Boolean
October 25th, 2007, 08:43 PM
A few months back I asked a question similar to this, but this one has a bit of a new spin on it (just in case you remember it and are thinking “Didn’t we already do this?”)
I am currently trying to get into concept art (!), and I’m in the process of applying for colleges. Now, one of the tricky things (this is my impression anyway) about concept art is that unless you are working for a big company like EA where multiple projects are always going on, you may find yourself moving from company to company from job to job since most company’s only need you for the initial design stages of the game (unless you do something like texture artist in the mean time, but for now I’ll assume you are doing strictly concept art).
Because of the unpredictable nature, I figured it would serve me better to have a broad range of skills in art so that if I’m struggling to find concept art work for a few months, I have the skills to jump into any other freelance jobs that might come along. This presents two choices:
1) Specialise in concept art, and broaden my skills in areas such as comic art and inking in my spare time.
2) Specialise in Sequential art (…comics), and then develop my painting skills in my spare time.
Now ideally I want to get into concept art, but at the moment studying sequential art and then taking the painting skills I know now, the skills I will learn in first year and then all the study I will do in my own time into my portfolio seems like a better option than just specialising in concept art. On the flipside, if I specialise in concept art I have a better chance of being employed somewhere, but then I probably have less chance of finding freelance work outside of that area. I guess I'm worried that not enough skills will crossover from sequential art to concept art.
So this is my dilemma. If I study sequential art, am I going to miss out on just too many areas of study to get into concept art? I think at the end of the day it might not make any difference, since one of my favourite artists who works at blizzard studied animation, so I might just be putting too much thought into this.
Advice? :[
I am currently trying to get into concept art (!), and I’m in the process of applying for colleges. Now, one of the tricky things (this is my impression anyway) about concept art is that unless you are working for a big company like EA where multiple projects are always going on, you may find yourself moving from company to company from job to job since most company’s only need you for the initial design stages of the game (unless you do something like texture artist in the mean time, but for now I’ll assume you are doing strictly concept art).
Because of the unpredictable nature, I figured it would serve me better to have a broad range of skills in art so that if I’m struggling to find concept art work for a few months, I have the skills to jump into any other freelance jobs that might come along. This presents two choices:
1) Specialise in concept art, and broaden my skills in areas such as comic art and inking in my spare time.
2) Specialise in Sequential art (…comics), and then develop my painting skills in my spare time.
Now ideally I want to get into concept art, but at the moment studying sequential art and then taking the painting skills I know now, the skills I will learn in first year and then all the study I will do in my own time into my portfolio seems like a better option than just specialising in concept art. On the flipside, if I specialise in concept art I have a better chance of being employed somewhere, but then I probably have less chance of finding freelance work outside of that area. I guess I'm worried that not enough skills will crossover from sequential art to concept art.
So this is my dilemma. If I study sequential art, am I going to miss out on just too many areas of study to get into concept art? I think at the end of the day it might not make any difference, since one of my favourite artists who works at blizzard studied animation, so I might just be putting too much thought into this.
Advice? :[