Professional Practice.
External Visitors
Total Monkery - Frederick Fitzpatrick:
Martin Darby:
Kamal Gohil:
http://pcadesignhub.blogspot.co.uk/
Elle Romanos:
Graeme Watson:
Drew Turner:
Oliver Carson:
Tim Nguyen:
Nutbean:
Sergei K:
- Get yourself out there, go to events and ask for opinions on your work. (Keep it short and simple.)
- Focus on your area of expertise, but also work on all round skills.
- Get good at working quicker, and be ready for your work to be scrapped.
- Don’t get stressed out over tight deadlines, just get work done to the best of your ability.
Martin Darby:
- When sending, make it easy to access artwork.
- There are three types of games, Learning, Artwork, and Money.
- Get yourself out there, get known. Make your work easier to remember.
- Clients expect too much for too little.
Kamal Gohil:
http://pcadesignhub.blogspot.co.uk/
- Skills I could provide: 3D Modelling, Texturing, Pixel Art, Animation.
- Students collect %70 of profits earned from client work.
- A good way to build up your portfolio and understand what clients expect.
Elle Romanos:
- Know what role you want.
- Qualifications are not enough, but they do help.
- Understand the industry.
- Don't give up.
- Have an amazing portfolio.
- Make a game!(Or artwork.)
Graeme Watson:
- Volunteer for conferences like - PAX, EGX, GDC, Pocket Gamer, and Develop Conference.
- Brighton Development Conference, Run by Graeme himself.
- Networking.
- Internships: Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft.
- Make something.
Drew Turner:
- Network (Should be called making friends.)
- Set up a good website(Portfolio)
- Start off by letting people know what you do
- Make contacts through friends
- Work on a design studio
- Business cards
Oliver Carson:
- Game jams help at getting yourself into the industry as you can form connections in the community.
Tim Nguyen:
- Go on LinkedIn .
- Meet people in the industry.
- Game companies heavily rely on referrals.
- Have something to show, and ask for criticisms.
Nutbean:
- Art exhibitions
Sergei K:
- Specialize your portfolio to one major skill.
- Make multiple portfolios for other skills you have.
Reflection:
Out of all the external visitors that talked to us, Fred and Drew were the two that greatly inspired me, they seemed like people that I could look up to and hope to be like. I enjoyed Fred's talk because he seemed like he really cared about the industry he was in. Also when talking about focusing on your area of expertise, he mentioned about different software to learn. Mainly he mentioned Blender, which for me was great to hear as I use Blender a lot and hadn't known if it was used at all in the industry. So hearing him mention it was hopeful.
Drew gave some great insight about being a freelance artist. He told us that to get noticed/get work we should create a good website/online portfolio and that we should let people know what do, so I would tell people that i'm a 3D modeler or a 3D environment artist. He mentioned that a good way to do this is via social media, I.e Twitter or Facebook.
I wasn't really that big of a fan of Oliver's work, his work just seemed really sloppy and the games provided had no meaning. The one where you put the rocks together to make a golem type creature didn't make any sense on what you had to do, or even why you were making this golem in the first place. It seemed like because of the Game Jams that he had attended, that he focused more on making a game quickly, rather than thinking about why he was making the game and what he wanted the players to take from the game.
Tim, Martin, and Graeme gave good insight into the industry and what they're looking for in artists and creators. They each had different opinions on whether or not the final grade is important. Graeme said that he would only ever chose people who have got firsts and rarely sometimes seconds. While Tim said that he's found that a great portfolio is more important than what grade you get. So what i'm going to take from this is that I should aim for a first, but the important thing is that I focus on making my portfolio more professional and fill it with great artwork.
Sergei gave, in my opinion, good information on different areas of the industry. He talked about how he got into the film industry though gaming. He talked to us about what we should show on our portfolios, and he was the only one that said it was okay to have more than one portfolio for different areas of our expertise, so as to keep from mixing skill sets on one single portfolio. I felt that his was important to know as I mostly am a 3D environment artist, but there are other areas that I have expertise in, like animation. So in the future I will make a portfolio based on my animation skills, once I feel I've gotten to an expert level.
From here I know I need to work on my portfolio a lot more, adding higher quality work tailored to one specified area of expertise.
Some other areas/things I would like to work on are:
I feel like I would do better in an Indie company because I wouldn't be in charge and I also wouldn't be lost in a field of employees.
Drew gave some great insight about being a freelance artist. He told us that to get noticed/get work we should create a good website/online portfolio and that we should let people know what do, so I would tell people that i'm a 3D modeler or a 3D environment artist. He mentioned that a good way to do this is via social media, I.e Twitter or Facebook.
I wasn't really that big of a fan of Oliver's work, his work just seemed really sloppy and the games provided had no meaning. The one where you put the rocks together to make a golem type creature didn't make any sense on what you had to do, or even why you were making this golem in the first place. It seemed like because of the Game Jams that he had attended, that he focused more on making a game quickly, rather than thinking about why he was making the game and what he wanted the players to take from the game.
Tim, Martin, and Graeme gave good insight into the industry and what they're looking for in artists and creators. They each had different opinions on whether or not the final grade is important. Graeme said that he would only ever chose people who have got firsts and rarely sometimes seconds. While Tim said that he's found that a great portfolio is more important than what grade you get. So what i'm going to take from this is that I should aim for a first, but the important thing is that I focus on making my portfolio more professional and fill it with great artwork.
Sergei gave, in my opinion, good information on different areas of the industry. He talked about how he got into the film industry though gaming. He talked to us about what we should show on our portfolios, and he was the only one that said it was okay to have more than one portfolio for different areas of our expertise, so as to keep from mixing skill sets on one single portfolio. I felt that his was important to know as I mostly am a 3D environment artist, but there are other areas that I have expertise in, like animation. So in the future I will make a portfolio based on my animation skills, once I feel I've gotten to an expert level.
From here I know I need to work on my portfolio a lot more, adding higher quality work tailored to one specified area of expertise.
Some other areas/things I would like to work on are:
- Networking, working on getting myself out there and getting known.
- I would like to work on a game in Unity with a friend.
- Finding Contract work, to get used to how that works.
- keep working on my architectural skills, by just making and designing new buildings .
I feel like I would do better in an Indie company because I wouldn't be in charge and I also wouldn't be lost in a field of employees.