[Artist] In search of a full time job

edited in Jobs
Hi everyone!

I graduated 2017 at Open Window & got my degree in BA Film Arts, majoring in game design with electives in illustration. I'm currently doing part-time design / illustration work for a agricultural company in my hometown. I've selected and applied to various jobs in the past few months, sending my CV locally as well as internationally to try get my foot in the game industry. With little to no success yet.

I want to do work in illustration / design both digital and traditional however I'm still finding my feet.
Some of my weaknesses are coding & animation. However I'm open minded and willing to improve my skills.

Here's a link to most of my digital artworks from over the years (excluding traditional art) : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/r92pl7dfbpijv59/AAAZ7En9MEQ_DIGNH39NGlEea?dl=0

PM me for my CV.

Comments

  • Most of the work in your portfolio does seem fairly niche.

    If you think of specific game studios that you'd want to be servicing, and look at their existing games (or the portfolios of the artists who worked on them), you could tailor your portfolio more closely to them. You'd obviously have to make sure that this work is of the same quality or better, but I imagine this would increase your chances of landing work.
  • Ok, so let me give you some advice.

    I run a small game dev studio. My first game was this, it's a game that's pretty much ENTIRELY illustration, and I hired around 15 freelance illustrators from around the world to make it, including Jean Roux from this forum. I received over 150 applications for my job posts, and had to filter them out.

    So I have some idea of what people are looking for, when they hire illustrators to do commercial work, though of course AAA 3D games will have their own specialized requirements.

    1) You need a portfolio website, and it should have your CV and contact details on it. A dropbox link doesn't cut it, and every extra hurdle to getting your CV means that someone just won't bother. If they have to msg you to get it instead of just being able to click on a download link, some people will not do that. Remember, people are busy and they likely have many other applications to look through.

    2) Your portfolio needs to show work appropriate to the type of job you're looking for, as Elya said.

    If you're interested in illustration/design, that sounds like concept art (which is using illustration skills to design characters, props, environments). This is a different thing to just painting a scene.

    As far as I can see, your portfolio includes very little work related to what you want to do.

    Concept art / visual design looks like this:

    Costume and prop design:

    image

    image

    Character design:

    image

    Style and art direction design:

    image

    Prop design:

    image

    image

    image

    Level design:

    image

    image

    image

    Your portfolio needs to include examples of the work that you are applying for, otherwise no one will give it a second look. Saying "you have a passion for design" doesn't count for anything if you don't actually show any design work.

    And it needs to fit the studio you're applying for. If you're applying for a cartooney mobile game studio, you need to show cartooney stylized art.

    3) Only show your best, most appropriate work. Don't include old pieces that aren't demonstrative of your current skill level, or art that doesn't fit the job you're applying for. Don't show pictures of avos to a game dev studio, all you're doing is convincing them you're not the right fit for what they're looking for.

    4) This is the hardest one - work on your art skills. Work your ass off.

    Illustration/concept art is EXTREMELY competitive. I am a tiny studio that can only afford to pay peanuts, and I got 150 applications for my work posts. Big game studios paying any kind of salary, it'll likely be thousands. It is easy to hire artists from around the world, you are competing internationally whether you like it or not. Your skills need to be competitive.

    If you want to be a professional illustrator, work on your art skills every day, until you are competitive with the kind of work I've linked above.

    Best of luck!
  • I think that the reason that you arent having success in the field is because your work is not up to the standard that is required for studios to actually use.

    The work above - that is your competition. Just head over to Artstation and spend a few minutes browsing there to get a feel for the current level of concept artists and illustrators.

    I think that you need to go back to the absolute basics of art production before trying to create portfolio pieces to get work. Its rather clear that there are issues that could easily be cleared up by simply using reference. Build low poly models of your work and use them as a base to build upon. Dont do character work until you have at least a basic understanding of anatomy.

    A concept artist is required to produce illustrations that other artists can work off of to produce assets. Unfortunately looking at your work Im not sure if any artists would produce assets that are even remotely similar to each other if they were asked to work off of those concepts.

    You have a full time job - you can use the time spent not working to practice and study. Good luck!
    Thanked by 1Herman_96
  • Thanks to all the feedback so far and taking the time to write your response. I'll take each reply with a grain of salt.

    I do admit that my portfolio needs work, I'm only now starting to improve on my digital art since I've only been working digitally for 3 years. I think my stronger work is traditional (which I'm yet to scan in and add). Most of the examples are from a year or two ago but I will update as I improve and go along.

    I digress. I'll work on adding more game inspired art i.e. concept art to give me a better chance in the gaming world.

    In the mean time I'll keep working and pushing on!
    Thanked by 2Elyaradine garethf
  • edited
    As someone who's been at this awhile is pretty simple: you need the skillz to pay the billz

    that said I'm thinking of opening an art college...."Jean's handsome artist's modelling school"

    edit - spelt skillz and billz wrong
    Thanked by 2Herman_96 garethf
  • Herman_96 said:
    Thanks to all the feedback so far and taking the time to write your response. I'll take each reply with a grain of salt.
    Are you certain you are using that phrase correctly here?
    ""(With) a grain of salt", (or "a pinch of salt") is an idiom of the English language, which means to view something with skepticism or not to interpret something literally."



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