Digital Art: Self Taught or Not?

[Detobu]

Hi, I'm a senior in high school looking to become a concept artist/freelance illustrator. I think I'm really fortunate with my school's art program, having taken an illustration class, two graphic design classes, three fine arts classes, an animation/cartooning class, and an independent study with the department head. Graphic design gave me a basic familiarity with all adobe software but thats as my art/tech experience goes.

Where I'm getting at is how many people here are self taught with 2d/3d software packages or if many of you took courses at college. I want to stay in the new england area for college and really don't have access to the more digital media art schools you'd find in California. Informative/Civil responses would be much appreciated!

[FalconInverse]

There are a fair bit of self-taught artists on this forum.
I think that most of them will agree that a committed individual can do wonders on their own, but nobody is beyond the help of a little guidance.

Check out Jen Zee (http://jenzee.gfxartist.com/)'s work. She's about 23 years old, and completely self taught, as far as I know. Her stuff is pretty sweet.

[Detobu]

Thanks, that kinda helped. I guess part two of my question is how well you can find work (specifically in video games) with little knowledge of 3D software packages. I was told even as a concept artist you need an basic understanding of programs like z brush and maya. True or false?

[VenustusVis]

To answer both your questions (this coming from a college art student) it is helpful to go to college, but you can get by without it. Studios don't care weather you have gone to school or not, they just care about your abilities and what you can do for them. If you are determined enough you can do anything...you just have to have the endurance and will to draw/study anatomy/etc.. 4-8 hours every day. The more you work the faster you'll learn.

The main things that college has to offer is it puts you together with other people with similar goals so you learn from them and as such they learn from you. Also, there are teachers there to guide you in the right direction. By studying on your own you may develope an asthetic that you like, but may not be very appealing or make sense to anyone else. Additionally it provides a work structure for you. If you don't have the will power to study/model/draw for hours on end every day then going to college will force you to do it weather you want to or not.

Finally to answer your question about zbrush and maya. From what I've read most studios don't want to take the time to teach you the programs, for the most part they expect you to know them or at the very least have a background in a similar application (ex: 3ds max, maya, modo, etc...) or just simply know how to model and use the most basic modeling tools. Since zbrush is a very unique program completely different in the way it works from maya or any of the apps listed above I would recommend learning it in addition to some other modeling/rendering app. So in summary they might teach you the toolset of the programs they use in their workflow, but they aren't going to take the time and money to teach you new concepts or completly new programs.

If you aren't interested in going to school & have the will power to work long hours and study I would recommend buying some training dvds from gnomon workshop or digital tutors. I have found that I've actually learned more, faster with training dvd's than I have with any course I have ever taken including the ones I'm taking now.

I should mention that I have wondered the same question as you and much of the information I have provided is hear say and comes from other sources. The college info is based on my own experience thus far.

As you can see I picked to goto college for the simple reason that the one I goto is prided on being very good for illustration majors and the foundation year is suppose to be comparible to that of princton (or was it harvard?) meh anyways I hope this has helped you and what ever your decision is good luck.