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How to become a games artist
Heather 
Squig 
Heimdall 
Andy 
Steve 
The other Steve 
Tobias 
Meora |
by Heather
Heather is something we secretly all aspire to be - a games artist chick. She tells us all the things she wishes someone had told her when she was trying to crack the games industry. God bless you, Heather. God bless you and your freakishly talented little fingers.
How involved with gaming do you have to be, to be a games artist?
It really helps if you're into games. Pretty obvious, but it seriously does help. It also helps to have a finger in all the gaming pies: Casual, arcade, Console, handheld, PC, MMO, Hardcore FPS etc. You don't have to like them all (I'm not a big fan of Counterstrike, it has to be said...) but it's good to get involved where you can. Some companies specialise in certain types of games or certain platforms, so if you're really into handheld games (like me) it can hold you in good stead to get a job as a handheld games artist, or if you're really into high-end graphics? PS3, XBox 360 or PC development would be for you.
Most people in the industry are very into games, and the ones who are are usually better at making them. We had a guy join my company a while back - an animator, and while he's a competant modeller, animator and illustrator, he just didn't seem to 'get' why things were different for games. Then we realised the last game he played was Michael Jackson's 'Moonwalker' on the Sega System 18 (released in 1990). He's a good example as to why it's a god idea to get slightly obsessive over games before delving into making them. BTW, this guy is a nice enough bloke, he just would have benefitted from playing a few more games ;)
This depends on what sort of company you end up in.
In BIG companies, particularly the likes of EA and Activision Blizzard, who have massive teams, you'll be in your own little specialised niche. For example, if you're on an epically huge team as a concept artist, you could be relegated to concepting chairs, tables and other little objects, or you could be the lucky person who gets to concept the main character.
Smaller companies need people who are more of a 'jack-of-all-trades' kind of person - people who can draw, 3D model, Texture, Animate, make 2D assets and all the bells and whistles. You can even try coding if you really want! If you're better in one area than others, you'll get asked to use that skill more often, but it still leaves you open for trying other areas of games art, without as much pressure. If you're just starting out, and not quite sure what you want to spend the next 40 years of your life doing, a small company is PERFECT to start out in. Even if you think you're sure as to what you want to do, it's a nice starting point to get your confidence up :)
Do you get separate artists for static artwork and animation stuff? How does it work?
For a small company - no, you're pretty much expected to know how to do it all (even if it's only at a basic standard). At a big company, people get so specialised that when I see some people's jobs on the credits, I still have no idea what their job is!
To start with, the main jobs you get are: 3D modeller and Texturer, Animator, Concept Artist (sketching out the first visuals for the game based on the Game Design Document - it's important to be FAST and be able to draw in many, many styles), GUI Artist (making all the menu screens and whatnot) and Sprite Artist (more of a handheld/retro thing).
From there it starts getting complicated - from people who model only the weapons or character's heads, to Motion Capture teams and people who specialise in animating water (no joke).
It all depends on the company and the game.
What skills and qualifications would you need for your particular job as a games artist?
An artist for a small indie developers (like myself) needs to delve into 2D, 3D and animation, so it helps to have a background in all areas. There's a few good ways to go about this:
1) Go to uni and do a course in 'Computer Games Art' - Sounds laughable, but it's HARD, especially when you're completely new to areas like 3D modelling. There, you'll have the support of tutors (if you turn up to tutorials and lectures). Just remember that they might have been out of the games industry for a couple of years, but it's still woth picking their brains :) I went to Teesside Uni which is still one of the better places to go to as it has a good reputation in the industry, but there are a lot of courses popping up all over the UK (And the USA or quite frankly worldwide, for you ladies from the States and beyond). Before choosing, have a GOOD look at what the course is offering you, and if possible, talk to a few of the current students to get an idea as to what to expect.
2) Self-Teaching - This can be tough, but there's a lot of support out there for the bedroom developer these days, especially with the interwebs! You'll need to teach yourself how to use the programs you'll need and with only yourself to give you a kick up the bum when you get lazy, it can be a struggle. But there's hope! Sites like Conceptart.org, CGtalk.com and 3Dtotal.com are there to help! Saying that, you need to try to be professional about it - the people who visit these places know what they're talking about, so text-speak/leet-speak questions will usually be ignored ;)
If you're going to self-teach, you'll need a list of programs to learn. The main ones are Photoshop (a MUST, photoshop 6 or later is usually acceptable) and a 3D program (3DSMax or Maya are industry standard, although if you know how to use another, like XSI, Softimage - you've still got a good chance). The more programs you know, the better!
Which artist programs are useful?
- Painter (a very nice painting program that simulates real media)
- Pro Motion (spiritual sucessor to deluxe paint, good for 2D 'sprite' images and sprite animations, used a lot in handheld game development because of its paletizing tools)
- Z-Brush or Mudbox (good for making normal maps (look it up). Once you have a basic 3D model in 3DSMax or Maya, you can sculpt into it like clay using one of these programs)
- Adobe Illustrator (good for vectoring - a program that's being used more and more lately)
- Flash (can be used to make 2D animations using freehand vectors, another program that's being used more)
Cool. Let's skip a couple of weeks/years/decades so you've learned your skills. How to you get experience in the games industry?
Getting experience is the bane of everyone trying to get a job in games - but it needn't be too painful! There are now more ways to get experience than there were a year ago, and it all counts towards the final goal!
1. Get into the mod community - Mods are where people use the source code from one game to make another. The most popular engines are the Unreal Engine (used in so many games it's silly) and the Half-life engine (which spawned games like CounterStrike and Team Fortress 2). Usually, a mod team consists of at least 1 programmer, usually more (AKA the people who do the hard and boring work), Artists who can take care of the 3D side of things, and if you're lucky, a concept artist and designer. (I say 'if you're lucky', because the last two are pretty scarce in the mod community). This little team might be made up of people who know each other, or are complete strangers - but it's a very good way to see how games are made without having to get a job first. It's very good experience.
2. Freelance - touting yourself as a freelance artist can be a risky thing. Sure, you get your skills up, but people want things for peanuts or for free, and your art is worth more than that. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to build up a good reputation, especially if you're just starting out.
3. iPhone development - which is the new one. Anyone can make iPhone games without having to convince a publisher that it'll make them rich :D You can either team up with someone, or make the whole thing yourself (if you're also dabbling in programming, that is). If you visit the developer's site for the iPhone, you'll see that Apple have supplied a wealth of information for anyone wishing to make games on the iPhone - and I mean ANYONE (there's a lot of rubbish games on the iPhone, but some absolute gems too) if you decide to sell the game, Apple will take 30% of the money made, but that's still not bad at all, and it'll look awesome on your CV...
To be quite frank, it doesn't matter what you did at school or college, and while a lot of people making games at the moment didn't do a computer games at degree, it does help, especially when trawling the many agencies looking for a job (it means they look at you first and go 'OOH! MONEY! YOINK! Hey, how would you like this job...?') But regardless of what course you do or don't do, expect to be a 'Junior Artist' for at least 2 years and don't expect a payrise...
Sexy uniform?
No uniform, but I like to wear my sexy *cough* hoodies, Jeans, and trainers with the sole falling off all tied together with my electric blue and brown dreadlocks and white and pink chunky headphones :)
For interviews, you can turn up in a suit (first impressions and all) or you can turn up in jeans and a t-shirt and it pretty much won't matter - but I'd say it always helps to dress well for your interview.
Danger factor?
'The Cash Cow'.
There's always going to be a time when you get put on the team who make the 'cash cow' game - basically, the game that is certain to bring in money to keep your studio going so you can make the games you want in the future. EVERY studio has one, and if they don't, they soon go bust. Our last one was a magical pony game that came out last month that's apparently huge in America, but no-one's really heard of it in the UK. While I'm sure it'll make many little girlies across the world happy, it made everyone in my studio hungry for horse burgers and mass genocide. I'm also terrified of the word 'saddles' now after having to make 100 textures for them and then having to re-do that 3 times until they were 'north of north'...
The Cash Cow is there to test you. Don't let it win.
The odds of meeting clever, fit, solvent single men?
Well, yes and no. At a small developers like mine, no. At the developers my boyfriend works at - most likely (I've told him off for accepting lasagne from strange girls already).
There are a lot of good looking guys working in the industry, and they're usually really nice guys too - but you've got to watch out for a few! At university, I was the only girl in my year, and so I got a lot of attention from the wrong sort of guy - the sort of guy who fails uni repeatedly, works at Gamestation, shows you poorly made anime FMVs to impress you, is always trying to get the door code off you for your halls, and frequently tells you that 'girls who play games are like diamonds' while staring intently at you and tying to sneak rohypnol into your drink (ok, so maybe not rohypnol...). To deal with this type of guy, all you need to say is 'guys like you make me want to be a lesbian' and then walk away and ignore them until they get the idea.
But back to the clever, fit, solvent, single men - yep, they're there, and most are adorably shy :D
Do you get, like, any money at all?
Not so much as a graduate - the usual starting wage is around £15-£16k a year (with possible bonuses) which lets you earn without having to start paying your student loan off. My boyfriend's first job was a 6 month contract Level editing for £13k a year which wasn't even enough to live off. He's now a Character Artist (3d modelling, textuing, rigging and animating characters) and on £16k a year, but learning an awful lot. I landed on my feet with a job that started off at £22k a year as a Junior artist in a london based developers which recently got lifted to £25k after 6 months of working because I was doing such a good job :) Unfortunately, a hefty amount of this goes on £900 worth of bills a month, and visiting my boyfriend who lives 3 hours train ride away.
Perks of the job?
Free games! - Once the game you've worked on 'goes gold' and is out in the shops, you'll usually get your very own copy for free :) Some larger companies will sell their employees' games made by the company at incredibly cheap prices (i've seen some for 50p for a brand new game.)
It's better than your usual desk job - You get to pretty much draw/model/animate all day and there are no angry customers to answer to.
Seeing your game in the shops is pretty damn cool :)
All kids will instantly love you. ALL kids.
Downsides?
Sometimes sticking to a style you don't like can be a bit of a drag, especially if you think you can do better.
BELLA SARA. (Editor's note. This must be an in-joke and we didn't get it. So we googled, and it turns out Bella Sara is 'a magical world where children can play games, activate trading cards, and take care of horses online.' Awright!)
A single project can last from 6 months to 5 years, so dedication is a must.
The 'Crunch' time - when you're coming up to a Milestone, Alpha, Beta or Master Candidate period, say good-bye to your weekends and evenings, unless you're super woman and have gotten all your tasks complete (which never happens).
When someone shits on your game when they're a) not the target audience b) have never played it and c) don't know enough about games to realise that the style isn't down to the lowly artist, but a mix of the publisher and the art director's musings. Especially when you've poured your soul into it. That's the worst.
Bestest/worstest things you've experienced in the job?
Best - Seeing the game I was concept artist on (for the first time!) Come up on Kotaku with some fantastic reviews (The chase: Felix meets Felicity - crap name, but it's made for lasses, and instead of being stupidly easy and demeaning, it's incredibly hard and beats sonic with big hair)
Worst - seeing another artist fuck up my artwork so badly I couldn't look at him without spitting pure stomach acid at him for weeks, pleading with my bosses to just let me re-do it, being told there wasn't enough time, then having to put up with the shame of people thinking it was me that did it...
Cool factor?
ALL THE KIDS THINK IMMA KOOL
Chilled factor?
Lunchtimes at work = GAMESFEST
Geek factor?
Massive. So big, you'll never shake off the geek label, but guys don't care as long as you have a PS3 and a big TV.
Sexism factor?
There used to be quite a bit - back in the days of the 8-bit era, a girl in the games industry would attract a lot of uber-geek attention. These days there are more lasses, and they're mostly used to it. If guys give you shit, challenge them to a game of Guilty Gear, Play as 'Jam' and while playing, press Forward+X, Forward+X, Forward+X...
Anything you'd like to say about the job that we were too selfish to ask?
Bah! Selfish!? Not in the least, I'm well into it and have found myself writing a bloody essay already!
But I would say - whatever you do, DON'T get stuck in one style of art. Try as many as you possibly can. A games artist that can draw - and draw in whatever style is put in front of them - is a rare quality, and will get you the better jobs!
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