So You Want To Be A Game Artist?: Tools and Skills
Author of this post: Marc Mencher | About Blog Authors »Know Your Tools
After you’ve decided your primary art career focus (see Career Paths from last week)—or at least your initial focus—it’s time to start learning the software. 3-D and 2-D art packages have zilch to do with normal office software like word processors or spreadsheets programs. Although learning on the job is a possibility for some aspiring artists, it may not be a practical training solution for many. And you can’t fake your way through this stuff. As a staff artist candidate, you must know the tools of the trade to be successful.
Everyone has an opinion as to what are the best or worst programs out there. But it’s not your opinion that counts. Discover what software packages are being utilized at the companies for which you want to work and why they prefer to use them. Then set out to learn them. In this way, you become a more viable and valuable candidate for the target company.
But becoming a game artist isn’t restricted to simply knowing how to use the latest and greatest 2-D and 3-D packages; far from it. The ability to visualize and construct a cohesive production design for the next major game project demands the mastery of traditional methods. After the design is implemented, it is these same traditional methods that are utilized in conjunction with the technical mastery of the software to yield the highest quality production values to the final product. Do not underestimate the power of a drawing! It is the conceptual design that inspires the ideas at first, but the successful transition from idea to actuality relies on each artist’s skills as interpreter to bring it to fruition. Balance of composition, color, anatomy, architectural/industrial design, and even line equality are all drawn from traditional art training. These are the fundamentals on which all great game art production are based.
The Ideal Game Artist
Before getting your 3-D art education, it’s imperative that you get your traditional education down first. If you start your career without the basics, you may get a job but then it will be very difficult to go back and get the education you should have had in the first place. As a result, you significantly limit your potential in the game production world.
Every game artist should have basic, traditional art skills. The ideal artist will have taken the extra time to polish these basics so that they are, by second nature, of the highest professional quality possible. All other success is founded on these prerequisite abilities as an artist and visualizer. Solid drawing, painting, and sculpture skills; good color and compositional abilities; and a knowledgeable grounding in art history for style and cultural trends should be every artist’s mantra.
Self-motivation is the prime energy source for all great game development teams. It enables the team to move the project forward faster and more accurately, and allows the team to focus on pushing the envelope on the project. With encouragement and enthusiasm, the team contributes more than the anticipated assets and gameplay due to the added efficiency of a team plugged into each other at all times. This not only motivates you, but it also causes everyone to rise to the occasion and do their best work.
When it seems like the only answer to a problem is not the one you want to hear, don’t stop moving forward. The best teams, when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, continue to refine and adapt their production process to incorporate new directions into the path towards success. It is this stress and potential chaos that has fostered some of the most exciting, elegant solutions that have driven the game industry thus far. Never get discouraged; be challenged by adversity.
Everyone has his own skills, ideas, and the knowledge that they bring to the team. Unless you are a savant, most, if not all, of that knowledge came to you from someone or something else — from a class lecture, a book, an article, or a colleague. All knowledge starts somewhere else. Don’t hoard what you know. Share it as freely as the one who gave it to you. Likewise, accept knowledge from other teammates graciously. Listen, if you want to be heard. Such a positive dynamic not only is more efficient and honest for team communication, but it actually feels better.
The game development process is exhausting. You should be prepared for the realities of production—delays, reworks, tech problems, design flaws, deadlines, lack of resources, more retrofits, broken something or others, you name it. But not one of these realities is a valid excuse for missing the final deadline. You have to endure and hold yourself to a higher standard of performance to overcome the inevitable chaos that ensues during almost every production cycle.
After you are confident that you have all of these traits, you should evaluate your current abilities and decide what career path is most acceptable to you and then begin training for success to meet that goal. For example, if you have always wanted to create the best character models, study anatomy and sculpture, along with Maya, Max, or some other modeling program. Observe projects from other character models; read production notes and post-mortems that describe problems their team encountered so that you can work around them. Build upon the proven success of finished titles so that your methods and results will have that much more likelihood of generating a superior version.
With a detailed knowledge of how “the machine” works, you will be able to define your desired career path, judge what skills are needed to successfully attain the starting position, then train and polish these abilities before attempting to enter the job market. This is a highly competitive industry. To succeed, you must understand the production process, define your target level of proficiency and expertise, and hone your abilities before presenting them to the decision makers. Be completely honest with self-critiques as you compare your current, proven art abilities with examples from professionals in the industry as seen on company Web sites and in the games themselves. This is your competition and the closer your current work quality and output rate quantity can come in line with your competition, the more likely that will lead to your dream position.
Armed with the right knowledge and refined skills, you now face the daunting task of presenting them to prospective employers with the highest potential for success. The tools of marketing to the industry include demo reels, resumes and brochures, CDs, and Web sites. After all your research and training, this stage is extremely critical. The marketing presentation is the first and potentially the only time you will have to pique the interest of the prospective employer and get a face-to-face interview if not the position itself.
To set up for success, this stage of career development must have as high a priority as your art training, with as much attention to detail and honesty in self-critique: Will the work represented in the presentation reveal the best overview of your abilities? Will the presentation hold the viewer’s interests? Is it too long? Is it too short? Are the abilities represented on a level of quality expected by the viewer? Are the abilities represented in line with the art positions to be filled by the viewer?
The game industry is an exciting, fulfilling, frustrating, exhausting, and enlightening environment that has endured through the energy and abilities of the team that make the games and the players who buy them. As newer technologies have been developed over time, the quality of game art assets have increased exponentially.
Although the market demand for extremely great-looking games has increased—making it possible for many more artists to be employed by the industry—you still have an obligation to coordinate with programmers and designers to not only deliver excellent art assets, but to continue to push for excellent game play, which is the foundation for the further success of this business.
Marc Mencher is CEO of GameRecruiter and a game industry career specialist who has helped thousands of jobseekers land positions with the leading games companies. Article re-published with permission of GameRecruiter.
Tags: Art
