ChrisW

*Adds lock to house* Burglar "this is abuse"

Given I was emailed a bunch of questions from a student in Florida in regards to things they can do to increase their chances of getting into the industry, I'll hijack this to post some of my replies to it. So here's a stack of questions and answers on what could help you👇🏼 *What do you feel are the most important skills to showcase in a portfolio? I think some of the most important skills to showcase in a portfolio would be the ability to problem solve, work to a very high quality and show an understanding of the underlying practises of the current industry whilst also reflecting that in your artwork. *What should you include to stand out from your competition? I would say pushing your boundaries of capability and skill into a realm that supersedes other peers usually stands out much more than other things. There are certain things in terms of portfolio that you could include that don't necessarily require a higher level of skill, those things being breakdowns, polycount statistics, learnings from the project that you made and revising old artworks with newfound techniques and skills to show you're receptive to feedback. *Is it better to have a broad range of skills, or is it better to focus on one specific area of the industry and focus on showcasing mastery of those skills? (ex: demonstrating proficiency in the different areas of pre-production or mastery of just character rigging) Generally within the game industry, it's much better to specialise. Be that in rigging, character art, weapon art, environment art, vehicle art or any other area. But there's no downside to having a general knowledge of other areas. The age-old saying "Jack of all trades master of none although oftentimes better than master of one" comes to mind in talking about these areas as you can do very well with broad strokes of proficiency in multiple disciplines but usually the thing that will get you hired is an incredible skill or showcase of that skill in a single area. It's much harder to become the Jack of all trades than it is to become the master of one. *What should I exclude from my portfolio. Are there any red flags that employers do not want to see in their employees? A lot of time recruiters look at portfolios with the pretence of *your worst work is the best example of what you'd accept* Which can cut quite deep when it comes to a portfolio that you're very proud of, with that in mind making sure you only display your best work is the surefire way to make sure you'll set a great example for the kind of work that you'll do. Red flags, there aren't really many. The main things that come across in that sense would be attitude and outlook, blaming others or generally being not a great person to work around are the only outliers I can think of. *Any final pieces of advice for aspiring game artists? I guess the only thing that I would say is that you should always push your skills beyond what you think you're capable of, if you're not failing you're not learning.