Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer: Advice from Industry Artists

[Music] like I said welcome to killer portfolio uh we are doing a portfolio review portfolio reviews after this from 2: to 5: so if anybody's interested this is where we're going to be anyway all right so let's start with some introductions danis do you want to go sure uh my name is Danish Sayed I'm one of the art directors at bit react um I guess we'll leave it there for now hello my name is l bashinsky I'm an associate art director at Riot games working in research and development hi I'm Ashley Sparling I'm the co-founder and character art director at K9 digital I'm Jeff parrot I'm an associate art director at Blizzard Entertainment on World of Warcraft and I guess I probably should said I'm Greg fch I'm a creative director at bit reactor um guys one tell us a little bit

about how you uh got in the industry like what your background is all right well I'll try to make this brief it's a very circuitous route which I think is actually pretty beneficial to hear about because there's no one way to get in um so I started out in computer science um I always wanted to do something in the art field but I also like computers and I wasn't like super confident in my artistic skills and so I got a I went to school for computer science worked as a systems administrator for a few years and decided okay well I guess this is is cool but I really want to pursue my passion so I went to school at night went to art school and got an animation degree and eventually broke into the industry doing Motion Graphics for film and television and then eventually after a few years of that um the studio I was working at was kind of like shifting Direction into a place where I wasn't as interested and I had saw an opportunity for a contract position at Warner Brothers games in Chicago which I didn't realize was actually uh mid uh Midway games that the creators of Mortal Kombat and so uh I had the entire interview not

realizing what I was interviewing for at the end I was like so what are you working on and they're like we're doing Mortal Kombat and I was like oh my God I cannot believe that that's like one of my favorite games of all time so uh that was kind of my my way in uh I can uh make up some time I have a very straightforward path I think obnoxiously so is a very boring tale when I was a kid I thought wow blizzard games are so cool I want to work for blizzard and then in high school I uh I'm from Edmonton Alberta Canada I went to Vic comp which is an art school there and I learned how to animate and then I came here for University just around the corner I applied for the blizzard internship back in 2012 and I got it and then they hired me back full-time after that and that's how I did [Laughter] it uh so for me I was always into art um I got like a traditional background in sculpting and painting and drawing and I was like I always wanted to do special

effects makeup that was always my thing that I wanted to do and I went to go look at a university and one of the teachers was like you don't want to get into the Practical stuff go into digital go into digital so I was like oh I never really thought about it and then found out that I quite like doing game characters and then kind of went from there I've been in the industry now 17 years worked at rare lion head rest in peace but um and Ubisoft and yeah eventually started my own company with uh with my wife and it's pretty damn cool um my path is kind of similar to the Nish uh I went to school graphic design major uh went to college graphic design major computer science minor got out was doing websites and logo design stuff like that freelance and uh my father came to visit me um where I was living at the time and he and he could kind of tell I wasn't super happy doing that and he said why don't you find a you know go back to school and find something that lines up better with what you like to do game movies whatever and

I up to that point I never realized that people actually like people make games I don't know what I thought they just appeared you know uh at the store and I went and got them um it it was it was a really odd thing and he kind of connected that up and um that uh so what I ended up doing is going back to school and doing that and then I started out doing freelance work and uh then moving to in studio uh work and that was early 2000s um I think I've probably contributed to like north of 25 27 games something like that so um yeah quick P cool um you guys have a really diverse background up here um what are some of the uh what about you Greg yeah me okay all right um so I started as an intern um didn't know anything about games sort of like some of you uh really they just kind of magically happened I have a traditional background I started as an intern at a place called micro Pros way way back um and then I left

there I spent about 22 years at fraxis games uh left there did a little stint helping my friends out at Romero games for about a year while I started my own studio and now I went from art director to creative director and CEO of my own company which is kind of cool so if you're an artist out there you can do it um you don't have to work for finance people um and so yeah so that was my path so and I'm lucky enough to have uh surrounded myself with some really talented people uh both at my office and friends in the industry which I really appreciate them in here um anyway so let's jump into what do you guys see is most likely like what are some of the common mistakes that you you see in portfolios you've all seen a bunch of them um what are some things that you see that are are typical that that could be avoided should we go down the line or do anybody's got thoughts jump animation what's what is the biggest stuff you see there animation how many animators up in this room nice right on take notes just kidding um the biggest things that I see

are a sort of lack of diversity in a portfolio is probably the one I think goes under the radar I think people have heard oh it's too long or like or it's the length is the thing that comes up most often but the I would rather have a long rail that has a like a lot of that is properly showcasing your skills um but also don't make it super long what I mean by that is all see a reel and it if you're applying for a game Studio there's like an this implication of like what you think you should do and it's like all walk cycles and they're not different walk Cycles they're all the same piece over and over and over again or it's just all dialogue and it's just lip syncs and even if those walk Cycles are amazing or even if those lipins are amazing it's more than likely you'll be asked to do a variety of different things once you get on the job and so showcasing as best as you can the variety of the things you might be asked to do I need a body mechanic piece sure throw a lips sync

piece in there sure throw a cycle in there but don't make it some kind of vanilla thing we'll do a character cycle you want all those different pieces that are showing the the Myriad of things that you're able to do and let that be your super tight reel of sort of one of each is good enough for me don't double up there's no need Jeff what do you usually say um so I think the the biggest thing to keep in mind is hiring managers uh recruiters you know art directors leads are taking a risk when they hire people you reduce that risk as much as possible and uh show them that you can do the job that they're hiring for be specific if you're really excited about creating stylized fantasy characters have a portfolio focused around that if you really love realistic military vehicles have a portfolio around that but understand your portfolio isn't going to be applicable to all jobs I know that feels limiting but what that does is that actually gives you that time to focus on that one pure craft as students you don't have that the 10,000 hours to get

good at all the things all the things comes over time it's really narrow your focus down um secondly I would say do the kind of um one of these things is not like the other test uh you can look at uh online you can just uh enter in a search engine whatever game you want art blast or you know artist you can look on on any of those uh platforms art platforms out there art station Cara any of those kind of ones and find professionals that are doing what you want to do put those portfolios up on a screen and put yours up on a screen what is yours missing and really be analytical think through it what do I need to do what do I not have that they have and what am I including that they don't in that they have uh and then I also say like with that sort of run your work through what I I call like the civilian test people that don't know anything about video games like a roommate a loved one a parent a relative whatever does this stuff look right what's missing and they'll really point

out those flaws because they'll give you that snap judgment so I think it's really important to to kind of curate Focus your portfolio uh but then also make sure it's aligned with the people that you want to work with I know that's a little daunting in terms of like well they've been doing this for X number of years I'm a student I'm still learning but if you want your work to sit next to their work in a game your work needs to be able to sit next to their work on a screen and so you do have to kind of keep that as a target for you um I'll probably stop keep going for 30 minutes but I'll stop I actually have an addition to that um you have to be very selective I think I fell into this trap you know coming out of school where I just felt like I didn't have enough to show and so I would put too much into a portfolio including pieces that you know really shouldn't have made the cut and because I just thought I need to Pat it out I need to be bigger I need to be more impressive but but really being more selective and honing things down is actually a way better way to go you're you're only as strong as your weakest piece

want them re why they include this in their portfolio reason hone it down really focus it yeah and just as like a like a caveat to my my earlier statement like just because I we want to see the breadth that doesn't mean you need to show everything like if you only like doing uh like fight scenes or you want to work on cinematics you don't have to show Cycles at all like that doesn't have to be a part but like just be thoughtful with what you're curating for each thing one of the things I'd say as well I mean there's a lot of competition out there you know and I I see a lot of like portfolios of characters like in toos or if you're doing environments just like a brick or something but the whole reason why we want to get into this industry is to tell stories you know so don't just do like a character in a te- POS you know put put like a either an idle animation or put it in a pose if you are doing a brick for whatever reason just do like a couple of

bricks and make it into an actual story you know show that you can actually tell a story for your characters and for your environments for your animations could could we talk about I one thing just kind of spread that actually spread an idea um fan art I think is that acceptable in a portfolio uh I personally love seeing fan art yes I want to see it but what I don't want to see is recreating the thing that's already been made in the game I want to see the thing that feels new but it that but also that it belongs in the game what's the thing next to that person if it's a superhero what's that character that's next to the superhero if it's a a huge building you know in a in a key City in a MMO world let's say um what's that building that maybe is around the corner add add something new to it but Fan Art Is Awesome um just don't remake the thing because the team is going to know what you did right they're also really going to know what you did wrong because they've been looking at those the exact things for a long time also uh if you need a logo to

say it's fan art um it's not successful in my view like you shouldn't have to take a logo from a game that you did not work on and put it on like your thumbnail image to say that it's fan art someone should be able to look at and go oh my gosh this looks like game X and tell from that instead of just a logo do you want that do you want that in the description though to say like like that it is Fan Art just so it doesn't confuse yeah it say fan art in the description but the logo kind of comes across clout chasing to me a little bit like I don't I don't love it yeah cool all right so what are you guys have seen a ton of portfolios are there any that like you can go back and think about like this is like the best one I've ever seen or is one that really lasted with you maybe even if it wasn't the best one like it was one that stood out over a period of time there was one I saw recently that excuse me it was for um a UI artist and uh what I really loved about it it was

not only the final art was really excellent but it showed the process it showed the the sort of like um process and personality are two things that I look for and uh how you know what was going through their mind when they came up with this idea and what were they trying to achieve emotionally and what kind of impact they want like all of those things like that's what I love seeing is the thought process and getting into their head and um and also just like the the sometimes the Dirty Work of like yeah so this is kind of my scratch pad and like I didn't like this or I didn't like that but then kind of showing the evolution of an idea um so something like really thorough where you have the the final piece but then all of the kind of leg work behind it so portfolios like that I think really stick out yeah I was going to say a similar thing it's um I always quite to like I like to see if you can add value to the community like if there's like a little like tutorial or something like that or a different way that you've been able to make I don't know a a chain or something

like that and I think th those things are kind of more rememberable than the actual artwork because quite often I'll be thinking of like making something and I'm like oh yeah I saw this person I can't remember their name but I can remember that they did this tutorial so it's like chain tutorial whatever but it kind of shows that you're you're willing to work in the team and you're willing to share your knowledge as well mhm some of the most memorable portfolios that I see are ones that are able to demonstrate sort of a a t-shaped person um and t-shaped uh is when somebody has like a very clear skill that they're applying for so an animation it's an animation demo real but if it is edited amazing you know we're not just seeing the full length of every piece It's like got Quick Cuts to a song and the song is not overwhelming and then the you know the splash screen with their information on it has a nice design on it to me that

is it's not I would never turn somebody away who's applying for an animation position who didn't have music and just had their animations etc etc etc I think like that's what I'm hiring for but these memorable portfolios really stick out as somebody who will be extensible will be adaptable and possibly be able to give your team more because they're also able to show these other skills on display um so if you have other skills that are you know tangent to the art that you do and you're confident that you're good at them like don't do it if it's just to throw it in that will not there's got to be some sense of self-awareness there but if you got the skills show them off I I think the most memorable portfolio I saw um and this is going to date myself but back in 2005 I want to say um back when normal maps and specular Maps were kind of uh just you know um uh coming into development process uh an artist put a scene together and on a cardboard box in the scene they

had a fingerprint in the spec map and it's little things like that like this storytelling like I want to work with storytellers and I think that's really important to have that kind of uh ability to tell stories through your artwork uh we I don't want to work with people that are just 3D printers you know and just make a thing and and you know go to an online store and just like print out the the cabinet or whatever the pair of jeans like tell a story with your artwork is what I tell you yeah the next one is not super complex here but like how many samples everybody always wants to know and we sort of touched on this a little bit before but how many samples should be in a portfolio what do you guys normally think uh animation I think the current advice is roughly a minute if you're above two it's like way too much um and ultimately just only the best things you know if your real is 30 seconds long but it's like Best of the Best that's great that's

great three pieces next question I was going to say to to that normally when like we're looking at portfolios we can probably tell in the first 10 15 seconds that are we going going to continue looking at the rest of the portfolio just because we we get inundated on portfolios and you could spend a lifetime looking at portfolios and never get any work done so you know you got to in that 10 30 seconds you got to make something wow to catch our attention treat it like a store window you know like a a department store or whatever put the enticing stuff that people want to come in and look at more stuff so best best piece whether it's animation you know whether it's you know your online portfolio for 3D characters environments whatever um visual development concept are best work first always that's a great lead into the next question which is is a good idea to to show in progress work like and and how

would you do it I think you started to allude to it like start with stuff right it's always tricky to me to see that cuz you know like another question is like should I show wireframes and and there's that's such a specific answer because there's a lot of hiring managers and and folks that are like yes I always want to see wireframes I only want to see them if they're good which I can tell you I haven't seen a lot of good wireframes I've never looked at it and go gone like oh my gosh that's really NE unless it's like 50 polygons you know and it's a it's a some car or something you know some detailed car um so I think it's really challenging I think you need to do it in the right space I don't know in your main portfolio if work in progress is the way to go but I think you can have a blog or something like that I do love seeing thinking and the thought process um if I can click on an image and then see the buildup in like a process GIF of how you made that I I love seeing that stuff secondarily I would say think like when you have portfolio if you have a

portfolio website like a YouTube video for animation or anything like that is great but I think places like art station are also awesome because you can have a video and then under the video in the same post you can embed a bunch of images and stuff too if you have thumbnails that you do or like reference videos that you want to throw in there it's like good to I think to provide the option because if it's getting down to like a couple candidates I will weigh that in but I would I wouldn't put it in like the core thing that went was for that initial pass of digging through and always lead with the Finish piece right like then tree out underneath Danish anything else about like UI because that's such an hate to say it's an emerging but it but it is different yeah it it definitely is different and I think um I agree that like process is for a lot of per those should be sort of secondary but in UI it is a little bit more important because we we want to know cuz UI and ux is so much about um player uh sort of psychology and and

the user experience and how you thinking about how the player thinks and that sort of thing so I think for that it actually is very important to show process and and your your thought yeah your thought process next one we kind of talked about a little bit before and Jeff and I were actually talking about this outside generalist versus specialist like the the industry's grown so much the window for what you do is so different I think when I started it was like you're just artist like you were an artist and animator um I'm I'm truly not an animator um but I think uh I appreciate them I really do um but like I think I think a lot of a lot of people coming out of school feel conflicted as like do I do I do the wide range of things do I do something special um what do you guys think yeah that it speaks to me greatly because I wanted to do everything I I I was almost like short attention span that like oh that's shiny I want to do that I want to do that but I would like

get pretty obsessed and you know try to get really good at every single thing um so like L was saying very much t-shaped I guess um but the important thing is to not have all of that on your portfolio like you you should really tune it to the job that you want um because what happens is if for example we'll get a portfolio for a specific role and they have all that other stuff we immediately question well like what do they actually want to do like where does their heart lie because the is they can they can work a job and do the job that they you know asking of them but maybe that's not exactly what they want to do and they're kind of like always eyeing this other thing that that's you know this is a stepping stone to something else and so we're always cogniz of that because we don't want uh you know our employees to be unhappy either like if if they're not happy during their job then it's kind of like not beneficial for anybody so we really want the portfolio to focus on like oh it's clear that they love this thing and that can be difficult cuz like like I said I'm like that I love

everything but um you know I'm like if I decide on okay I'm going to make a portfolio about this because I think this is what I want to focus on right now I think that's really important I also think that like even if you love doing everything there will be opportunities to learn and likely learn quicker once you get in so being able to specialize uh I remember when I was going to school I I I wanted to do it all I wanted to be able to be like a self efficient art making machine uh I want to be able to make the whole game by myself but the reality was as if I'm just animating or doing whatever art I want to do I'm spending 100% of my time is great that's Focus the second I split my focus you know 50 50% of my time gets to go to these two things to try and get it to the right quality somebody who's spending a 100% of their time on one thing is going to get better faster and get the job it's going to take me double that amount of time I mean maybe I'm a genius artist

I'm just a a creative to my bones and I'll be able to do it but it is lowering my chances of getting as good as I need to be at both things that I'm splitting my focus between and I might get it not get a job at either thing or it'll take me way longer so specializing early and getting the job and then then branching out and looking for opportunities to try new things or you know when you have an income just being able to spend your free time comfortably learning other stuff I say get in and then and then go wide baby also actually real quick to go back to your earlier point about like what makes a memorable memorable portfolio is you can sprinkle in those other interests around the side that's actually really great so you focus on one but then you say like I also kind of like this I also kind of like that and then but since it's all about the proportion of it because then I see the portfolio it's like oh wow they really love this one thing but hey they're also kind of like interested in this too that that's actually appealing too yeah I'm also seeing like with even in these

Studios that they're starting to be like more specialized in what they do um but I do think it's good to so for example I'm going to use character art as an example because what I do um I do think it's a good to have like an understanding of how concept art works and obviously if you're a 3D modeler how rigging works and how that gets put into animation because when you are working together you need to know what everybody's discipline is is and how that's going to affect your work so even though you don't want to be an animator it's good to have an understanding of how things move especially as a character artist you have to think about the time I think especially as a student and ENT entering the industry you only have so much time in front of you to get really proficient at something to be able to do it at a professional level you know it's kind of that Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours you know outliers thing um you you don't have infinite time in school and and while you're developing your portfolio so really focus and hone on

something and then like everybody else said you can kind of Branch out after um you can learn those other things and have those additional skill sets it'll make you a better game developer being able to communicate with people in other disciplines and other areas even within the art world but ultimately like denish said we really want to hire people and we want them to be happy in what they're doing so make the things that you are happy making the process the style of art that you enjoy making for 8 hours a day you know what do you want to do for a full-time job um and be specific uh you know styliz fantasy environment art even within that world the team I work on it's do you like doing trees props buildings you know architecture like be specific and hone in on that I think again that's where you can go back to find those professionals that are doing what you want to do and they have those portfolios online you can find those and see what they're doing and kind of mimic that and have a similar portfolio cool we're going to questions after this last question that we have so

if anybody's got stuff start lining up now if you want um but the next thought was since there's a lot of this going on right now and I've seen a few things lately that I thought it was worth mentioning is there a place for AI art in a portfolio any any thoughts anybody n dog um I think that AI you know it's a unmistakably sort of part of our reality and it's going to be something that we're going to have to face I think in a portfolio especially just starting out you have to do yourself the service of making sure you know those skills and would not I would not be leveraging AI for anything because you need to take the time to learn how to be able to do it without there are lots of legal and ethical questions surrounding AI I think that in your free time if you want to mess around with it AI is tools it's not just like mid Journey chat gbt Garbo there's like interesting tools that are based in AI there are as an interesting space there that isn't necessarily

harming people and it I think is irreversibly a reality for us but in your portfolio you owe it to yourself to to I don't don't do it it goes back to what I was saying earlier about um what I want to see in a portfolio is you I want to see who you are as a person what you like you know I want to some be something original um and what is your thought process all of these human elements that AI just bypasses and then I get absolutely no sense of who you are and so that's another reason not to yeah yeah and seeing like your experiments in AI like that's not you yeah right like those don't really have a place in your portfolio and they're also ugly yeah yeah we we want to see that you've done the training like you can AI a creature but we want to know do you understand like Anatomy again do you understand how things would move correctly and

stuff cool all right so let's get to some questions um again stick around something fun at the end I promise um all right so let's start with you hello it will be it will be we'll repeat repeat it okay sounds sorry my my voice is also kind of shock I'm like modulating uh so first of all thank you all for coming uh actually on the top uh this is tangentially related to AI um I find that finding reference images lately has become a lot harder now that you know like goog like Google Images is full of AI if I especially if I'm I'm an environment artist if I'm looking for like historical reference or you know even or Pinterest or a lot of these places where I'm used to finding reference image images it's become harder with the rise of just you know CH

the churn of AI content so you know a as I'm kind of developing my portfolio you know what would be your advice as to like you know or what would your advice be to younger artists sifting through and finding good reference versus like AI schlock what kind of artist are you just for curiosity uh 3D environment artists uh generally lean stylized fantasy so cool I was I was going to say I think books are going to come back into fashion guys yes it's I I mean I I'm very badly dyslexic but I've got thousands of books picture books my wife will laugh at me about this but because she's like you've got so many books but you can't read but yeah they're good pictures and I think that'll be you know sometimes there's stuff in those things that you you can't get anywhere else I I would also say like get out and see the world um that's

really important take a break while you're working your eyes are going to rest you're going to look at something you're going to not see the flaws in your work uh you know a lot of concept artists will like flip their work uh horizontally just to refresh your eyes but like sometimes you just need to step away just step away take a walk I'll do that quite often even at work and I'll just walk around the building you know walk around the office uh it refreshes your eyes you come back you're able to think through things uh also when you go to places uh historical places or whatever take pictures if you're in San Francisco take pictures of all the buildings and you know go see museums and and go see historical sites uh my you know my family pictures when we travel it's like you know the family here at this building and then it's like brick textures for you know half the half my phone and like that's okay um you know so I would just say get out and see the world yeah my mom's asked question about the rock textures on awesome all right we got hello oh hi

guys uh thank you so much for your time uh my question really is about I'm finding work as an artist in the industry right now it's no secret that uh we're in a bit of a lull as an industry and I just wanted your guys's opinions you know from a more art standpoint about what the landscape might look like in six months like are all these senior developers going to start building their own companies and then what would be the best Avenue for us to try and find work uh in that lens I wish we knew like honestly it's rough which which way is the wind yeah yeah it's it's hard to say um what I can tell you is like I think when we look at portfolios I'll let you guys jump in on this like I'm jumping on a grenade here um but I think like I think the just be like make great work like when we look at work and you guys tell me if you're wrong if I'm wrong but like I don't look at how long somebody's been making something I look at their work and then I look at the work again and

then maybe I'll see how long they've been doing it so it's all about the work it's going to rebound at some point but I would say like just to stick with it try to weather the storm and get as good as you can get and make yourself as valuable as you can to somebody I ALS also think coming to places like this and it doesn't have to be GDC because I think it's financially inaccessible I'll say um but there are lots of communities online like talking with people putting yourself out there like don't be Shi at ask a bajillion questions of a bajillion people and obviously like read the room if somebody's like not vibing with that but like talking with people and making friends I know like this term like networking is like ew networking that's a Smo word to use but I mean I feel like I owe a lot of my career and the opportunities I've had to coming here and effectively trying to make friends and you work with people 8 10 hours a day you want to work with people you like and so if you meet somebody and you get good vibes from them he like well what is your portfolio like let's check it I'd love to to see that and so uh you

know the fact that you're here and then talking to us now it's a good start awesome I'll give an unpopular answer too if you're if you're looking for work and you're you're new put at the top of your resume will relocate I'm serious like it will get a door open for you especially that will it'll compensate for your inexperience um and it might just open a door for you so you know not sure I'm not sure how popular that opinion is here but I'm telling you as a guy who owns a business I would I would do that great thanks so much guys appreciate it hi thank you all uh my question is like for the new grads you hired do you have any personal stories like how you know them and do you know them by personal connection or it's like by internal recommendation or just like on campus recruitment cuz I guess it's like for students in school like how we can effective effectively prepare

ourselves for like networking instead of just like a blind application to all the companies just like some personal stories I guess so I think Lana said it really well is like go to events like this or even local things reach out to folks online I have people do that often with me the thing to keep in mind with and networking sounds kind of she's right like it sounds kind of icky like you know it isn't transactional though and you need to look at relationship building is not transactional what is this person going to get from me that's not the outcome it's I I have people that I've talked to for 20 years I've never met them but I've talked to them online and they've given me advice over the years and I've never asked anything from them I've never expected anything from them I just liked their work I wanted their opinion the other thing is when you do reach out hey you know um I'd love to get your opinion on this like your work like what you're doing could you give me your opinion on my work if someone takes if a professional takes their time to do a pain over or

even just some verbal feedback that they're writing out take the feedback incorporate it don't rush do it right and then send it back to them yeah I cannot tell you how many times I have someone reach out for that I take time you know during lunch or whatever and I'm I I'm sitting there and I'm I write that out I send it back never hear from them again that follow through is super important I think professionals that have really good follow through is great to see cuz what happens is oh hey we have an internship position or we have a you know an associate level position uh does anyone know anybody oh you know I know this one person they've been talking to me for a year and a half they they take feedback well they incorporate it um so you know be genuine be yourself and uh you know relationships aren't transactional and then incorporate feedback probably the only other thing I would add is the blind like the blind applications do work I got my internship from a blind application and that was a ways ago but as a company that does hire interns

they're also blind uh applications uh you can still show who you are not just through your art don't unell the quality of like a really good cover letter seeing a cover letter that shows up that's like hi I would like job please thanks it's like not good making sure that your cover letter is a partner thing to your resum and not a long like an essay form resume what else do you bring that can't be just written on a resume what are your personal s skills your soft skills what games do you like there's a way to show who you are and I read cover letters and I want I want I want to see you and that's that's how you get yourself out in a in a blind application I can't agree more I I used to hate writing cover letters I thought what's the point of this just look at the resume look at the portfolio but now on the other side I was like I was so wrong cuz I do read every single covered letter and that is it goes a long way for me I'd also say you know there's Avenues like uh some companies do contests uh uh we actually just

announced our winners today for our World of Warcraft uh Student Art Contest I don't know if Josh and Fred are here but uh congratulations guys um but that all those work every applicant does get looked at by a whole group of leads on the team uh art directors ETA Etc so we do look at those things so look for those kind of avenues I know a lot of companies will do things like that and I think that's a good way to get on them their map thank you so much one of those things where you just never know who you're going to meet so you could be standing there getting a coffee and like start chatting to somebody and they go oh yeah we need some character work done you just you just never know great um hi everybody thank you so much it's been a great talk so far uh my question was just I was curious if you had any advice for people who are specializing because it seems like entry level positions are already so extremely competitive so I was curious if you had any advice on how to stand out amongst already like specializing people and just is it just like put in more hours than anybody else or just give you had any advice or how to maybe stand

out I think the comment earlier about like making sure your portfolio is something it's I've actually never heard somebody give that not before but about you're making something that would so obviously like it's a no-brainer that you could do what we need you to do in your portfolio so like if I when I was a a student I was maybe like oh I want to work at ilm what does ilm make okay Star Wars at the time not so much but like Transformers I'm going to do a big characters hitting each other fighting contact breaking trees like they'd be like oh this person can animate a robot running through the forest like that's it was like a Nob brainer it wasn't exactly fan art it wasn't exactly those things it's just making it so it clearly would be a seamless transition to to take what you put and put it in the game but not exactly the number of times when I was working at blizzard on here's of the storm be like here's Sil syas and I'm like yeah but your Sylvanas was bad and

that's not like I'm not trying to be insulting it's just it's too it's too on the nose I want to see what you can bring not just what we already created thank you so much go ahead hi thank you so much for being here um I'm Katie I'm a 3D environment artist I was wondering what is your opinion on diaramas and vertical slices in your portfolio love them you love them yeah it's great um little bit of everything but it's really cool uh I don't know how you can like sometimes I'll see entry-level portfolios it's like it's a whole city and you know have you made a door have you made a facade of a building um I would rather have a little bit of awesome than a lot of meh so yeah I I think it's great hone and focus your pieces gotcha okay to to go on from that is that whole thing about storytelling it's easier to tell a story in a small little section than a massive

World okay thank you so much go ahead hey guys so right now I'm working on a project that incorporates a bunch of different like Specialties um I was wondering if like say I'm done with that project and I really like one aspect of it so right now it's environment design character animation like just a few different things I've liked doing once I'm finished with that project is it something that I should just see like hey I like environment only should I just expand that skill set and then still include what my project was on my portfolio I think it depends on what job you're looking for like I think it's it it's more work it's you know you have to to tune a portfolio for different jobs but it really does help a lot so if you were going for an environment you know like make that the focus and then have it be you know other things be supplementary and then you could almost take all of the same work and then do a different version of the portfolio where the the you know

proportions have shifted and it's more focused on something else and you can show this is supporting so I think it depends on what you're applying for and the quality of all those things like you got you I want you to be really real with yourself and really self-aware is the quality of all the pieces of everything you created portfolio worthy will you get a job for any one of those disciplines individually and if not don't show it all perfect thank you all right good hi oh sorry hi my name is raw I'm a 3D artist and environment artist um my question I guess is how can I like as somebody who is about to enter the industry how can I like mold my skills for each portfolio like do I have to have a bazillion portfolios lined up per each job specializing in specific things cuz I kind of love like weapon creating and all forms of like asset creation um but

I also like making foliage and things like Riot is very different than blizzard um how would I like have a portfolio specific for you versus you and on like what art station my own website um I would say that that whole thing depending what what type of job you're you're going for if you're going for a weapon artist job there's no point putting characters in it for example exle and it's even something that we do I mean we're an Outsourcing Studio it's if we know that we're applying for a uh a client that does styliz there's no point us putting realistic stuff in there because it's not it's not what they're looking for so just tailoring it to the company and position that you're that you're aiming for S hello thank you so much for coming today uh my question is actually pretty similar for formatting portfolios uh so

for people that are have like many different interests you guys emphasize like it's really important to focus and like maybe put the interest sprinkle it in the side and I was wondering if you have one for example website portfolio would it be worth it to just make different portfolios for the different disciplines that you're interested in or just formatting it by discipline to like guide the recruiter that's going to look at your work yeah I mean be specific but also like you know realize that you don't have the time to do you know uh the quality level portfolios you're going to have to for all of the different disciplines so I would say like really F like Focus what do you like doing what do you enjoy doing and focus on that first and then you can kind of Branch out later you know and and so I think you can do that you know I've hired people as environment artists and then they really love characters and they transition over time into doing characters um cuz they hey I did this on the weekend and they'll show the character team and they'll get feedback and you can kind of do that over time

but I I think having multiple portfolios realistic styliz Vehicles weapons animation effects it's so much stuff and each of those disciplines now is so specific so I would just say you know be specific right but uh formatting wise like art station as long as the link that you send the recruiter goes to the thing that matters the most for that job send that if you have a personal website and your real like right on that page but then you have like little headings that's like weapons character whatever if I got time and your stuff's good I'll click through um uh but just don't send to a page that's just like a long list of stuff thank you so much let going say that's a really really good point um I just want to clarify on that um don't ever send a Google Drive Link no I ain't clicking on that no thank you so much really good feedback backings hi thanks so much for your time

uh I'm Amanda and I'm a material artist um so as I heard you say and other uh Specialists say uh it is less likely that you will find your first job doing exactly what you want to do like me my my case material art um so uh I heard people giving advice like take some time sometimes even a year to make your portfolio better me as an intern AAL student I only have three months to find a job otherwise I have to leave the country so um in that case I guess my question is going to split into uh in the case of making my portfolio specialized um what is like what are some things that a portfolio would have that would get them like higher immediately and the other question would be um how do I make my portfolio attractive to the tangent Industries in case of me getting a job that is not exactly in material art

I talk a lot so people just interrupt me if you want me to stop talking uh I think that there's there's no Silver Bullet even if your your demo real or your uh portfolio is like perfect somebody could like I my first job they told me at the end of my internship my boss said we were not going to hire you but I made an embarrassing joke to the other candidate so we hired you instead you never know why you're not going to get your portfolio so there's nothing it could be a perfect thing and then somebody else messes up and then you take the hit for it you will never know so there's not security there but cast a wide net like I used to apply for three jobs every day for six months or something like that and I got rejected from all of them so but don't just set your eye on triaa like especially I was International as well and I felt the stress of that looming Visa I worked out like the tiniest little local publishing house and that's still counted so look for

anything local that will get you through that's even somewhat tangent to to your art form and then once you have that job security and that Visa security then you can work to where you want get where you want to be yeah it comes down to preparation timing and luck and you know some of those factors are outside of your control you can only control really the preparation and then timing is just you know pay attention to the job see when the jobs when the jobs are posted um you know those sort of things uh nowadays again you can usually find folks that are doing what you want to do so you have a good kind of barometer or bar for what what that portfolio should look like I was going to say as well don't underestimate the power of the collaboration like there's like environment artists here there's material artists here rigers animators you know work together like and make a kickass piece together because that that's what you're going to be doing in the industry it's not just one person doing it all it's a it's a collaboration

thing and if you can show that you can collaborate with people that's that's going to help thank you so much cool hi um so I'm a concept artist and something that I hear a lot trying to break into the industry is I've reached out to a lot of other concept artists that are Juniors at various Studios and stuff and I've gotten a wide mix of people saying go into have your concept art portfolio as a generalist or people that say it's okay to be like I just want to do environment Concepts and it seems like so far from talking about specialization and stuff you guys are would be fans of being like go into environment concept art don't just include a mixture or maybe include an environment piece that could also show my creature Design Within that environment or something like that the the funny thing is like with video game with game art in general it's by answer is always well it depends there's always an outlier where like you know you could

have a generalist concept art portfolio and just be in the right place the right time and get your portfolio seen at the exact Right Time by the right person and it could line up um you know or you could have a very specialized portfolio where it's specifically you know fantasy weapons and you you have nothing but fantasy weapons and that's a position that you apply for so it's really hard to give an an answer that's going to apply all over the place um I think the special ization gives you a narrow Focus to get you know really skilled in one area instead of you know kind of even across the board it lets kind it lets your skill set really focus in one area yeah thank you how's it going uh my name is Angel Padilla and I'm a 3D character artist so I have a question for I believe both of you actually both of you kind of cuz you said something similar about you just want see how cool it looks rather than how good the the overall topology I

guess the topology is important but um my question is a majority of the time I'll skip the steps to make something look cool because it can be very tedious and and making a character takes like a month if you're if you're trying to make a good one so I'll like Z remesh it automatic UV it just try to make it look like super cool rather than following the process would that be important to show that you know it rather than just trying to make it look cool um for me I it is for me it's different I I do like to see like topology and UVS and things like that because it helps me when I'm hiring somebody to work out okay what do I what do I need to train that person up on and I think once you get further to the industry like once you're a senior once you become a lead or you know you kind of and you got a few titles under your belt it's kind of like you don't

really have to show that stuff we we hope that you know that stuff by now because you're in those positions but when you're first starting off it is good to show that stuff yes you can still do the kickass stuff where we don't really care about topology and stuff like that but especially if you're work applying for for games which we're at GDC so I'm guessing a majority of people are we do want to see that you can work within a limitation that you do understand the fundamentals of creating models with that I'd give the answer like it depends um at the end of the day it's got to be awesome and cool and uh you got to start there uh the technical side of things can always be taught I I found that's much easier to teach it's really hard to teach someone how to make something awesome um it's much easier to teach them which buttons to press or the process to follow so um yeah okay looks like we're at time hold on before yall leave when second um we'll talk to you guys outside for a minute too if you

guys want to have other questions um but while we're here for prize time uh thanks for coming our friends at sense Labs uh donated a uh tablet so if you look under your chairs and see if you have a for real yeah look and see if you've got a business card stuck under there did I have got yeah you got it I don't have it here we are way who y get it thank you guys for all coming uh please be sure to fill out your forms and if you want to join us later uh for portfolio review please do it thank you all [Music]