What goes into a work portfolio?

[stark_opportunist]

Hi, I'm new here and decided to join the community to help improve my art skills. Right now I'm going to university for a BSc in Biology but I've been doing art all my life and would like to develop my craft on the side to perhaps someday land a job in the industry. I've explored a variety of different media, done quite a few portraits. I understand that a bachelor of fine arts isn't necessarily required for a concept art of illustration position, so: How do I prepare a portfolio that I can present to an employer to apply for a job or internship? What specific types of artwork need to be in it? (Landscape, Portraits, technical, speedpaint etc.) What medium should I work in, and how much variety should there be in my style? Does anyone have a specific guideline for this, criteria that I can work toward filling? Thanks in advance, I appreciate the help!

[TomDeVis]

Well, the simple answer to that question is, what do you want to do as a career? Do you like painting with acrylics, paint in acrylics and scan em (use some photoshop for the final touches) and drop em on your website. Same with digital painting, oil painting, sculpting ... What is the dream job you want to persue ? Look at a company's website and find some artist working their and look at their style. For your portfolio,you must at least post some very finished and polished pieces. Studies can be dropped in there as well, but the main focus must be your finished pieces! With more info I might be able to help you any further. Greetings, Tom

[stark_opportunist]

Hi Tom, My ideal job is working digitally with a tablet as a concept artist for a game studio.

[Luneder]

Put in the best examples of the kind of work a game studio likes to see, characters, environments, and props. A studio likes to see your knowledge of anatomy and your ability to make out of this world designs. I myself am still working on mine http://lunederart.com/Gallery.html Also fan art of the preferred game studio would help to show your ability to adapt to their style. Also spend as much time as possible making each example, they would be the selling point of your portfolio so you must give them something that would make you hard to forget.

[TomDeVis]

You will also best make an early choice between environment design / mech design / character design. Sure there are people that can do each and one of them at a superb level, but they always have one of them that is a lot stronger. For example create a lot of great environments and when you feel like creating a character, draw one! But once on your portfolio, put the main focus on the environments and put your best character/mech in there as well, just to show you can do those things as well. Another big thing to keep in mind is, you want to be a concept artist, so multiple takes on the same idea are a must. I'm talking about creating thumbs, working out a few of them and choosing 1 to really polish up. Also being able to present them is key. (this is more for when you choose characters/creatures/mech - environments are more an ongoing process.) Keep in mind that game companies also choose based on which style you are working in. But this isn't a thing to keep in mind when you are starting out. Get the fundamentals first, then work up to a style you like. Never choose a style you don't really like but you like the games the company make. Because you will need to keep working in that style and if it is something you don't like to do with all your heart.

[The_shaman]

Maybe I can offer a little advice as well.. I believe the lay out and design of your powerful is just as powerful as the pieces in your portfolio. The question you asked can be answered by asking yourself, "What do I want to do?" You say you want to work as a concept designer, but a concept of what? A concept designer can be anything from characters, to vehicles, to props. But, to speak generally I would fill my portfolio with work for each category putting the work that targets the job/position/internship I ant in the front of the portfolio and the others in the back just to show the company that "Hey, this is what I want to do, but I can do this other stuff if needed or asked." Another thing from my understanding (not personal experience), Fully rendered pieces is not what companies are looking for, but work that show your thought process behind you creating that painting or rendered drawing is what studios look for. I'm my opinion that makes more sense than just putting your portfolio filled with just fully rendered pieces. Why would a company hire someone just off of that when they more than likely may already have people who can do fully rendered piece. So I would do a 3 to 1 ratio, for every fully rendered piece, I would do 3 thumbnail sketches showing how my mind worked to get me there, or for every fully render I would do 2 sketch and 1 color key/ or color thumbnail. But, I'm pretty sure there are more people on here more qualified than me to give this advice.... edit; also I forgot, don't trap yourself in just 1 style, show that your versatile and can change if needed. Synn!!!!

[stark_opportunist]

Alright, so I should choose a focus for my portfolio from environment design / mech design / character design but also flesh out the other areas to show that I am capable of them. Emphasizing the areas that appeal to my desired employee can help, as well. Now, I've read that companies prefer to see some carefully chosen fully rendered artwork, probably less than a dozen pieces to choose from, and that they'd rather not wade through tons of sketches and process work to see the final result. That being said, I think its true that I should make that sort of thing easily accessible should an employee wish to see it as well. I've also heard that places like consistency and that I should define a style of my own without straying too much from it. But then I see most job postings which often say that working under a different visual style is a possibility and is required for the job.. Is it really okay to just stick to one medium (digital) when creating my portfolio? I haven't done a lot of environment/landscape work and I'm wondering if anyone knows how you'd go about even starting something as grand and complex as this person's work? http://www.jessevandijk.net/g_11_28.html I think I really need to make a plan of what types of pieces I need/want in my portfolio and make goals to complete them. If anyone has any relevant tutorials for creating some high quality work like the link above or otherwise, I'd really appreciate it!

[TomDeVis]

I can't open the link here due the firewall of my work, so I can't help you on that. I hope I'll remeber tonight and will open it then. Yes you can keep your medium to only digital. I know several artist that didn't even start drawing with a pencil but went straight to the digital medium. Also there are a lot of artist that began with traditional media and changed to digital at one point and never turned back. Most people keep their color work to digital and do studies in sketchbooks with a plain old pencil. And there are also people who still like their traditional media and only use the digital media for the final touches. But I suggest you to get into the basics first because you will get in way over your head. Do some composition studies, color studies, story studies... And ask around. There are a lot of tutorials around to help you. And on the amount of posts, yes you need to only put your best work up. If your level of your skills has increased, you remove your worst pieces and replace em with your best. Some guest art directors told us that sometimes they spectate a blog, to see your improvement so they can guess how well you would improve when on the job! Some things I would suggest you reading/watching. Feng Zhu's youtube channel, bridgeman. There are a LOT of great tutorials, but Bridgeman is great for anatomy and Feng Zhu covers a lot about mech/compostion and how the eye travels. Ah and one thing that may be inspiring as well, once you have decided your field of interest and style, seek some professionals in the same style/field and look why they decide some things, how they put it down etc...

[The_shaman]

The entertainment art industry is dominated by digital artwork to the point you don't ever have to do traditional artwork at all. Everything from story boarding to conceptual design is done digitally. Now don't get me wrong there are a few artist in the industry who do work traditionally, but from my understanding those artist are on another level completely with their skills. *day dreams seeing myself on that level one day * as far as that painting goes that can actually be easily broken down... Composition; deep space In the picture I see three large basic shapes, those shapes are than broken into smaller shapes. Now this is only my way of going about it, some people go straight into the work, but like it was mentioned many times before, use thumbnails. Thumbnail drawings are a Big help because it helps you stop seeing all the pretty eye candy detail and forces you to think about; blocking in the mass of an object, space and layering. Same goes for when painting, doing color thumbnails, so I guess to put it shortly it helps you get a base which you can build off of, and not just go in guessing. Edit I would also like to not that piece is more of a illustration than a environment concept or design, the difference is a illustration tells a story and can be called finished at almost any level of rendering. A environment concept is just that, a concept or conceptual lay out of a idea, but lately the lines have started being pushed as to what is what.

[Meteorskies]

Like for a cover letter and a resume, you must adapt your portfolio to the company/art director you aim to work at/with. To be a concept artist, except for some rare companies like Blizzard, fan art is not something to go for. The reason is that as a concept artist, you're expected to create new designs. In fan art, the design exists already, you don't have anything to create from scratch. I suggest you watch Feng Zhu's video (I don't remember if it's in ep 51 or 52), he clearly states that fan art work is to avoid at all cost. I've just remembered I compiled some articles here for this kind of questions: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=928