Hey guys, I've been talking to a lot of recruiters lately and trying to prep for the Eurogamer recruitment fair in London to try and get some work in the industry. I've worked in advertising for a while and QA tested at Sega, but have always struggled to get a junior position in games and would like to one day work as a character artist (I need to get a lot better work into my portfolio beforehand though.)

I've had conflicting opinions about what my next step should be, some have said "If you want to do characters, then just spend time working on your anatomy, etc." and other recruiters have said "If you want to work in games, the best way in is to work as a prop or environment artist and 'work your way up' to a character position", although I thought character and environment art isn't necessarily harder than the other, there's just different ways of working for both. Personally I don't mind working on anything in a game (even rocks...lots and lots of rocks,) if it means I can contribute So do you think its better for a budding artist who wants to work in characters to get into games through environment art, or just do a day job and in the free time bust his a$$ on character art?

Do a day job, and bust your ass on character art during your free time.


BTW your day job should be an environment art position.



:P

Why not both? Did an Environment model eat your dog or something?

Check the latest episode of reanimators http://reanimators.net/. There's a guy who did the switch from modeler to animator and he talks about how he got there. Not 100% what you're after but you might find something interesting there!

This may sound a little cynical but the reason why the recruiters put it that way is probably because there are more environment artist positions available for their clients. However, what they suggest isn't illogical or anything... I agree with JacqueChoi at this point but please be aware of the demon called overtime which can make it harder to find spare time to work on characters.

Best of luck

Originally Posted by Ace-Angel

Why not both? Did an Environment model eat your dog or something?

because it's better to focus on one or the other when you are starting out rather than spreading yourself thin.

Originally Posted by Ace-Angel

Why not both? Did an Environment model eat your dog or something?

Don't be a jack of all trades, master of none. It won't help you out much. Focus on one thing. Bust your ass, and excel at it!

It's definitely possible to start out as one thing, and then transition to another. But it's very hard. I see lots of people who don't make it.

It's cause you're sitting there doing this stuff for 8 hours a day, and then your other portfolio doesn't get done. So you have to go home after a full day, and then keep going for another few hours. Then during the weekends probably spend a full day on it too. Otherwise nothing would get done.

So you'd sit there doing environment work for 8 hours, then go home and do another 2-4 hours of character work.

It's definitely possible. Just a ton of work, and it takes its toll on you.

In my experience , the reason there is always seemingly more environment art jobs out there is studios tend to keep strong 2-4 person character teams on staff, which leads to very few character jobs popping up. Environment teams on a AAA title are usually anywhere from 10-20 artists depending on the size of the world being built, so rather than keep them all on staff, they realize way too late into the project they need more people and frantically try to hire 10 contractors to learn the tools/pipeline for 3 months before dropping them.

If you want to be a character artist more than anything in the world then I would suggest focusing on your portfolio until you are simply so amazing you can get a job anywhere you want. Thats not really realistic though, having a "normal" day job does allow you more free time to work on your portfolio, and if you are disciplined enough to keep to it, good things should eventually happen.

If you want to work in games sooner than later however, environment/prop work would probably help get your foot in the door pretty quick, but if you tell people in interviews you are doing for an environment position that you really want to be a character artist but are settling for an environment job, its not going to sound good. you have to have a passion for environment work or you are going to want to blow your brains out, especially when it comes to crunch time.

How familiar are you with the environment creation workflow? are you going to be learning it from the ground up or have you made environment work before? if you are starting from square one, it would probably be more wise to manage your time building a few more fully textured/normal mapped game characters. you have some decent work in your folio, just needs more final game meshes I think.

I had a similar mini crisis a few months back and thought about throwing in the character towel for environments...but I have stuck to my guns and I think that I am producing better work for it, so I say stick at it.

One thing that I have noticed especially with employment agencies, is that if your portfolio is character based they will often rule you out of 3d generalist positions, whereas an environment portfolio will keep that job role open to you.

Breaking in is a bitch.... I have 4 applications in at the moment and if I get as far as a thank you but fuck you email then I see it as an achievement

Originally Posted by Justin_Meisse

because it's better to focus on one or the other when you are starting out rather than spreading yourself thin.

Originally Posted by Prophecies

Don't be a jack of all trades, master of none. It won't help you out much. Focus on one thing. Bust your ass, and excel at it!

I didn't mean it like that, what I meant is why not pick up the skill-set and core fundamental from both sides, and work towards what you want to be.

For example, if you want to be a character artist, that's the place you'll aim for naturally, but having a nice bag of knowledge of how the Environment set pieces work won't do any harm.

Besides, most people I have met always tell me that as long as an artist knows and understands topology structures on inorganic or organic models, and has proper texturing skills, trading one lesser area they don't excel at won't as much the challenge as say someone who has only sculpted 4 legged spiders all their life.

Boobies included naturally.

just don't try to sell it that way to the env lead interviewing you.

people want to hire env artists who are passionate about creating environments. not people who figured it was the easiest way to get to a different position.

also, your decision seems to imply that you can get an env position with no effort, but would have to bust your ass for a char position. i think you'll find you have to work just as hard to get hired in env.

Thanks for the awesome replies, very informative! To be honest, I do like environment art a lot, but feel I have a real passion for characters. As I mentioned before I would be happy working on props and environment work if need be, I definitely wouldn't complain, but my ideal situation would be character art.

I think I was freaking out a little since character artist is such a sought after position and since I'm 28 (and working in QA) I wonder if I'd be getting my first development job when I was in my early-mid 30's

Sectaurs - I was just about to say I'm not so naive to think that it would be a short process to create a good environment folio, I'd imagine it'd take quite a while to get some nice pieces together so I'd rather focus and specialise on characters.

All these replies have made a lot of sense, much appreciated

Originally Posted by JacqueChoi

bust your ass on character art during your free time.

Character art is definitely a lot harder to get work for, but you've already got a good start on it. Good luck and stay persistent!

Personally, I'm not sure I would hire anyone that told me they're just applying to the environment artist position because they want to eventually be a character artist, no matter how well they worded it.

Character Art is more difficult to get into because there are, typically, less positions in any given studio, let alone open positions.

Being an Environment Artist does not mean your job is any easier than a Character Artist's job. You need to be just as dedicated, and just as skilled... just in different areas, obviously.

If you want to be a Character Artist, be a Character Artist. If you feel that you are a solid Environment Artist, then go for it. I would not be fooled into believing that there is such a huge demand for "okay" Environment Artists that you'll be able to get a foot in the door, and work towards Character Art.

Good luck!

Ahh who needs Env art eh! it's only over 90% of the game you are seeing on screen ;)

Your portfolio is a start, but it's not strong enough to get any character position any time soon. If you focus on becoming an amazing env modeler, you could go a long way. Everyone and their dogs wants to be a character artist, so the competition is very high. I wouldn't hire you as a env modeler either though, because your portfolio is very focused on character art.

It's basically about what inspires you in the end. You will always be competing against people that are learning and practicing anatomy and cloth every day, all day.

When i play Uncharted, it is the Environment that awes me. Choos env art because it inspires you, not as a stepping stone, because you will probably always be looking over the fence, envious of your neighbors yard instead of focusing on your own :p

An Env art usually has to know a lot more technical things about the game engine, their fields are so different. You wont be sitting in zbrush most of your time as character artist does. You will be using the editor, testing, using profiling tools. Though this depends on the studio and how segmented the env department is (modelers/sufacers/level art).

Originally Posted by Prophecies

Don't be a jack of all trades, master of none. It won't help you out much. Focus on one thing. Bust your ass, and excel at it!

Maybe. I am a jack of all trades :P Always have been, always will be. Has helped me out alot.

Originally Posted by Snefer

Maybe. I am a jack of all trades :P Always have been, always will be. Has helped me out alot.

"Jack of all trades, master of none, often times better than master of one."

Originally Posted by Snefer

Maybe. I am a jack of all trades :P Always have been, always will be. Has helped me out alot.

Yeah, in this industry, limiting yourself to only one discipline will cripple your worth to a studio. You have to know a bit of everything just to "survive".

your day job can be a routine job that not related to art,
so once you get home you can focus on something you love , which is character art.

if you work everyday doing art, you wont have enough energy looking the same thing/subject at home.

no matter people opinion about getting job, artist is artist.
as personal i dont see myself as successful artist before i reach this proficiency
http://soanala.cgsociety.org/gallery/
http://www.warproductions.com/
http://okonart.com/

Get. Hired.

Originally Posted by motives

Get. Hired.

If this ever happens to me. It will be a fuckin miracle... Because somehow my work just doesn't cut it.

CrazyMatt: fwiw I think that your bust sculpts are really bloody good, but the folio is lacking any really wow full body characters, which considering the quality of your sculpts was kind of disapointing. The layout of your folio isn't really helping you either....then again this could all be balls, I never got as far as you did in the Naughty dog process so perhaps you shouldn't listen to me

Originally Posted by Prophecies

Don't be a jack of all trades, master of none. It won't help you out much. Focus on one thing. Bust your ass, and excel at it!

It's helpful to be a "Jack of all trades master of one" Those guys get snatched up pretty quick. To get to the Jack of all trades part you first need to master one discipline and they you can pursue others.

Originally Posted by seth.

CrazyMatt: fwiw I think that your bust sculpts are really bloody good, but the folio is lacking any really wow full body characters, which considering the quality of your sculpts was kind of disapointing. The layout of your folio isn't really helping you either....then again this could all be balls, I never got as far as you did in the Naughty dog process so perhaps you shouldn't listen to me

I agree. The sculpts are really good but you need to work on your texturing and material definition. Better presentation of your models would be nice too.