Oh, I know that girl - her work is gorgeous!

Last week I wrote about how important it is to work hard, to try to create professional work, to build a collection of portfolio-worthy work during your studies, and to be all-round awesome. Ideally, you'd be hired instantly according to how much work you've put in and the quality of the work you've got on show, but, unfortunately, this isn't what happens in reality. And the reality is that if you lock yourself in your room and work on art all day, you'll probably create stunningly beautiful artwork, but you may well be decreasing your chances of getting a job. Confused? Read on!


With the recession, many of the art-related industries have been struggling to make ends meet. In particular, a number of game and arch-viz studios have had to shut down, and many game artists have been struggling to find jobs. I hear that companies have also tightened their advertising and marketing budgets, so that there's less design work going around too. There are some great artists with beautiful work who've found themselves unemployed. And that's when friends in the industry matter.

Build up contacts!

Now, I don't mean that you should go around making 'friends' with people just so that you can make use of them one day. Actually, I kind of am, but I'm hoping it'll be more of a mutually beneficial relationship. :P Sometimes, people get swamped with work, and need to recommend colleagues to the client, rather than making promises about deadlines that they cannot keep. And having a friend or two to put in a good word for you in the company to which you're applying can give your portfolio a nice bump onto the top of the pile. This is arguably one of the bigger advantages to going to an art school compared to studying on your own: you get a chance to interact with and impress people who are currently in industry (your lecturers, hopefully), and those who'll be in the industry in a few years (the other students). (Of course, this can work both ways. If you get yourself a bad reputation, then that could follow you around too.)

Stuff to do:

Firstly, lectures don't always last the allotted time -- which just means that you can ask them all sorts of questions, and they pretty much can't chase you away! (Unless you ask something really personal - tsk tsk.) This gives you the opportunity to learn a whole lot of stuff outside of the lecture content, and these are potentially just as valuable. Very basic examples include: how stressful different fields of design are, tips on freelancing or studio work, getting holiday jobs, how much you might be able to charge for the work you're doing, what kind of work you might expect to do, how one juggles design work and spending time with family, and whether your expectations in terms of industry placement are realistic. And, combined with the awesome work that you've been doing by putting in extra work, you may find that you've got a nice letter of recommendation waiting for you when you're done with your studies...

Secondly, make sure you're worthy of a recommendation. It's no use having a lot of contacts if you can't do the job. It's just a foot in the door. Your knowledge, your skills, your work ethic and your personality help you keep your job. If you've made work of which you can be proud, show people! It's only bragging if you say how awesome you are - it's much better to show people your work, and let them tell you it's awesome. :P

Thirdly, here's a list of communities that have been useful to me, both in terms of inspiration and in terms of getting critique/contacts/useful discussion:

• Pixofile - a locally hosted art community; while their work is mostly student work, you tend to get quick, decent, and encouraging feedback. (If you don't get your activation email, check your spam folder, or mail an admin.)


• ConceptArt.org - the definitive forum for concept artists, frequented by students and professionals alike. If you're too intimidated to post your own work, there are a bunch of old threads containing traditional and digital art lessons and tips too.


• CGSociety/CGTalk - perhaps the biggest digital art community on the net. They also regularly run stories on digital work (hint: AVATAR, BioShock2), as well as have regular interviews of big names in the digital art/effects industry - and you can ask them your own questions too!


• polycount - a great forum for game artists, with ridiculously useful threads on technology, good practice, the right way to do normal maps, low poly modelling (hint: lower poly isn't always better, performance-wise), tris vs quads (hint: both, in the right places), among others.


• Facebook and Twitter have also gotten me jobs and contacts before, but if you're spending longer than an hour on there each day, then you're spending too much time there. Stupid Zombie/Farm/Mafia crap. :P

Make work that you would be willing to pay (a lot) for, and get people talking about your work. Students, lecturers, friends, family, internet folk - you never know which friend's wealthy businessman uncle is looking for a designer... Now go forth, and be awesome!