Pursuing a career as character artist or similar, need advice

[biomanz]

Hi all. To get straight to the point, I'm 22 and just graduated from college with an economics degree but have since been set to get into the game industry. My main concern is my lack of an arts degree, and whether it's required to even get hired. An admissions assistant director from the Art Institute of Pittsburg contacted me and she talked about how essential a degree is to get hired, etc. Of course, there's some bias to be expected, but our chat had me even more concerned.

So my main question is whether any of you in the arts profession think a degree is absolutely necessary to even be considered for hire nowadays, or know of others who became artists without formal education. I know it helps, but I'm already $23k in debt with a "useless" degree (I don't want to do advertising/management for games, either), and I believe myself resourceful enough to draw and learn Photoshop and 3ds Max at least. For now, I'll make ends meet with whatever job I'm comfortable now and take art as a serious hobby.

Either way, I know it'll take me at least a couple years or so to become "good" enough, and another 2-4 years of schooling is the last thing I want (bit of a personal decision as well; becoming a professional artist without a degree is an achievement in itself!), so any advice from experience on how to pursue that dream would be greatly appreciated.

[netflow]

Biomanz,

With the gaming industry being the single largest entertainment industry in the world now there is a steep climb not only in demand for artists but also a steep climb in the demands ON artists. Now that AAA titles are not something of garages and basement groups but things which people must invest sometimes 10's of millions of dollars in, the complexity and requirements of those making these games has increased with the budgets. In 4 years even more so, so you need to realize exactly what you are getting yourself into and how much dedication and self-motivation is required to bring yourself up to the level necessary to earn the trust of the people who are entrusted with these 10's of millions of dollars. As I have said before here, it isn't necessary the schooling that will make you a better artists per-sae , it is the schooling that will usually be the only way a person can stay motivated and focused on learning a discipline 10 hours a day 5 days a week for 4 years on end. True passion is the other thing and that is something you should be sure burns within you before attempting to go it alone in any field, whether it be alchemy or animation.
Before I admitted to myself that I truly am born to manage and run teams as apposed to be one of the artists I spent 8 hours a day, 7 days a week for roughly a year teaching myself Max and I would say I just barely achieved the necessary skills required to be a props guy at a small studio(I still didn't feel comfortable rigging, mapping or texturing but could do it) and I know that I had a passion for animation, although I have a passion and a gift for managing so what can you do? Point being it took me 4 years to realize that.

The best part about this whole situation is that you are 22, young enough to make mistakes and not pay dearly for them, old enough to start out on your own to find your passion. My advice is to think long and hard, meditate on it if you can and find that passion and let it guide you wherever it wants. Even better would be to run away to a different continent for a year and find it while you are there If the passion truly leads to modeling, animating, skinning, whatever, if you wake up thinking about those things and go to bed thinking about them even though you aren't even getting paid to do them then rock and roll and grab that bull by the horns and enjoy the ride. If that is the truth within you then be grateful as there are a ton of great people here and on a ton of other boards which will be more than happy to help you on that journey(myself included).

Best of luck

Originally Posted by biomanz

Hi all. To get straight to the point, I'm 22 and just graduated from college with an economics degree but have since been set to get into the game industry. My main concern is my lack of an arts degree, and whether it's required to even get hired. An admissions assistant director from the Art Institute of Pittsburg contacted me and she talked about how essential a degree is to get hired, etc. Of course, there's some bias to be expected, but our chat had me even more concerned.

So my main question is whether any of you in the arts profession think a degree is absolutely necessary to even be considered for hire nowadays, or know of others who became artists without formal education. I know it helps, but I'm already $23k in debt with a "useless" degree (I don't want to do advertising/management for games, either), and I believe myself resourceful enough to draw and learn Photoshop and 3ds Max at least. For now, I'll make ends meet with whatever job I'm comfortable now and take art as a serious hobby.

Either way, I know it'll take me at least a couple years or so to become "good" enough, and another 2-4 years of schooling is the last thing I want (bit of a personal decision as well; becoming a professional artist without a degree is an achievement in itself!), so any advice from experience on how to pursue that dream would be greatly appreciated.

[doylle]

So, if I get your post right, your question is "degree or no degree"?

This is how I see it. I'm currently a student myself, I have my final year comming up, which is half a year of lessons, and half a year of internship. I'm doing a game-design course, which will give me some sort of degree in game design (It includes allot of porgramming and stuff like that too, but that put asside) if I pass. However, I consider myself an artist. So if i look back at what i've learned so far (as an artist), i can't say it was all that much. They gave me a taste of everything, but didn't give us a chance to really get good at something. Everything you see in my portfolio, 65% of the modeling is self taught, all the texturing is completely self taught.

being a student, i've already received mails from a number of companies that asked if i already had a job, and if i was interested in one. Some small ones, but some big ones too. And none of them asked me if I had a degree or anything. So, imo having a degree in game design doesn't mean anything. Well, it means you've been to school for a couple years and you did a bunch of assignments, but that doesn't mean anything if you're not passionate about game design and if you don't have skills to make something. Because at the end of the day, that is what's most important imho. Can you or can you not make art.

don't get me wrong. I'm absolutely convinced that one should have a degree of some kind. They didn't invent degrees for nothing, and they may not be that important in the game industry, they sure are for the rest of the world. Imagine you have a burn out at 35, and you want to do something completely different. You'll be damn happy you have that degree. It's something sollid you can fall back to.

Like said before, a course will help you to focus, and if you're not good in learning stuff on yourself (which you'll eventually will have to do anyway), a course will definitely be a big help.
But is a "game art degree" absolutely necessary. I think not. The only thing you need is passion and skills...

J

[Genia]

Im in a very similar position myself. So thanks for the replies guys. The whole idea of going it alone is daunting so I really do hope that if I put in the effort Ill be rewarded with an industry job because I sure as hell cant spare the time and money to do another degree.

The way Im hoping it works is that if you have a degree, any degree, then you have proven that you have all of the non-industry specific skills like dedication, communication skills, an understanding of what it is to be a professional (in any industry) etc etc. Then the artistic skills should hopefully speak for themselves from your portfolio. If it doesnt work that way then I may just end up with a very serious hobby

Genia

[Xoliul]

Industry Portfolio Answers for Aspiring 3D Game Artists - Sumea Launchpad
That really answers it. Pretty much all of them say it doesn't matter, and those are the people that will decide if they hire you.
You'll still need the skills and a good portfolio though Keep in mind I think it'll take at least two years for you to get to a point were your skills start to get good enough for a job, and a lot of people don't have the dedication to keep it up that long.

[biomanz]

@Netflow -
I realize I will be virtually an "untested" artist when starting out, and it's my hope that in the near future the standards of today wouldn't rise so much that a degree is mandatory. But where there are more and better games coming out, I'm thinking there should be a rise in new companies that don't need top-notch artists where I could potentially put my foot in.
As for motivation, I shouldn't have a problem with that I spent the last couple months figuring out what was stirring inside me, and it seemed pretty For the first time I actually envisioned what I wanted to become and could smile about it. I've been browsing through galleries, recently on this site, and couldn't help but become inspired and motivated to be better (hell, I view everyone as a competitor now even if they got nothing to be afraid of from me ).

@doylle
May I ask whether you've applied for those internships that contacted you or how they found out about you?

@Xoliul
Thanks for that link. I imagine it'll be of tremendous help once I finally provide a portfolio.

@Genia
That's what I'm hoping in my case as well, that my degree will serve to indicate that I'm at least above "high school level" and a certain standard. And I know there's a chance I might fail and I need to remain realistic in my abilities, but for me I'm gonna die trying

Thx for the replies guys.

Henry

[Talon]

From what I've seen, you might be better off learning yourself. I'm on a game art degree course at the moment (also 22) and I don't intend to finish it because it's ultimately become a waste of time and money and what gets taught is so far removed from either the fundamentals or the cutting edge that it is of not a whole lot of use. This seems to be the trend for a lot of courses in the same vein. That said, there are a small number game art courses around that are reputable, it does seem that these tend to be private ones that can be quite expensive (in the US at least). There's only something like 4 in the whole of the UK.

Also, character art is a notoriously hard career to get into and you may find that courses don't really specialise enough to be truly useful to you in that respect. The best thing you can do to help it is to practice. A lot. I mean tons. Take some classes in life drawing to learn anatomy (you should find that local colleges or unis do them) as well as drawing from books with muscle structure digrams.

It looks like you already have a degree, so I wouldn't worry at all about having an art degree. It's not important and it doesn't make up for lack of skill or passion.

[doylle]

Originally Posted by biomanz

@doylle
May I ask whether you've applied for those internships that contacted you or how they found out about you?

Most mails came after I set up a portfolio site with some work. I only posted the link here at GA.net, and in my signature on some other smaller forums. One of the companies that contacted me was one that i've been interested in for a while, so that gave me a huge dilemma. I then decided to finish school, get a degree, and try to do my internship at that firm, however with allot of other kandidates i'm not so sure if i'll get in anymore. I hope I didn't make a bad deciscion afterall.

If i would've been in your posisition with a degree in my pocket it would've left school long time and get a job...

[Wim]

I beleve talent is more than a degree. But you need one, nothing in live is sure. One day you can work in a good company next day you got kicked out, a good degree gives next to art gives you a better fundament for the rest of you're live. A art degree is worth nothing if you aren't good enough.
And to be honest, after school you dont know that much. Just a taste of how it can be. If you aren't smart enough to learn it on you're own ( like me) you better save some money and go to a private school. like escapestudios in the UK. Or go to the US ( dollar is very low at the moment) You are still young so hurry up, everybody is getting younger and younger in this industry...

[3rdman]

This is an interesting discussion as i personally am trying to get into the industry doing character modeling. Although i have my final year coming up....im seriously scared cos that burning question in my heart keeps telling me....."what if im not enough?".

I feel as though at the end of the day its what you can do and have done, my degree serves absolutely no help for me....literally! i do Bsc (Hons) Computer Graphics Technology, sure we use maya, but i was only taught of this program in 2nd year, despite this i was working on many many many tutorials, learning it before anyone else on my 1st year. (See below)

My university course is so technical and practical, but most of the 1st year was maths and physics blah blah blah. Then comes 2nd year and only 1 semester of 3d modeling, the most hardest part of my course was not learning how to texture, so therefore i spent countless hours texturing in photoshop, learning from basics to next-gen modeling + texturing.

Im 21yrs old, over £10,000 in debt, and for some reason im smiling about it...lol i really dont know why, but it took me a year to find out i was doing a wrong course, as i did computer science in 1st year, crap. And now i feel as though im not enough to be in the industry....

So my advice is...

1. If you're aiming to go and learn a course, as Wim said go private, screw uni. look at private schools like around your'e area.
2. Start with tutorials.

heres some websites:

Digital-Tutors

The Gnomon Workshop - Professional Training dvds for Artists

3. Best of all practice hard.

4. Find you're inspiration!

I realised even if i dont get a job in the industry.....someday i will and when i do i will know and realise how hard i worked to get to this point, because what is life without any hardships?