Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer? Industry Artists Weigh In

Good? Hey guys, how's everyone doing today? All right, I want to hear way more energy than that. All right, HOW GOOD MORNING EVERYBODY? OH, YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT. Come on. I know it's Friday, but really. All right. Okay, welcome. Just to make sure you're in the right talk, which I know you guys are. It's killer portfolio or killer Wait. Killer portfolio or killer. Killer It's up there. It's that. Um, if everybody can actually turn off your cell phones, that would be awesome. And let's begin. All right, my name is Allison Kelley and I'm a consultant to top-tier gaming companies. And we'll start from Shawn. And also, if you could Shawn, start with what is your

number one pet peeve that you see with portfolios? Wow. Um, all right, well, I'll start with my name. Shawn Robertson. I was animation director on BioShock Infinite, lead animator on BioShock, and currently art director on Ken Levine's current project, the negative layer of Lego thing that he had talked about at GDC a couple years ago. I think biggest pet peeve for me on portfolios is lack of presentation, hiding what could potentially be really good art behind really bad presentation of that art. I'm Gavin Goulden. I'm the lead character artist for Insomniac Games. I just worked on Sunset Overdrive. We're working on Ratchet & Clank Edge of Nowhere. Prior to that, as with Shawn, working on BioShock Infinite. Do you want my my pet peeve, too? Your pet peeve, please. I have so many, though. I would say having a game art portfolio with no game

art in it, basically just having a lot of really nice ZBrush sculpts, but no no technical pieces in a game engine, no game art, no textures, just just pretty sculpts. All right. I'm Greg Foertsch. I'm I'm art director of Praxis. I have my most recent stuff was XCOM 2 and XCOM Enemy Unknown. My biggest pet peeve, I'm like I'm like Gavin, I got so many. So, like I guess the the biggest thing is is when I see a portfolio that has stuff that potentially looks good, but it's it's not shown in a way that I can actually see it. So, you know, a good example, if you have a environment piece, you know, if if you just give me a screenshot, and I have no idea what anybody did or or what's yours or being able to break it out, it kind of makes it a little confusing to to to understand what's actually happening and your thought process. That's kind of my biggest thing.

My name is Steve Scott. I work at Bungie up in Seattle. I'm the special effects art lead. Our most recent title was Destiny: The Taken King. And my biggest pet peeve for looking at portfolios is that I do not receive nearly enough effects portfolios. They're very scarce. I'm Wyeth Johnson. I've been at Epic Games for 10 years now. I've held a number of different roles, art lead, art director, technical art lead. And I think my biggest pet peeve is probably when I like something from somebody's, but I can't do what I want with it. So, a good example would be a flash portfolio that I can't just right-click, save as, put it in a folder, somebody I want to look at, somebody maybe I'm interested in, but um they're not quite ready and I want to follow up, you know, difficulties accessing the content on your site is drives me nuts. You know, I want to be able to right-click, save your images, put them where I want to,

you know, copy out your information, get a really really quick PDF of your resume, all that kind of stuff, put it right there in my face, and let me do what I want with the stuff on your site. Okay, Greg, is it true that AAA companies don't hire recent grads, and if so, why? Um, you know, I I don't know that that really is is something that's rock solid. I think it's different everywhere studio you go to. But, I mean, you know, the biggest thing is a lot of times I think people who are entering the industry get get turned off by the, you know, we want 5 years experience or 3 years experience. You know, the bottom line, honestly, I mean, that does matter, but all that matters is your work. Like, the first thing I do when I get a link is I look at your work. The second thing I do is I look at your work. The third thing I do is I may look at your name and your resume. So, like, if the work is good, I I'm not going to know that you have 5

years experience or 3 years experience or a year of experience or none until I actually get to your resume. So, like, the portfolio is all that matters. All that matters is the work. And so, you know, I've seen people that are coming out of school that perform, you know, like somebody who's got 3 or 5 years experience. You know, it just doesn't matter. I've I've seen the reverse, you know, guys who have multiple years experience and it doesn't look like they have that years experience. So, you know, don't get caught up on those things cuz again, you can't control that stuff. You control your work. And that's honestly the artwork is all that matters. Or would you even say a lot of students get hung up on writing these big resumes that worked at, you know, a movie theater? In the end, like you said, you don't care about the content on the resume, it's all about your work. Well, I mean, the content needs to be relevant, right? So, like, you know, like it should be the things that you've done that that would have an interest to the person hiring you, no matter

whether you're looking for a game job or any other job. But, but yeah, it should be it should be more relevant. And it matters, but that's again, that's like for me, that's the third tier. I don't know what your gender is or nationality is or I don't care. You can be purple as long as you can help my game. That's all that matters. And so, so yeah, you know, just focus on the thing that matters. But, make sure your resume is clean, though. Clean, yeah. A lot of students also seem to focus on the tools heavily, which none of us care at all about. I will teach you any tool in 3 months. I don't care if you know Max like the back of your hand, and I'm weak in Maya, and I'm stressing about my Photoshop thing. Do not care. It's only about the finished product, the stuff that's in the portfolio that's game art, just like Gavin said. Pretty sculpts are pretty much meaningless. But, if you have a great portfolio that has really good game art in it, I do not care what tools you know. Put them in there just in case we're kind of curious what we might be dealing with, but you know, it shouldn't be half of your

portfolio is, "Oh, I'm really good at Excel." I don't None of us care. Why is this actually brings me to a topic that you always are drilling down? It's all about quality, not quantity. Yeah. portfolios. So, talk to me about it. Oh, it's crazy important. And actually, a better way to couch that conversation, I think, is um you know, you're only as strong as the weakest thing in your portfolio. And you The reason we always say quality over quantity is because what happens is is people end up hiding their weaknesses at the end of a strong portfolio. We see it all the time. They kind of arc from an amazingly good introductory piece, and it tapers down. And what we're always going to do is just flip to the last page first and look at what we think mentally you believe is the weakest thing on your portfolio. Cuz you're going to hide it. You're going to Maybe they won't make it to the end. Trust me, we're going to look at the last piece first. And you're only you know, what happens is is we question your quality

bar. We question your taste level, right? Because if you have a really really strong piece, maybe that was one that you worked on for a long time or you vetted with the community, maybe you got feedback from your peers. But maybe you went off into the corner And so, you always have to be editing your portfolio and constantly culling the stuff that's weak, so that we're only seeing the strongest thing. I mean, I'll I'll second that. I think the the weakest part of your portfolio is going to leave the lasting impression. This may be a dumb metaphor, but think about a nice meal. Someone brings you a nice steak meal. It's got like, you know, potatoes and a nicely cooked steak, and then there's a fly on top of that. And you're going to focus on the fly. You're not going to focus on the steak. Like I said, not a perfect metaphor, but I think pulling back and pulling away, like rather than showing 15 pieces that are, you know, 10 good and five

mediocre, leave the mediocre ones out. Let us be interested in what else you have, rather than showing everything up front. It's about a story of of the artwork that you're creating, and leave us wanting, you know, the curiosity, like, "Oh, what else does this person have? I'd like to see more." rather than, "Oh, they put all this like really bad stuff in, so I I kind of get a sense where this is going." We've hired junior environment artists that had two pieces in their portfolio. They had two environments, three images each, and they got hired. So, Steve, how important how important is my general presentation, and what can a person do to improve upon it? Uh, I It's mostly important. As these guys will tell you, it's it's the content that we're going to be looking at. But, the presentation is going to impact our perception of that quality. If Well, imagine a game with a really bad UI and a really bad introductory experience, but really

good gameplay. It's hard to get into that and to find that quality, right? Portfolios are the same way. So, if Wyeth mentioned a flash presentation that you can't right-click and save on those assets, uh it it's going to be really challenging for us to be able to like drill down and and really consider that work if if we can't access it. Uh in terms of improving, um well, Make it work. Make it work. Um test it out on your friends. Uh have them look at it on their browsers or different uh formats. Uh do you guys have any other ideas for how to improve that? Well, I will say a a Tumblr blog is not a portfolio. Uh that's such a common thing where people are posting their work and it's kind of timeline based and it almost feels stream of consciousness. I don't see, you know, the first thing that any of us see should be your absolute greatest thing you've ever

done. And a Tumblr blog is the exact opposite of that, right? Where it's just a timeline of things that are happening. I'm interested in that. Maybe put that in your resume so I can scroll through it. Um although honestly, that's pretty bad presentation anyway. But that would be another thing I think is, you know, you need a dedicated portfolio, right? That that deliberately shows us what what you're best at. And now and now what else to chime in with one more thing in terms of presentation. Um you know, your images are important, your reel is important, uh but a good quality presentation with without spelling errors, with reasonable formatting, even if it's simple, shows us that you have the attention to detail that it takes to not just bring your art skills to bear, but complete a project and close it out. Uh so, it's it's pretty important. I mean, a great example is in the past I know we've had students who go in for their portfolio reviews with one of these guys and it's their presentation's not loaded, it's

not ready to go, or it breaks. Fair enough? You know, ultimately, we're all all artists and we have to present our work. And ultimately, all we're doing at a game studio is presenting our work to people who are paying for the game. Um and every day that's something that we're conscious about that we have to present our work to you. So, when we're looking at uh someone who wants to be on our our team, we want to know that they're they have an eye for presentation cuz that's only going to help us not just make a pretty model to put into a level, but how do you present that model? How do you present that UI and make it appealing and make people want to get drawn into your game. And and Sean, um is it acceptable to show your own interpretation on a company's IP, or should you completely create your own? I think it's absolutely uh fine to do that. Um one anecdote I have is that uh a woman named Claire Hummel had done a bunch of Disney princesses, uh historical Disney princesses. Um we were

struggling to find a look for Elizabeth at the time. Uh and we saw her artwork floating around and we contacted her and she ended up designing the student Elizabeth, the one with the white shirt and the and the blue skirt, and the two Luteces, the two red hair. Um because on merit of us being interested in her because she'd done some Disney stuff. Now, it wasn't the only thing that she did that got us interested in her and we saw her entire portfolio and saw that she was a really really good artist and that we really wanted to work with her, but that initial uh interest level was because she had done something that kind of was making its way around the uh the internet. And we do get a lot of submissions from people um that do BioShock stuff. Uh the rare occasion, and this is really rare, it's not common, but we had one guy do a poster that was so damn good that we ended up putting it in the DLC cuz cuz it looked like it was, you know, we we paid him for it, we wrote a contract, we, you know, we got the rights to put it in the game. Um but

that was unsolicited piece of fan art. Um so, I think normally it's okay to do that stuff, but you got to have other things to back it up. It can't just all be um copying other people's work or doing your own your own thing on other people's work. it probably has to be really good, too, cuz I mean, you're basically submitting work to a company that has been staring at this work for like 3 years. So, if, you know, you want your work to get scrutinized, I think it has to be good enough to hold up to that kind of uh you know, judging. Yeah. Wyeth, when should a portfolio be a reel and when should it be a still? Hm. Um well, anything that's animation based is a demo reel. So, you know, when you're talking about actual traditional animation, we have to see it in motion. Um the other, you know, key part of that is visual effects. If you're an effects artist, we have to see your effects in motion. That doesn't mean stills aren't also interesting in those avenues because a lot of times when you think of

traditional animation or you think of effects animation, you're actually thinking about the different states that those things travel through over the course of how they animate and how they resolve. And so, thinking about it from kind of pose to pose, either as an explosion or as a traditional animation like character animation, showing that progression and thought process is nice. Um but for the most part, those need to be uh video reels. For my money as well, and I've generally talked to uh to these guys about this is uh also um anime our environment work. We often get environment reels. I hate that. Uh I want just want to see really great still images of the environments that you've created. You can include a video fly-through as well, but the to me, the primary way that to see the environments that people are making is through still imagery uh because there's, you know, there's this ability to see every little detail, to see that overall sense of aesthetic. It's not blurry, you know, there's not motion blur and camera artifacts kind of hiding things. So, that's one of the things that may or may not be a little controversial, but I feel like that's a crucial component.

Great. Gavin, when should my portfolio be as as broad, or um should be more into specializing in given style and technique? Um I I would say specialization over everything. I mean, when you're starting to make a portfolio and you're applying for like your first job or or whatever, um you should really be focusing more on quality. So, like rather than having hey, I'm applying for a character art position, but I've got an environment, I've got a gun, I've got a car, I got some concept art, here's like a shader I made and stuff like that. Every one of those pieces is going to end up being weaker overall because you're not focusing all your energy on being the best character artist, being the best effects artist, being the best environment artist, and things like that. So, I mean, it's getting good first and then branch out to, you know, you have stylized art and realistic art, or you have uh some props like with your character or you have environment art, but this

first is, you know, like Wyeth is saying, quality first and then Edit, edit, and edit again. Edit. And then and then reduce your portfolio by half. Exactly. I was actually just talking about this the other night with with somebody and and uh they said something really interesting. They were uh cuz that's frequently a student thing, right? Like not exclusively students, but typically it's like, okay, so I did this class sophomore year, I did this class junior and they don't remove, right? Like hopefully you're better your senior year than you were sophomore year. Um so, get rid of that stuff, but he he said something very interesting with that is, you while you're looking for a job, you have a job. Your job is to replace all of the work from college with new stuff. And I think that that's a really healthy attitude to have uh for people who are graduating from school and and looking to get in the industry. Like, while you're looking, you you have a job and that's replacing all of your student work. Yeah. Um and a and and a good approach to have, too. I I feel like

your portfolio is also kind of a representation of who you are as a person, too. So, it should show like your your interest, what you really want to do. Like what you could spend every day of your life devoting yourself to. And I mean, with school, I don't think that's necessarily the case. Cuz like you're going to have a curriculum and you have to finish these courses and do whatever and get a good grade. Um but then after that is when you start finding your own voice and start being your own identity, you know. So then, Wyeth, any particular standout standout or failures in construction of a portfolio that you've seen? Well, I touched on the flash thing. I touched on the kind of Tumblr blog approach. You know, those are big ones that we see. Um another one is uh it kind of piggybacks on what Gavin was talking about, but uh lack of specialization, it can be really really confusing for us where we're not getting the impression of what it is you actually want to do. You know, you're kind of we see this a lot with students, right? Where you're you're basically

comparing yourselves to the your peers around you like in the class, uh and you're kind of saying, well, you know, I'm looking at all the people around me and I can model a character. In fact, I think, you know, overall, maybe I'm stronger than the guys around me. What you're not doing is comparing yourself to the industry and to the people on, you know, the people without a job on Polycount or whatever who are just kicking ass. Uh and, you know, you're kind of you're in your little bubble. And then what happens is is you build your portfolio around that bubble where you're like, ah I dabbled I took a character art class and I created a character that was kind of compelling and so I threw him in there and then, well, I went and I did a tech art thing for a little bit and I learned how to write some shaders, so let me ram those in there as well. Your point of view is dead in that approach, right? Because it's this kind of five-spoked wheel and we don't know even no matter what you say, oh, I'm applying for a character art position, if those other pieces are there, we we don't we we can't get your point of view. We don't get your taste level. And that's a that's a you know, at the end of the day, we're hiring somebody

that has good taste. Right? We're hiring somebody that we can trust to invent and create and take something like a rough sketch concept and go interpret it in a way that we think is going to be applicable to our game. We're looking at your taste level and we're looking at your kind of passion. That's what we need you to show us. You know, that's what how you need to construct this this portfolio and this this house of cards that you're building, that's the thing we need to see. So, the thing that I wanted to touch upon is how all of you guys, as much as as many times as you're applying, continue to apply to a lot of these companies cuz you never know when they're going to need that person. Right? So, it brings me to Shawn has some experiences with this. I I'd like to offer up the rest of the panel to bring in their rejection letters at at some point. Um when I first was trying to get a job in the industry, uh I sent my portfolio, as bad as it was, everywhere all the time. Um like I would go back to the same place

every 3 months and just annoy the hell out of them. Keep keep sending it. And I got rejection letter after rejection letter after rejection letter. And I still have these at home just to remind me of how long it took for me to get a foot in the door. And no doesn't always mean no. No means could sometimes mean we're not ready for you yet. We don't have a position for you at this time. Um There is an example of someone I had met, um seen his portfolio, thought it was pretty decent, but I didn't have anything for him. There's you know, we we it was a 405 XR. Um a year later, literally it was totally coincidence. We had just decided that day that we needed a effects art position open and he emailed me the next day out of the blue. So, that was that's kind of like a feel-good affirmation like coincidences happen. But the point for me there is that despite that it happened literally the next day, I was still going to call him. Like he was still number one on my list because at at that point, he has the best portfolio that I had seen.

Um so, even though I didn't have something for him the year before when I talked to him, the quality of his work definitely stuck in my mind and and he was on my my short list for for getting in contact with. But Shawn, like how did how did you keep going with that? Lots of alcohol and uh Lots of clean outs, right? Um it I I I had a lot of good friends at Ringling that really pushed me um at the time. And I think I came out of that school with just a a very strong drive to never be satisfied. Um and I think as artists, if you have that drive that, you know, you keep driving towards the next thing. Like this isn't good enough. I want to do this. I want to try to make it better. You're going to get better. You're going to improve. And if you can improve at a rate that you can keep sending your portfolio out and don't worry about the mistakes you make. You're going to make mistakes. Uh one of my teachers always said, you

know, you had like 10,000 bad drawings in you. You just got to get them out by practicing. Um I mean it's lame and cliché advice, but I think you just you got to just put your nose to the grindstone and keep doing it. You got to make sure you don't take it personally, right? Like like we rejection letters are never they're they're frequently they're almost always uh you know, it's a not right now, not no. And it's not a critique on who you are. It's your timing might be bad. The company's timing might be bad. Um the other thing is that companies are generally slower to react than you want them to. So, things move at a little slower pace than you'd want. But but I I think not taking it personally and like just okay. The other thing is if you completely replace your portfolio, I'm probably not going to remember. So, it's like a fresh slate. So, you know, I think that's good, too. But you can't take it as as a personal slight. Uh you just keep plugging away, you know. It's um It's it's If if it's your dream,

do your dream. Don't you know, believe in yourself. Surround yourself by people that that care and want to help you, too. There's also the There's one thing where I on the opposite of that, I I after I got in a job at Looking Glass, I went to visit um another company at the time. I can't remember the name. They're they're out of business now. But when I was talking to the art director, this was like 2 years after I'd sent my portfolio to him. He had one of my pieces stuck to his cubicle. And I was like, "What? Like what?" He's like, "Oh, I really like this piece, but it wasn't really what we needed for the company." So, you still you even get that side of it. Like people will remember you and and like the stuff, but sometimes the the company's your client, right? Like if you're you're not going to be sending super like hardcore realistic Gears of War stuff to Media Molecule. So, you kind of have to know what your audience is and what what company is going to want to get out of you. Yeah, there's a there's a tangential thing in here, too, that I think is really important as well, which is that you guys are not capable of judging your own work.

Nobody is. This is not exclusive just to people who are students or people who are trying to break in. We are not capable of judging our own work. You get better at it and you gain an instinct for what's working and what's not. And that's kind of as your skills increase, you start to be able to filter a little bit better. But that's you know, this is the relationship we have with our companies all day, every day, is we make something and then somebody else comes in and tells us whether it's working or not because you just can't see it. You're too close. You're too myopic on it. You can't see it. So, this is why the communities that are out there to support people who are up and coming like the Polycounts or whatever, those are the most valuable thing. You can't filter it yourself. You need to put it out there to your teachers. You need to put it out there to other people in the community. You need to put it out there to your peers. Put it out there to you know, even just send something to a company that you like and say, "Can you look at this? I'm not applying. Can somebody there look at this?" They often times will and they'll give you feedback. I've done that before. Um but you're not capable of judging your own work. You have to absorb that, put it in

your soul, and just get get the fear out of the way of showing your work and show it off as much as you can and get that feedback. So, I'm going to ask this out to the group. Have any of you guys had a very successful candidate story? An applicant. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I think I mean I know that you we have hired some people looking at portfolios. What was one that really stood out? come back where where where you know, guy that we we did a portfolio review, right? And then like couple months later, um you know, he had pretty good stuff. You know, it didn't happen here. Just to be clear. Like no stress in the other room later. Um but uh you know, he had good stuff and he he was looking for work when school graduated and he contacted us again. And it just happened we had a um an on-site contractor job. And I was like, "Hey, why don't you move out here and and work for a year with us?" And um he came out and we hired him uh probably about 3 or 4 months ago. Uh just worked out that a position came

available and he kept he was doing great work and and we kept him, you know. So, it's a it uh it all happens kind of kind of kind of weird like that, you know. Um It's it's just timing. A lot of cases it can be timing. I think to your point, Greg, though, like um your point of contact, like that person made contact with you and you saw his portfolio. He's probably making contact with dozens of other places. So, you have all these irons in the fire, so to speak. So, you're not just solely relying on on your one, you know, the one place that I'm only going to work. You know, you you really have to cast a wide net because you really don't know where these companies are in their terms of hiring. Even what's on the website could be a month or two old because it has to go through so many people before a job listing even shows up on a website sometimes. Gavin, how important important is it to be able to talk about your process and working in general when you're reviewing a portfolio? Um

I mean I think it's uh I mean I think it's important to be able to be um like knowledgeable about, you know, how you how you created something in your in your portfolio. I think depending on discipline though and like what you're actually showing, it's more important for some than others. I know it kind of changes for like art director. Like maybe like Wyatt has one opinion and Greg has another. But for me for character art, like I don't want to see speed sculpts. I don't want to see sketches. I don't want to see anything like that because it's not really showing your quality. It's not showing, you know, what you do on a daily basis. It's just kind of like work in progress and throw away work. Something you kind of keep in a folder and you're messing around with it, but not really, you know, uh so, it's something that will be making it to the game or anything like that. Uh for concept art though, for me, that's what I would rather see for a concept artist because most of your job is going to be talking to the art director about getting an idea across. So, you're banging out a

bunch of different sketches. You're banging out a bunch of different ideas. And eventually one will make it, right? But for character art, that's not the it's not the same. Not the same deal. I think for effects, it's it's very much a process-oriented discussion. Mhm. Uh when when I get a real effects real, I see that as as the beginning of of a conversation between myself and a prospective artist. And when we have the the first phone conversation, we talk about process. We talk about that iteration loop. I mean, you know, it's very discipline-centric thing. But for effects, the the loop between looking at a piece of work, making adjustments, seeing it back in context, and then then going through that over and over again until you put put something that works within the confines of the game is the job. And so I want to be able to know that you can speak to that and have a good understanding of what it's actually like with the with the day-to-day operation and and not just be

able to go away lock yourself in a room and come up with something pretty that we you know check into the depot and goes into the game. That you know like I said that's very specific to effects and character art is is a little bit different but I just wanted to offer that different perspective. Also chiming in on concept art, the word concept is in the definition of the job. Conceptualization is in the job title and that's something that gets lost I think almost immediately when you're thinking about oh I want to be a concept artist. You're not an illustrator. You're not a painter. You're not You're not anything other than somebody who is generating ideas, who is an idea factory. And if we don't see the thought process of the ideas which leads to a finished piece which if you're talented will also be maybe a beautiful illustration or beautiful painting or you know incredible line art or whatever. All that stuff is ancillary to why. Why did I draw the thing that I'm showing you? We have to know why. We have to know your brain cranking away. Oh these is my references, my inspiration. These

are some of the soul wets that I'm presenting. The why is crucial and so that's I mean remember that the conceptualization is literally in the job description there. For uh uh for character art I guess for process to you showing how you actually constructed it is important though. Like just to make that clear so having good topology, having good UV layout, having an understanding of you know physically accurate materials and stuff like that is definitely important but you know how you come up with an idea as a character artist it doesn't really it doesn't really matter to me. So Wyeth you know do you guys at Epic look at other thing aspects of people's online presence when you're when Epic interns are applying? Everything that you do is fair game. Any way that you present yourself out in the world whether it's on forum posts, whether it's on Twitter or Facebook or your blog or even your personal blog because you really love brewing beer on the side I'm going to go read it.

Uh if there's something about you out there that tells me your taste level, that tells you your passions, that you're interested, that you're not whether or not you're a dick that is really really crucial. I mean we have to be in a room with you for 40 plus hours a week. We you have to be somebody that we're going we think is passionate, that's hungry, that's talented. So yeah anything is fair game, right? And your presence out there in the world is something that we're interested in. I mean we you know we don't always go crazy deep and we're not weighing that insanely heavily compared to whether or not you're a good artist but if if you're we're on the edge and you're somebody who's well maybe we'll take a chance. You don't have any experience but your work is really great but then we find your blog and you seem just not like a great person. We it may just tip us just that far over to go you know what maybe we'll try somebody else. Maybe we'll dabble into you know take a risk a chance on somebody who doesn't quite you know we don't think is a cultural problem. So be aware that we are definitely looking

at all of the ways you present yourself. I would also warn everyone that the industry despite what it seems like here on GDC is very small and that chances are you're a friend of a friend of somebody in the company and word travels fast if you're hard to work with or difficult person. Yep. Um there we we all talk to each other so there's no reason not to have a good attitude about working. Well and look you know like the the the online stuff like we're not going to go look at your Facebook page right? Like nobody cares about that. But um but when you're on Polycount or whatever um you know it came up last year I told a little story about how like we had you know we we had actually interviewed somebody and um you know at a certain point some things maybe triggered that kind of caused us to cuz I think we were discussing Polycount um and so we actually went and looked at feedback and um you know wasn't favorable. Um and it wasn't that

you know anybody's too blunt. I mean anybody that knows me knows that that's really not a problem for me. Um but um but chemistry is important to the team and and and you we all take that very seriously about the personalities we add and so you know it's part of it's part of a little bit of a conversational Polycount and you know like Gavin is is you know Gavin it does more he's more out there with his work than probably the rest of us on the stage and so he's this is the guy who's doing it right, right? Like like he talks a lot with any you know a lot of good stuff. Possibly too much. But but it's all and it's all good stuff but like you're you're the example of to me a of a of a person who handles themselves in an online presence the way it should be done. Yeah. Right? Professional. Yeah. Yeah I mean I think like at the risk of sounding too much like

Kanye up here you got to kind of look at yourself as a brand, right? Like everything you're putting out there needs to reflect you as a possible employee or as a professional or whatever. It's not like everything you ever say has to be like on point and super intellectual and you know I'm the you know smartest guy in the room or whatever but you know it like Sean said it's a super small industry. It's a quick search to see if someone is going to fit with your team. I mean you're hiring the person as well as a great artist, you know? And you have to sit shoulder to shoulder with this person for years working on a game and you'll be stressed and all of this so it's really important to always have that in your mind when you're you're giving feedback on a forum and if you're a complete ass about it or you know if you're just always just railing on games or different people and stuff like that it's it's going to hurt you. Yeah you can always be you can you can always be blunt and honest as long as you're being professional, right? Like that's at the end of the day

you don't want to wake up and go well I I probably shouldn't have said that, right? And once you've tweeted it or you've put it on Polycount it's done. So something to think about. Well I mean you're working on a multi-million dollar product, right? And you want someone who's going to represent the brand and your company respectfully and correct cuz it's also a recruiting technique. So yes Gavin you really when you go out and you talk you actually aren't going and attacking people or making these random comments. You're actually being constructive and actually putting forth something for the industry to take away from. Where because I think we all up here the reason why we actually made are really trying to drive this home is for a reason. We have seen lots of problems online and don't think when you're applying people aren't checking. Fair enough? Yeah definitely. Okay. So Steve what are the what area of game art production do you

see more demand than talent for right now? Uh well like I mentioned at the beginning effects is definitely an area where I I feel that there's more demand than available talent. The other two areas that I would say are UI user interface and technical art. Um I think Wyeth has a as much better perspective on the the various types of technical artists that that are needed now. Well it is interesting cuz it's fracturing now where you've got tech animators. And that's a job of I'm rigging, I'm scripting in mail, I'm making sure I'm supporting the people who are doing animation by giving them good bones and guts to work with and good tools. And then you've got kind of the shader side which is hey I'm making tech art that's relevant inside of the game engine itself doing you know materials work or landscape work or blueprint work scripting that visual scripting that kind of thing. Then you've got the kind of bones and guts underground tools guys like I'm writing Python scripts for import export pipelines or I'm you know

getting really really deep into the technical side of like tool support almost almost tool programming but not quite. So that's three different things and all of those jobs you could you know we would hire a great person immediately and I know every other game company on the planet pretty much is the same way. I'm seeing effects grow into much more than just particle manipulation and more into shader application for glowing armor or shield bubbles. You know in the case of Destiny all all of the space magic is is starting to get more and more like actual physical models with with interesting shaders applied to it and that and that is a discrete skill which is becoming more and more important as as the industry moves forward. Well I'd like to take this time to if anybody has questions to take this opportunity and line up at the podiums the microphones on the side and while

people are lining up I'm going to ask one more question before we get to the Q&A section. Sounds good? So we're hearing a lot about art tests. Does anybody have any comments on that? I I test everybody so um I I believe it's important only because there's so many so many art thieves out there. Um it's showing commitment to the application. It's showing how you can work uh with the team at a very small scale so handing something in, getting feedback from like an art director, like addressing that feedback and how you're going to respond. Um by that being said, it's not uh the way that I do it isn't testing literally everybody who applies. It's, you know, you get filtered down, you potentially are a good fit, you have a great portfolio, um get tested, and then, you know, basically start that process.

Cool. What's I would just add on one thing. Don't be too intimidated as well if you And we're the same way. Everybody tests. Don't care if you're a 30-year industry veteran, everybody tests. But uh there's another side of it, too, which is um don't be super intimidated if you get a test and it looks like the scope is way out of your comfort zone. Like, "Oh my god, I I can't I don't know if I can do a whole character in 2 weeks or whatever they're asking me to do." Try because a lot of times what we're doing is we're actually designing a test that's kind of too hard. It's a little bit too tough for the the parameters in which we're giving it to you because so much of the skill is cutting the right corners and showing us, "Well, you know, I wasn't able to model the whole guy, but I did I got half done and I did a symmetry modifier and did a little bit of extra stuff above and and beyond that to to show some asymmetry." And we're going to see, "Okay, they cut the right corner to finish the test even though it wasn't exactly the parameters." So, that's sometimes we're actually doing that intentionally. Correct.

So, let's begin the questions. Okay. Uh so, uh you guys were talking about, you know, like internet presence and stuff. I was wondering, is there like an effect if someone lacks any kind of like presence in on the internet? I I don't think that's any As long as your portfolio is strong, it's not really we're not hiring somebody because of Tumblr skills or Twitter skills. Yeah. Um you know, I I think that we're really looking for a solid artist. Uh you know, the the social media stuff can help like if you have other work like on your Tumblr site that we can film through uh flip through, whatever is fine, but it's it's never a mark against you. Okay. Thanks. Absolutely. Uh one thing I've heard a lot is you should really tailor like your resume and your cover letter to the company you're applying for. Well, what about the overall portfolio? So, like I've kind of heard that you should have like a portfolio for this company and then a portfolio for this company and something like that. I mean I think you're

probably going to burn out uh after a while, you know? I mean for me, I would tell you to do what you really want to do, you know? Like, if you're if you really want to do stylized stuff, if you want to do like League of Legends art or something like that, but you're throwing your portfolio off to you know, Activision or you know, Naughty Dog or something like that. I mean, if you don't really want to do that day in day out, eventually you're going to get tired anyway, so I mean, I would I would focus on the one thing that you want to do, make it as best as possible, and just hit up the companies that are in that that wheelhouse, you know? Yeah, but the the the cover letter I would it's it's always nice. Yeah. You know, like you should if it's a form cover letter, it's kind of So, yeah, anything you say in there is always a nice little touch. Again, we don't get to that till probably the third or fourth thing I'm going to look at, but but yeah. Thank you. Howdy. Uh I was just wondering, what is an effective way to present technical art like materials and shaders and

visual blueprinting and stuff? Is it You guys were touching on whether to do a reel or whether to do stills, and I was just wondering on your opinion of, you know, effective presentation of technical art. Tech art is super broad. Uh so, some of it is the the avenue of tech art that you're in. So, you know, like if you're doing a rigging reel, you get even if you're just doing technical stuff, you're going to need to show the effects of that rig on deforming meshes. So, we're going to see need to see that stuff in motion, and then breakdowns of the offline stuff that goes around it like here are the scripts I wrote or whatever, they're going to want to see that. When it comes to shaders, you know, we almost always want to see that stuff in motion, so I think uh some stills showing, "Hey, here's some of the shader graphs, here's the logic, maybe here are the functions that I derived my math from, here are some of the white papers that I read that inspired the the tech that I'm, you know, doing in the game level itself." And then seeing it in motion uh with some real samples uh is is probably the right thing to do. Um you know, when in doubt, a combination of stills and video can work very well when you're really not sure if just one

or the other is the right category for you. So, I would say, you know, if something you need to see it in motion, do the video even if it's just for that section, kind of break it down piece by piece, and that's fine, too. And we'll we'll do the work of scrolling through it as long as it isn't crazy, you know? So, so just add on to that. Let's say you have a, you know, an awesome material or something, you just stick it on a cube. Does it does it matter that it's not on, you know, the prettiest model or, you know, the the best art, but it's an awesome shader or awesome material? Presentation matters. So, uh if that would look better on a high-quality model, find one from somebody else or download one. You know what I mean? And and then just make a note that says, "Look, this isn't my model, but look at how good the shader looks." We're going to want to see that, but also it shows us, "Oh, he's got good taste. He knows it would look better on a on a 3D, you know, a character rather than just on a sphere, and you made that choice, and you lit it, and it has nice nice aesthetics and or whatever." So, you know, the presentation matters, for sure. But if you're not a modeler, don't try to do it cuz like then we won't be able to get past the bad model. I You

know what I mean? Like it again, like like you said, find one. That would be a fly on the steak. Yeah, I mean, I exactly. I mean, I think there's ways around it. Like, if you're doing like a skin shader or something like that, and you download a scanned head, but you're applying for like a technical art position, no one's going to no one's going to look at it as, "Wow, you modeled a great head. Oh, it's just a scan. Hmm, shitty." But like the opposite would be true. Whereas like I'm trying to do technical art, but it looks like garbage on a cube or something. It's, you know, it's going to be bad. Like, all we'll be able to look at is that cube and not, you know, focus on what you're actually trying to show. And just make sure you're crediting other people's work so there's no confusion. Totally. Hi. Uh you guys touched on um on if you're applying for a character artist to put your character art or environment, to just tailor put your portfolio to what you want to work for. Um what are you guys' opinions on cuz I've heard of about specializing to get in and usually you want to specialize to get into a AAA studio, but if you want

to work at a smaller studio, then generalist might be better because you'll be doing more things. What's your guys' opinion on that? Yeah. I think overall that's a true statement. Um the smaller the studio, the more hats you're going to have to wear. Uh when once you get into, you know, 100-plus people working in a studio, then you have the luxury to really specialize, and one person can be really the best person at that one particular thing, and you you just hyperfocus on that one thing. Um there's always exceptions to the rules, of course, but I think as a as a rule of thumb, that's that I've generally seen that to be the case. The the big thing is just edit, right? So, if you're not really if you took one figure drawing class and you have a couple of crappy figure drawings, you we don't want to see those, you know? It's like you have to edit and still show solid work in all those categories. 30-second gestures don't really uh don't really do it for us. Yeah, totally. So, you just again, you

have to be able to edit and solid work in those categories. Even if you're trying to be a generalist, you have to make sure that they're elevated to a point where you're comparing yourself to the way that the quality of the industry. And pay attention to the job description itself. I think you want to make sure that if you are uh putting together a portfolio for a specific description, maybe maybe you are looking at a description that says, "Hey, we want someone who can model and rig and texture." And then you can show proficiency in those assuming you follow all the other rules. Um but if you're if you're applying to a larger company that is asking for a specialization in the job description, they'll usually tell you is like, "Oh, this is the only thing that we want to see is this specific area." Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Um so, I'm um most I'm very interested in into like doing game design, game mechanics, and I wonder if like at studios, do do they for game design and game mechanics, would people have a demo reel or they would probably just submit

more like links uh to their games? Or how would that process work for more into game design? Uh industrial design? Well, So, so like level design or like game mechanics and things like that. Like, um I don't know if you guys More like gameplay and Yeah, gameplay design. Yeah. Um Yeah, the the designer portfolio is is a bit of a black box. I mean, uh when you're hiring a designer, you're looking at different things than looking at what we call architects or level builders, the people that are taking the art and constructing the space, keeping mindful of tactical considerations and line of sight and how it's going to stream in. Um I mean, it Again, it's specific to what are you what are you trying to do? If you're trying to be a level builder that's going to construct worlds that the player can walk around in, that may not necessarily be built out of the models

that you have built, but you're placing the models in, you know, to create the world, I think you need to show those spaces even if it's a level we can download cuz nowadays most uh engines you can download for free, and you I mean, have a package that you can load this level and walk through it. Uh or it it can be a a fly-through. Um unless of course it's environment art, and then life will get mad at me. Well, good good design really can only be experienced through play, and so you have to have something interactive, and that's just the be-all end-all. You can't show good design in a video. It's just not possible. You can show good theory, and you can talk about it in flip portfolio, but at the end of the day, if we can't put our hands on it, touch it, and play it, you you know, that's that's the end of the story. Also, I will say this with art candidates, a lot of times they apply and the if they've passed the art test and the portfolio review, we're interviewing them for the most part as a culture fit. By the time they get it their their foot in the door and the in the building, you know, we realize you're good artist, you already tested,

we like that you passed those gates. With the designer, often times play and we experience what is you've done, but there's a big component once you get on site of talking about your philosophy of design to the people in the room. And so, those are you got to come prepared for both of those those things. Thank you. Hello. I was just wondering what you guys look for in level design portfolio, what stands out to you, and what are things that shouldn't be done and or should? For level design, you mean environment art or level design? Um Like building building the level that will get arted up by environment artist. Building level gameplay and whatnot. Sort of similar to the last question, but just more clear. Yeah, it is pretty similar to the last question. I think one of the we hired a guy on XCOM 2 that he had come in for an interview. First of all, he had actually like made a site that had dissected everything we did in XCOM Enemy Unknown and had like like like sequence shots of

like the level and and and what was happening there. He had figured out all of our mechanics and then came in for an interview. As if that wasn't enough, came for an interview. Before we could even respond to him, he'd gone home and applied all the new mechanics we had added and made it totally different level and sent us basically a a gray box of that. You know, that was a that was a pretty good move. He was going to get the job anyway, but after that it was like there's no way we can't hire him. So, but but yeah, so it's it's a little bit different. I think you got to show your kind of show your thought process as well with level design. It's it's a it's a weird it's a little bit of a weird one and I've seen it done various ways. For instance, on BioShock Infinite, when we were looking at level designers, we were very concerned more more concerned with how they could tell a story in the world than if they were good at like setting up tactical space because we had a design team that would you know, that that they would work with when it comes

to setting up tactical space. But we were much more concerned at that point with can we bring somebody on that is good at telling a story of what has happened in the world. So, we were looking at that specifically, not so much like tactical walk space and things like that. So, again, know your studio. All right, thank you. So, you were saying that the UI and technical art positions were less competitive than some of the other ones. So, what would you say the like specialties that are more competitive versus ones that are less competitive? Character art, concept art, character art, those are pretty Yeah, those are the pretty hard. Lots of competition there. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's it's again, you look at the majors in schools and stuff and and and and and where things tend to gravitate. It's just it's a broader stroke, it appeals to more people, I think. And so, I also don't think people think about, "Wow, I mean, you mean I could actually

do UI and motion graphics for a game?" I just don't think that that hits people that do that much like graphic designers would be natural fits. In a lot of cases, they just aren't thinking about games all the time. But but again, modeling and animation tend to be your your kind of go-tos and and concept, of course. But it's just the competition is more fierce because those jobs have existed longer. Mhm. So, I think it's just like naturally like a good UI, no one notices, you know, like everyone notices a bad UI. And paired with that, everybody wants to make monsters, you know, so if you can make a career making monsters, you'd probably gravitate towards that, you know, it's not not many people are like, "I can't wait to make health bars, it's going to be awesome." So, why if you were talking about like a portfolio that you came back to because you like something about it. I

was just wondering, have you guys experienced something similar and did you eventually hire that person and why did you come back? Why did you stay? What kept you kept checking out updating? Well, so for me, it was somebody who was really really good. It just they their reel didn't you know, satisfied something that we didn't need at that moment. And usually in that case, I'll just put it into a special bookmark folder of people that are good that we don't need at the moment and then every once in a while go you know, it's all deeply categorized by their specialty and what they do and when I found them and it's all actually have a pretty good system for all of that. And so, if there's something comes up, I'll go back and look through that. So, that was just a simple case of, "Oh, you seem really good. Maybe someday we'll need someone like you." Yep. I mean, talent is talent and when you see somebody who has a lot of talent, you take notice, you tend to remember them. And similar to why I have a same folder where I'll just keep dragging images or website links into this folder that's kind of like my save for later.

And if something comes up and we need a very specific role to be filled, then I have people that I've already kind of vetted, then that'll be my starting point so I don't have to start from scratch. In the case of the person I said that we had hired a year later, it just you know, at the time we didn't need an effects artist and I his portfolio is really good. A year later, I had remembered it and when an effects position became open, he was the first person I was going to call and we ended up hiring him. But that was because you know, it stuck in my mind. It was really like his work was good and his process was good and he knew what he was talking about. He had very solid foundation of what he was doing. So, that that kind of stuck with me. So, the best story I have for that is that we I had a guy I met at GDC um I guess 10 years ago now and um uh he was one of the IGDA scholars and we got to know each other and um

he went off to work at a couple of different major studios and I kept checking on him every now and then and we had an opening up open up about a year and a half ago and so I called him up and I said, "Hey Morgan, you want to come you know, interview for a job?" And he's like, "Yeah, you know, I think I think I'd like to do that." So, a kid that I met nine years ago I ended up hiring about a year and a half ago and so, it just worked out that way. What I needed was what he had actually gravitated to and it was a great fit. But yeah, it took nine years to get there, but we got there. I had an applicant one time that the timing just wasn't right and but I liked him, we had a good conversation. But there wasn't a good fit for the company. So, I actually called up a friend who worked for a another local studio and and pushed him over there. Totally self-serving. But a couple of

years later, I called him up and said, "Hey, we have we have a need for these skills. Do do you want to come kind of want to come over?" And and looked at his portfolio, it had been refreshed, all new stuff and and it was a pretty pretty easy hire after that. Thank you. Good day. I just wanted to know you were mentioning the Tumblr thingy before. I was wondering if the same if the same rules apply to websites like LinkedIn, for example. Do you guys check that out? Do you have a LinkedIn account or something like that? I use LinkedIn. I've had a number of applicants reach out to me through LinkedIn and and show me their portfolios. I think it's a great tool. But it's not an art display tool. So, all it is is communication device to find people like us or hiring managers or whatever. So, you still need a portfolio. You still need a dedicated website that is a portfolio site. I have two more questions. What would

you call that art display tool? What do you mean by that? Well, the purpose for LinkedIn is to be just a an online resume, right? And anything beyond that would be like your portfolio, your ArtStation page, something like that where it's specifically just art content, just your best work. Okay. And then the final question is going back to the generalist versus specialization. When you work on a on a big studio, my guess is that you also have big very open line of communication with your programmers, your directors, and stuff like that, right? Ideally. So, yeah, hopefully, right? So, my question would be, wouldn't be more efficient if someone that that has many skills show you that he can do, well, I can do 3D art, but due to, you know, my situation, I can also do

let's say programming and stuff like that. Normally, when you're when a big company is hiring for position, they have a very absolute need for that position. So, let's say character art, we need a character artist. It's great if a character artist comes in that can do effects and concept art and other things, but we don't want to see that until we see that your your character art portfolio is amazing and we want to hire you for that. So, the the rest is just bonus. Right. Okay. So, you wouldn't communicate to say your programmer is like and he'll be like, hey, by the way, I need a new programmer because last one got sick or had a crash or something." No. No. All right. Thank you very much. Hi. Um I was wondering if any of you have any advice for people trying to cater their portfolios to studios that are NDA NDA and uh haven't released their title yet. Specifically for art positions, possibly tech artists, more art oriented. Wow, that's a Yeah, that's a tough one.

That's a tough one. Uh you haven't seen anything that they're doing. You don't You like you don't know what it is that they're kind of doing. Um that's that's tough. I mean, again, I would just put together your best work, but put together what you think is good, what you enjoy doing. And if it's not a fit, they're probably not going to call you back. But if But if it's a fit, then you you wouldn't want to be there anyway if it wasn't. So, um you know, you're kind of shooting in the dark a little bit, but You know. Mhm. Yeah, showing a strong point of view for what you want to be all day, every day is probably your best bet at that. When we were staffing up for Destiny and we hadn't shown anything about the game to the world, we were still like we needed people. It was a big game with a lot of work, but we couldn't tell people what we were working on. Um but generally people who were applying were familiar with our previous titles and were and were delivering portfolios that were kind of in line with with the nature of work that we did anyway. That's interesting. Uh so even though it's a little bit of a

black box, you can kind of look to a company's track record and and try to cater to the company rather than the project. Mhm. And at that point, would it be okay to take a step back if you weren't sure like for Bungie and Halo whatnot? Um could you take a step back and be a little bit more generalist with what kind of art that you show in your portfolio? Would that be all right? Or is it better to just I think I think you could probably even guess to I mean, with Bungie, even though Destiny's a million times different than than Halo, right? I mean, I think you could probably guess that it's going to be in that realm of a game, right? Versus like, you know, you guys are making the new Skylanders or something like that. You know what I mean? It's a absolutely completely different. Like I I think it's kind of rare for a company to take such a hard a hard turn from what they're doing. gone completely left turn and go cell shaded funny animal games. Yeah. So, no Snoopy game, huh? No. Fan of the Snoopy.

So, you know, again, it it's a it's a matter of like sort of checking out what the wheelhouse of that particular company is and and and sort of driving towards that. Mhm. Due to time, we can only take one more question. Thank you. So, that is you. Okay. Hello. Um as was mentioned just a couple minutes ago, um character art is extremely uh hard to get into. Uh what can a prospective character artist do to make their portfolio as competitive as possible? Paul, I'll ask you to you. Oh, all right. Yeah, I mean, it it's uh essentially what we've been saying like all, you know, the whole hour. Um I mean, it's just quality. It's self editing. It's um having every piece that you you have being something that you're really, really proud of. Um I mean, to give you a rough stat, um I have an opening for

my company and I've had 500 plus applicants. So, you get a lot of people. I mean, you get concept artists. You get like just sculptors. You get everything like just coming in. So, there's a lot of noise and you like you really have to stand out. And like what will make you stand out is not being obnoxious. It's being like you're professional. Your work is really solid. It's hitting, you know, modern technology. It's looking like it should be on Xbox One, PS4, something like that. fits. Um cuz I mean, you're competing with everybody. You know, that's competing with your class, you know? Well, thank you guys very much for this and um we're really excited to be doing this talk and we hope to be here again next year. Yeah, please be sure to fill out your form or your online forms, whatever. Mhm. And also, we'll be doing our portfolio room reviews in the next room, 132, which is that way. So, we'll see you there. Thanks.