates each quarter. so it was something i hadnt really expected but within two days i was there and i started working.
that all worked out for me so i was really happy to have gotten a job so quickly, but i knew it was a contract so i was looking for other fulltime jobs elsewhere. it took about a year of doing interviews, art tests, and partially working my contract job and some freelance on the side to finally land myself somewhere where i feel comfortably stable.
After graduating I worked in games for a short period of time before moving out to LA.
Currently I am freelancing and most of the work I get is for commercials. The work is pretty consistent and it pays well.. but I think my heart is still set on games. In the meantime, I plan to keep saving money and buy more time to work on my personal things before going out there and applying again.
My advise is to not take a break. Someone wants that job more then you and is working harder to get it. Its up to you to put in the hard work.
If you want it bad enough you will get it.
Good luck!
I graduated around 3 years ago. Getting to where I am career-wise has only really been possible since I wanted it so bad. I sucked at school and every other subject, so it very much became an 'all or nothing' situation. Don't feel had about doing temp work -you'll make it there eventually if its what you want.
My advice is to surround yourself with crazily talented people (like on here), or even just follow the artwork. It is important to realize what the standard is and push yourself to get yourself on the path to that level. Too many people value themselves incorrectly.
Oh and if you ever land an interview, put in the extra effort and create extra work tailored specifically to that company and surprise them with it, it's pretty much a guarantee that you'll be considered over the other person. Passion and enthusiasm count for so much in this industry.
Just have to be willing to work hard and wait it out. I don't really like being 23, living with my parents and working a retail job but it's what you have to do to work on your portfolio and get the job you really want.
Usually it's portfolio issues, the portfolio is a door into the gaming industry. However the door needs to be pretty enough for people to want to take a look inside.
If you're finding yourself spending all your time on the portfolio and still not getting anywhere then you need to really analyze your portfolio and your networking skills. You can know all the tools of the industry, know the workflow and pipeline of the most popular engines and you still feel like you're behind you need to look at your art and ask yourself if you think it's just as good as the rest of them or worse.
Better yet, ask yourself why you feel that it's worse. What are you missing that the rest of the guys out there hits? Maybe your model is good but texturing is lacking, maybe it's the other way around, maybe it's the way you present your models. Bad lighting could make even a good model look bad. Maybe your foundation isn't solid enough, maybe you need to go through the basics of art and really apply them to your work. Color Theory, Composition, Unity etc etc.
Maybe you're just spending your time doing the wrong things? What do you want to do? If you want to make environments then maybe you might to become more efficient in your way of making props. Maybe you don't have to do the whole high-poly -> low-poly baking? No Zbrush etc, it adds a lot. You can probably figure out quicker ways to do things.
Add extra bevels? Learn to force your normals to make your low-polys look more high-poly? Adapt an nDo2 workflow. When making environments and buildings etc, when you get something in your scene quickly that you can play around with makes it easier and more rewarding.
Getting your head around Implied Detail in environments could be a game-changer, maybe you need to ask yourself how much you need to do to get the desired effect.
And ofcourse always try to learn more things, always try to become better. The really really bad side about being an artist is that you're constantly worrying about getting better and/or that others around you keep moving forward but you feel like you're standing still. It'll eat you up and you'll also find yourself thinking about it all the time sacrificing your life to it. And yes, you will need to do that. You will have to sacrifice something to gain something else.
It's always like that, but one also needs to make sure you don't wreck yourself, there has been plenty of times I've come close to wrecking my current way of living by constantly working hard and never taking it easy. So disciplined planning and execution. Portfolio work a couple of hours each day and not more or less, concentrated and focused work. No reddit, no lazy surfing on the web. Just effective portfolio work.
^
and all these things are things that I deal with myself every day and try to remind myself of everyday. Failing loads of times but you know.
I'm just human