This is one of the most painful recurring sentences you will ever hear if you’re around artists looking for a job, especially when they are going through what it is the excruciating research of the FIRST JOB.
I said that too in the past. I feel like almost every artist at a certain point in time was at least entertaining the thought.
Usually we end up there supported by one – or all – of the followings:
- The fear of not covering enough ground and losing opportunities – which worsen as time passes and results still are not in stight.
- The desire of trying it all – Which is a natural condition for most artists that we need to learn how to tame.
- The lack of experience in knowing what type of knowledge a determined job would actually requires from you – Which usually – and understandably – can generate doubts about our reliability in the reviewer of our applications.
Now, I’m not saying there aren’t ways to do more than one thing as an artist. On the contrary.
But we need to think of a strategy.
Looking for your first job can be taxing for one’s soul, especially if you aspire to land a full time job, or if you dream to work for a big franchise/firm.
It can requires months, sometimes more than a year (depending on the job you are interested in).
And that waiting start generating panic into the aspiring young artist, who needs a job immediately after finishing school. The constant emails starting with “We thank you for your interest” doesn’t help morale too. They are honest and much appreciated, of course. But when they start piling up it feels like you’ll never get that job.
Character designer positions are at the top of most people desired jobs, closely followed by concept artist positions – and the openings are not that many.
This is another obstacle to overcome, all adding to the already existing pile of our stress. And so, we make mistakes.
Sometimes (very often) the portfolios presented to a job openings contains material that is not ready for work. Why?
Usually because of one (or multiple) of these reasons:
- They are only showing the same kind of content over and over again. Like only illustrations and no actual call out sheet that explain the the design more in depth.
- They try to cover all the possible ground at once, showing not only examples of work for every single art discipline, but each one of them done in a different style. That creates a sense of confusion, like you’re looking at a collection of works of different artists instead of at the portfolio of a single one. That is because it lacks something that knit all together in a recognizable visual way.
- They’re featuring art completely unrelated to the job specs (imagine a series of illustrations for a UI job that requires graphic design competences. Once I received 3 pages of a graphic novel in black and white ink for a job as a 2D artist on a cute stylized mobile game).
- They lack the all important need to convey the necessary information to the reviewer.
- The portfolio shows a lack in the knowledge of one or more fundamentals and principles. Mastering the fundamentals of the discipline you want to work in is really important. For example, if you want to be a character designer, you may need to know anatomy, gesture and figure drawing, have a good grasp on how to convey emotions through expressions, and then you’ll need knowledge of how to use values, colors, how to create contrast with edges, eventually some use of photobashing and some confidence with 3D softwares. You need to be able not just to design a person but their clothes and props as well. You need to be able to design not just young pretty people but older ones, babies, ugly ones, anthropomorphic, monsters, villains, everything at all! You may, then, specialize in some things in particulare, but you still need to have a basic but professional way of putting together any type of character. Some knowledge of animal anatomy and creature design could also be helpful.
As you can see just from the list of fundamental skills to nurture to be a character designer, every profession requires a lot of study. That is why is not advisable to try to apply for everything at once.
There are a number of reasons why artists – me too! – go through this great stage of confusion while they’re trying to organize their portfolios:
- They are artists. And artists like to experiment and try new things. Not all of the artists, surely, but most of them.
- They are narrators of their own stories. They feel the need of using every asset that can help them express those stories, ideas and projects they have constantly going around their minds. It can lead to embrace too many things at once and spread themselves too thin.
- They are still learning and most of the material they have is part coming for their current exercises, part from art they create in their own free time as a way to take a break from studies and part from old works.
- They look for immediate results. This affect the capability to make a plan and stick with it because a serious portfolio plan requires time to study and improve in what we’re lacking and to actually create the pieces we need. So they just collect the pieces they enjoy doing from time to time.
Ok, I think we’ve arrived to a point where we all agree: studying to work as an artist is a big task.
It requires lots of time and passion but can’t be completely relying on one’s love for the profession and enthusiasm. We need structure. We need a plan.
But, on top of everything: we need to do our research.
I’ll give you a brief list of resources you can look at to start looking around and, in time, I hope this blog will grow to be a solid guide to help you in devising your own career plan
| Key Research Pointers |
|---|
| Know more about the professions themselves. Tip: You can start with this post I wrote it’s a guide on which art jobs you may be interested in knowing more about: https://bethatartist.com/2024/10/31/unlock-your-potential-careers-in-art-and-design/ ) Try to look at what’s out there and then, when you see something you resonate with, go fishing for all the info you can get! You can find loads of articles and websites on Google and content on Youtube and I would personally suggest you to join artists communities and get to know people already working in the industry who can give you a first hand insight! |
| Finance – Know your numbers Tips: – Not every Country has it but some have national guides on average salaries for artists. (I know that UK have one: https://www.artistsunionengland.org.uk/rates-of-pay/) – Look for conversations on social media, follow related hashtags like #AnimationPaidMe and look at how things work out there. – Tale a look at job boards. Websites like Glassdoor offers the “Search for Salary and Compensations” tool that gives you an idea of the average salaries for a certain profession in a determined area: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/index.htm?countryRedirect=true |
| Improve your fundamentals: workshops / courses / Tutorial / Resources Tips: Tons of amazing resources out there, free and not. These are some of them but the world is vast. – Youtube (free): when you find a teacher to follow always go with a couple of major considerations: do you like their work? Do they have a sensible professional experience? Do your research on who you’re going to learn from. – Paid schools and courses (which, sometimes, also have free resources at hand): there are many. From Schoolism to Domestika, passing from Artstation, Gumroad (where you can also buy assets – and sometimes downloading content for free) or CGMA. There are a lot of schools and academy in site who also offerts online courses like IDEA Academy. And so on. Look around, you can find a whole world. |
| Networking Tips: Networking is a fundamental part of any job. Not because a mentor will be able to secure you a job. A mean, it may happen but it’s not something guaranteed. But knowing other people who actually do this job and can give you the right feedback is paramount. Also, finding a community that you can share your interest with and can support you or people you can learn together with is very important. And remember that the people you meet today could be your colleagues (or managers!) of tomorrow! You can look for people on: – Social media platforms like Artstation, Instagram, Pixiv or Cara (just some of them). – Chat platforms like Discord (there are so many great communities there!) – Mentorship programs like the ones promoted by Limit Break, Diversity Champions or part di associations like CAA. |
For now is all, I wish you the best of luck.
Let me know in the comments if you would like to know more about one or more particular topics!
Be That Artist 
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