employer's going for multi skilled artists

[mtw]

I haven't started paying attention to jobs yet, but I was just looking at Monolith's job postings to see what kind of stuff they were looking for. I noticed that they wanted 3D artist who could also do character designs. Is there a trend these days of companies wanting artists who can do both 2D and 3D art?

[AmishCommy]

there is a trend where people want Gods working for them at slave wages. I live in NYC and have been looking for work for over 6 months with little luck. Everyone here wants someone that can do design, illustration, web coding, and other skills of 70+ men with something ungodly like 10 years of experience, and all they want to pay is a crappy 30k or less. This may be enough elsewhere, but not in NYC. plus if you have all those skills and 10 years of experience a fair sallary is in the 70k-120k range. He're the thing, the market is booming with candidates.

any comapany wants the best candidate for as little money as humanly possible. You need experience, get a bunch of internships and stick with them because they can turn into your first job. You can be really good but experience counts more.
(example: my friend's company is reviewing canditates for animator. they are down to 2 guys. One is a friend of mine, my friend's friend and the friend of 2 other people in that company. we're all good buddies from school. he is more than qualified and will work great with the team because he's friends with half of it. the test they both did is almost equal in quality. Same strengths and same weaknesses, but my friend's animation, and i'm not saying this because i know him, had slightly more character to it. Its subtle, but a better fit for the game. But he is loozing out to the other guy because the other dude has 9 years experience.)

[MoorDragon]

I agree that the companies are looking for people who can do everything. I live in Los Angeles and I applied for work at DreamWorks on a tip from a friend at Warner Brothers. The first question the recruiter asked me is who have you worked for before...mainly she wanted to know if I worked for Pixar or LucasFilms...in other words they were only interested in people who have already worked for the big companies. There seems little room for breaking in if you're new. And if you're new, your work has to be as good or better than what the folks at Dreamworks and Pixar are doing.

And when it comes to applying or work in this field, you are often up against about 200 other artists who know all the same techniques and software as you. The job pool is currently saturated with digital artists, animators and character artists....all desperate to break in to one of the big studios.

I'm thinking of giving up the whole digital thing, go back to traditional painting and sell them at the mall or something.

---MoorDragon

[sorrowking]

Theres a lot to be said for the traditional mediums.Its better at showing artistic skill rather than mastery of a program :P

[MangaCan]

I have to agree with MoorDragon,

Now a days, it seems like there are 500 artists to each project. So large companies can afford to be picky, and demanding. And smaller companies generally freelance work to their niche group of artists that they always use.

To make matter worse, art schools, colleges etc. are full of students who are excellent, and willing to work for peanuts just to get their feet in the door.

As for multi-tasking, I suggest you go for mastering one type of art, and have proficiency in the others. Because being ok in a bunch of mediums and styles won't get you as far as being dam fantasic in one medium, and good in others.

Endpoint,

Its an employer market right now, get use to it, because I don't think its going away. :[

Graeme :canadapatriot: