"senior" and "lead" Art positions?

[Slade_Templar]

So I am probably moving to Austin in the spring of next year and have been looking on and off for art jobs, of which there are many, that I can hopefully get into once I get myself down there.

However, as I am looking, all I generally see are senior/lead level art positions. I would think they would hire lower and then promote internally, but maybe not. I know I'm not ready for a "lead concept artist/etc" position, because for that I need work experience for that.

I feel like I should be looking for "artist", "character artist", "prop artist", "junior concept artist", "environment artists", etc jobs. Although, I guess I might look at specific company job boards as well, they appear to post more than just the lead/senior stuff than careerbuilder/etc.

Anyone else have a take? Am I looking in the wrong places?

[Qitsune]

Maybe they don't post the junior jobs because they already have tons of juniors sending resumes so they don't need any more. Companies often have an e-mail address where you can send a resume even if a job is not posted. You should also try to make contacts in the industry (maybe by hanging out at events like IGDA events.)

[Slade_Templar]

Thanks Qitsune,
I will look into the IGDA and hopefully it will be easier to make contacts in Austin than it is in Kansas City (I see there is a chapter in Austin, none in KC :( ).

Also, good point on the junior jobs :) I guess I didn't really think about that.

[Amber Alexander]

I'd also suggest trimming down your website a lot. Here are a few tips:


You have a section for "Illustrations" and another for "Portfolio", this is redundant.
Your "Portfolio" section only has 1 image, if there are more I couldn't get it to work.
Your "Illustrations" section has alot of non-professional quality work. Remove everything except your very best 6-12 pieces. Remove everything that is is fanart. Remove everything that is not game related.


Good luck :)

[Slade_Templar]

@Amber,
The idea behind "portfolio" and "illustrations" was just to have all my very best pieces in "portfolio" and "everything else" in the sections of illustrations.

I guess I should put a few more pieces in the portfolio section and rearrange my sections at the top to put more emphasis on it however. I agree some pruning of older work is probably necessary as well.

Edit: Moved around sections and added more to portfolio, will probably do some pruning of the other sections soon.

[Amber Alexander]

@Amber,
The idea behind "portfolio" and "illustrations" was just to have all my very best pieces in "portfolio" and "everything else" in the sections of illustrations.

I guess I should put a few more pieces in the portfolio section and rearrange my sections at the top to put more emphasis on it however. I agree some pruning of older work is probably necessary as well.

Edit: Moved around sections and added more to portfolio, will probably do some pruning of the other sections soon.

I understand your reasoning but I'd like to explain the reasoning behind ONLY showing your best work, nothing else. The purpose of your website is to get a job. Pretend for a moment you are an art director or HR and you posted a job ad for a junior level artist. In a week maybe 200 people apply, how do you quickly narrow it down?

Personally I'd throw out any of submissions that didn't include a portfolio, cover letter and resume. Maybe now I'm down to 100 to go through.

Next I'd remove anyone who has only non relivant experience or a portfolio that looks amature. Now maybe I'm down to 40 submissions. These are the ones I would take the time to fully read over their information and comb through the portfolios to schedule interviews. Getting to this point is at minimum what your portfolio needs to accomplish to serve its purpose. You do not want anything but your best work because then it risks getting you cut as a potential candidate before you've been given a chance. You're narrowing your own options if you leave in non-relivant, non-professional or fanart.

Someone from an HR field or an art direction could give more information if this is actually how it works but this is pretty much as I understand it. Good luck :)

[dpaint]

Ambers right.
I was a lead artist at Lucas for two years and an Art Director for Totally Games for three years. You only get one chance, if you have any amature work at all you get cut.

Your portfolio is remembered for the worst piece in it, not the best
Tatoo this statement on your brain.

When we looked at work we expected it to be as good as ours, if anything showed a lack of judgement or weak execution, it showed the artist didn't know what good from bad and so you're out. Really bad stuff got put up on the submission wall of shame in the bull pen for everyone to make fun of.

Art departments are looking for artists as good or better than the artists they already have. They are not here to provide you training and experience and free art classes.

A weaker artist puts the whole art department under stress because they know that not only do they have to train you for the production pipeline and inhouse tools and get you up to speed on the style the lead has set, which by the way is hard enough; they also have to constantly watch the quality of your work. I would never hire someone like that.

Think of it like being a journeyman mechanic you may have to learn the particulars for a certain type of vehicle but they expect you to know how to work on an engine.

[Slade_Templar]

@Amber
I agree. Do you think I should just have a portfolio section and eliminate the blog/other sections completely? Then I imagine the best idea would be to beef up the portfolio section with a greater cross-section/variety of work. Do I need to make another website for goof-off stuff, maybe split my website between the blog and the actual portfolio (or just not have a blog at all?)

@dpaint
Thanks for the advice, I will definitely keep this in mind when pruning my portfolio and website down to the most applicable and relevant pieces (and remember that people will remember the worst piece rather than the best). Also interesting to hear about the goings-on from the inside of an art department.

While I believe we've gotten a bit OT, I think it is definitely in a positive and helpful way. Hopefully it has been helpful to other people as well.

Edit: I've significantly reorganized my site to make the portfolio much more prominent(more pieces are needed obviously), and the blog and other sections less important (although I may just remove the other sections entirely). Would a potential employer go rooting around in my blog if my portfolio is presented directly upon hitting the site?

[dpaint]

@Amber
I agree. Do you think I should just have a portfolio section and eliminate the blog/other sections completely? Then I imagine the best idea would be to beef up the portfolio section with a greater cross-section/variety of work. Do I need to make another website for goof-off stuff, maybe split my website between the blog and the actual portfolio (or just not have a blog at all?)

@dpaint
Thanks for the advice, I will definitely keep this in mind when pruning my portfolio and website down to the most applicable and relevant pieces (and remember that people will remember the worst piece rather than the best). Also interesting to hear about the goings-on from the inside of an art department.

While I believe we've gotten a bit OT, I think it is definitely in a positive and helpful way. Hopefully it has been helpful to other people as well.

As to the OP here is what I would do. Decide on the types of positions you would be willing to take and then build portfolios of work for those diciplines. So if you would take a texture artist job you would need to show texture and mapping work. Props same thing, modelling, backgrounds, whatever it is, have some examples of it to show you know what you are doing. If you want concept work then stick with that.
Right now your portfolio is more illustrative than concept in my opinion, if you want to do concept work you should have some model sheets up with turn arounds or vehicles in plan views or backgrounds with color keys.
Your work isn't geared towards production work at all at this point.

[Slade_Templar]

@dpaint

Thanks for the input. I've been thinking since I posted last about what I should put into the portfolio, I was initially thinking:

5 enviromentals(with color keys?), 5 conceptuals of props/items/characters/vehicles, 5 model sheets w/ turnarounds of characters/vehicles
Does that sound like a good starting point?

Thanks for the help so far! I am definitely taking your advice to heart.
I agree a lot of my work is illustrative instead of production, I am trying to get into some collaborations with game teams (mods, iphone games) to get more practice with the type of work that would go along with that.

[dpaint]

Yeah it does, I looked at your blog and saw some rough character sketches. You will want stuff that is cleaner than that for character sheets with the turn arounds. It is okay to have sketches to show but again weed them hard. Make your stuff slick and pro looking. You need a lot more anatomy and figure drawing at this stage so play to your strengths and make the figures as good as possible shoot yourself for ref if need be but get the proportions right.
Also I should address this here because I see so many people now come out of school without the needed skills. This is not directed at you or your work but a general statement for anyone wanting to get in the industry. If an artist can't draw a costumed character turnaround and have it look consistent from front, back and side views or draw a vehicle in a plan view, which is front, back, side, top, bottom and all the parts match up with each of the other views; you aren't ready to work in the industry as an artist.

[Slade_Templar]

@dpaint
Yes I've been trying to work on my anatomy and figure drawing, and have "shot myself" for ref or used photos to setup anatomical proportions (better start working out more!). Doesn't always work, but generally its a good base :)

On the point about turnabouts, I've seen a lot of 3/4 front 3/4 back pictures used for characters, obviously vehicles would need front/side/rear. I'll work on that in my concepts, didn't realize it was so important.

Thanks for checking out my site and giving me specific feedback on those few "concept pieces" I've actually done, I need to do more. Also, what is a color key? Is that like where you would do an enviro in grayscale then color it with overlays, etc in different ways to set different moods?

[dpaint]

Environment color keys are the same scene shown in different color schemes or times of day. In Preproduction you want to work out shots for environments and what time of day to set it at. You could do it in gray scale and then colorize each one differently but I think its better to just paint them the colors you want each time. For times of day you have to paint the same scene multiple times since the light and shadows would be different in the scene so a grayscale wouldn't work.

[Slade_Templar]

Thanks Dpaint, I will keep that in mind on the enviromentals I do and make sure to integrate it with future pieces.

Your advice has been invaluable.

[ikken]

On the point about turnabouts, I've seen a lot of 3/4 front 3/4 back pictures used for characters, obviously vehicles would need front/side/rear. I'll work on that in my concepts, didn't realize it was so important.

It really depends on the project you're working on (sometimes 3D artists are given more liberty, so a single 3/4 view is acceptable), but concept artist doing front-side-back orthos for characters is still more common.
It's saving modellers a lot of head-ache at the end (but again, depends on how strict are the art-directors guides - if you look, for example, at stuff coming from Blizzard, a lot of their finished models are deviating from the concepts quite a lot, and it applies to pretty much any project they've released. But the competition for both concept and 3D positions at Blizzard is fierce to say the least, so they trust their 3D artist's judgement in a way it can not be bad, probably.)

[Slade_Templar]

@ikken
Thanks for the advice, I haven't done more than 3/4 views for the projects I've worked on in the past for characters. I will make sure to do a few orthos of characters for my portfolio.

And yes, blizzard is awesome, especially their art team. I own every one of the art books from WoW :) (and a absolute ton of other game art books as well)

This thread has been super helpful, and I want to thank everyone for the advice I've gotten so far. Hopefully others have benefited from it as well.