>go to school for art >become illustrator >after graduation

>>2852242
Were you going in for design with a 2d animation/graphic novel/etc studio or something like film and games? Because you should've seen that coming a mile away if the latter.

>>2852247
Honestly I originally wanted to just be an illustrator or comic book artist, but I realized a field like that is mostly freelance so I would love to be part of production for a video game or animation studio.

I know how to sculpt and think in 3d, I've just never used the software before.
Sigh.... maybe I'll just look into storyboarding.

Anon you want to study zbrush for concept and design

3D modeling is nice and an important skill to have (there are some things that are much harder to do in zbrush compared to maya) but if you're only going to work on concepts sculpting with zbrush will feel more netural for you.

>>2852264
> sculpting with zbrush

Oh I'll look into that too, but lately a lot of job postings I'm seeing for Character Artists or Environment Artists ask for experience with autodesk maya in addition to zbrush

Zbrush is pretty expensive too though. That shit is almost $800

>>2852287
15 of this month
Cgpeers

>>2852287
Environment artists are in huge demand at the moment because of software improvements and audience demand meaning more and larger maps in almost every game. Even the huge companies like Rockstar are looking for more environment guys since each game is like 5x larger than in the previous game.

You're doing the right thing by looking at job listings, since people are so desperate for 3d enviro guys I think you could get hired somewhere pretty fast, and then with that experience then move onto bigger companies. Be aware that you'll be modelling out lamposts or dustbins at first though.

>>2853117
>3D enviro guys
What about 2D.

>>2852242
It's free with an educational license. I just downloaded a copy.

>>2853389
>license
>free

>>2852242

>2017
>art student
>unironically thinking about buying expensive software for professionals instead of just pirating it for learning purposes

>>2853400
I think the people of today don't know how to work the Internet or something. Too much MSM.

>>2852242
Art school today is not a worthwhile pursuit unless you come from a rich family willing to pay for your tuition and supplies.

>>2853440
>people actually believe this

>>2853400
Do YOU have a nice, clean copy of Maya sitting around somewhere?

>>2853446
There are literally professionals in the industry telling people exactly this.

>>2853440
not every school is 150k a yer

This isn't being talked about enough: anybody learning art of any kind these days should also be learning 3d. 3d might not necessarily take over the entire industry, but there is absolutely no chance that you will never need it, and not knowing it is a significant handicap. It's not hard to learn either, even if just put in a few days out of a month into it for a few years, you'll at least have some beginner skills.

>>2853400
It's not 2010 anymore, pirating has become much harder that it used to be. The good news is that Autodesk makes student versions of their software available, I don't know how to become eligible for that, but it's something you should look into. If Zbrush doesn't have a student version then just use Mudbox instead.

>>2853446
....Because its true

>>2854465
The student versions are for people who payed to take a course in maya/max or actual students whose faculties paid for a bunch of student licenses.
So its buy or pirate

>>2854465

What's hard about it? Most software is dirt simple to pirate/crack. I don't have Maya though so it might have some kind of special protection I'm unaware of.

And no, you're a fucking idiot if your goal is to be proficient in zbrush and you use mudbox instead because of "muh morals". Guess what, most of the world doesn't care and you'll get left behind. Paying for software shouldn't even be on the radar for a art student.

>>2854529
Can you do us a favor and not shit up this thread with your trash? Thanks.

>>2852242

Anim8tr is free. Blender is free. There are hundreds of decent alternatives to 3ds max that are free.

Don't start with Zbrush. That's a noob mistake. Get used to extrude faces before anything else.

Read the /3/ sticky.

>>2853389
Maybe, but I would feel weird about lying about my credentials. I'm not a student anymore so I don't want to make some shit up and somehow get in trouble for it.

OP here again. I think some of you assumed I was still a student. I graduated from art school in 2010.
Everything we were taught, was 2d-art related, whether it was comics, painting, character design, etc. I originally thought what I wanted to do was comics, so that's why I ended up going to the school I went to.
Now I think I want to do something for video games or cartoon studios, and I'm kicking myself for not going into animation school instead.

After graduation, I did freelance for 3 years, until I got a job as a technical/production artist with a slot machine company. My job there was mostly taking the graphics and movies from the slot games and converting them to templates made for mobile and facebook.
In a nutshell I would take the jpgs/pngs of slot machine symbols and backgrounds and edit them in photoshop to look good on a mobile layout.

Now I'm looking for a new job, with a similar company and in a similar position, but everything related to my experience now wants knowledge of 3D software.

Sigh... I'm kinda in a rut with how to proceed with my career.

>>2854551

I'm helping OP. You really have to be a special kind of stupid to even consider the thought of buying Maya unless you're making a liveable income off the stuff you produce with said software.

>>2854563

If anything, anon could start with Sculptris.

I do not see the point why someone who wants to be character artist / concept artist should not start with Zbrush, desu. The guy doesn't want to be 3d artist, just know enough to bang out character or creature models.

Yes, at some point it's nice to be able to do a bit of mesh modeling and learning a bit about shaders, texturing, retopo and all the rest, but at this point it hardly matters.

Here's the job requirements for a Character Artist at Avalanche Studios (game company that made Just Cause 3) just to give an example of what specific 3D software they want artists to know:

The Position

As a Character artist at Avalanche Studios you will collaborate in a small team to create character art for our next AAA project. We expect you to have a versatile role working with in house, outsourced and scanned assets.You will also be responsible for the final functionality of your assets, such as complex collision modeling, destruction and morph-target creation, and other technical setups.

Required qualifications

Excellent modeling and texturing skills using Autodesk Maya and Adobe Photoshop
Experience with Zbrush
3 years experience from working in AAA game development
Strong understanding of physical based content authoring
A strong reel demonstrating well-documented artistic ability
A strong sense for human anatomy
Passion for playing and making games

Desired qualifications

5 years experience from working in AAA game development
Experience with Allegorithmic Substance and Painter
Experience with Quixel Suite
Experience with Photogrammetry

>>2854752
Also sorry, didn't mean to make this into my personal blog

>>2854752
What kind of skills are required to get into technical art anyways?

>>2852242
There's a free educational version you can download without being a student and it has all features.

>>2854965
Except you still need to put in info about what school you're currently attending

Basically, I'm in the same rut as OP except I dropped out after the first year because... Well, I was worried OP's exact scenario would happen to me. It turns out, there's no foot in the door for people not going to college or graduated with a BA. Back to my reel and hoping some hiring department accidentally picks me up.

>>2854752
That job is suicide, OP. It's a start though. It really depends what you want to be doing. Design work, Characters, Environments, opening a small gallery, indie games, AAA games, freelance, Autist commissions?? You can really do anything you want in this field, I'm sure there's a need for an 2d illustrator somewhere, you just need to find it first. Or adapt to the new 3d world if that sounds like more fun?

>>2855202
>Well, I was worried OP's exact scenario would happen to me. It turns out, there's no foot in the door for people not going to college or graduated with a BA.
Explain
What the fuck
Stop killing my dreams /ic/

>>2855205
I'm still young, still time to find a way in. But, 2D animation isn't exactly an easy field to get in to. I'm talking any aspect of it. Character design, BG painter, Character animator, storyboard artist... etc."So you just do an unpaid internship, suck it up and..." Nope. Must be in college, so they can give you college credit for legal purposes. "Start a patreon and start making you own ideas... Use the internet for freelance commission work" Nope. Need a massive following before even considering that as a viable option. And that goes back to the flimsy business side.. "Kill self" Nope. You need to make money to buy a rope in the first place.

Listen I can go on all day about this and that. But basically, at the end of the day if your work is strong enough, people won't care about your diploma, or accredited learning facilities. And you'll be hired by some guy you recognizes your hard work. You just have to make sure they see it, and it's the best quality you can put out. So, there's hope. Not much, but it's there.

>>2855236
>so you just do an unpaid internship, but you have to be in college
I fucking hate this so much. I had an in with Bill-fucking-Plympton and they wouldn't give me an internship because I wasn't a third-year in college. I don't understand why they just didn't give me something to do, they wanted to actually pick me up, but as soon as I said I wasn't in college they said "oh, sorry. we can't hire you, come back in a few years though."

Now I'm learning Maya at a movie studio, and amazingly even here they haven't bought maya, all the copies people are working on are pirated.

>>2854563
That /3/ sticky was written in 2011 and was already old at that time. That advice is 10 years old and today sculpting characters in ZBrush has now completely dominated any other way of making concepts.

Even though ZBrush is kind of shitty, it's still the best there is. And IMO once you get over the initial hurdles of learning the interface, after about a week, it becomes the single most fun piece of digital art software.

>>2852242
>current year
>paying for Maya or zbrush

>>2855670

I fucking don't understand it. I'd pay for the license of programs if I'd have registered some sort of bussiness or people were going to go for my ass because I blatantly do commercial work in it. But any other case and learning? Why?

Same thing for stuff like Catia V5, Matlab and other expensive engineering programs. Unless I'd be trying to sell what I did with them, I would never pay a dime for that fucking expensive stuff.

It's like people don't understand that torrents and ddl exist.

>>2855677

b-but muh morals!!

>>2852242
>"experience sculpting in 3d in Autodesk Maya or Zbrush"
No concept artist titles require this. If your 2d skills are up to par, you will learn whatever software needed while working.

Knowing about 3d art is great if you are working and giving feedback to modelers, who usually can't grasp all the traditional aspects of art.

>>2854752
Youre basically describing yourself as a GUI artist, not an illustrator or concept artist.

It's not bad. I'm working as one too and it pays well and gives me lots of time to paint.

>>2854763
This is a 3d modeler job. I used to work in the same building and our producer went to their company.

>>2855899

Yeah, I think some people here have mixed up character artist and concept artist thinking they are the same job.

>>2855932
Well, one can do the other but the other can't.

>>2852242
i feel your pain senpai...

Doing sculpting and especially 3d modeling (since I suck at sculpting details) are very useful for drawing though.I've learned a lot more about how surfaces and forms behave in 3d space than I ever thought I would and I just do simple non-anatomical cartoony stuff.

>>2856388
What did you start with? I'm kind of scared to venture into 3d modeling since it looks like it takes a lot of time, much more than it takes for one drawing.

>>2856391
I dabbled in 3d software before but I was never as proficient in any of them as I was in Maya. I think Maya is very easy to learn.

>>2852242

Does anyone have any tips for tutorials on low poly 3d modeling, I just like the aesthetics of it. I know there are a ton on youtube but I mean specific videos or channels

>>2856447
Is this your work? It looks awful.
Proportions are off, no muscle/fat definition (everything is the same amount of blobby), symbol sculpting in the eyebrows, eyes, nose, and lips, unrealistic skin colors, why is your specular so high and so sharp?
I'm really not understanding any of the choices you (or the artist) has made.

>>2855934
>Well, one can do the other but the other can't.
One is a 3d artist position one is a concept artist position. One requires you mainly to sculpt in a software like 3dsmax and the other to paint in photoshop.

I'm not sure how much clear I can be on this.

>>2852260
Wouldn't be hard to pirate either one for portfolio purposes. I basically have the same sort of path as you but I don't really want to work in a big studio. I want to work on a long running comic whether I get a following or not. I'd say give it a go, they aren't hard softwares at all and Zbrush translates nicely if you have a screen to draw with.

>>2854741
The last time I checked Autodesk's educational licenses were easy as fuck to get. You can give them a bullshit name, academy and a throwaway email, and they don't ask for any proof.

>>2859069
You need an academic email address to request the educational license and even then there's still a small chance you'll get an email asking for proof. Most times your college-stamped class schelude would do, sometimes they'll request a letter signed by some school authority. It feels like it depends on the mood of the guy reviewing the applications...

>>2854763
That's a 3d position. Character artist/environment artist usually mean 3D. You'd be looking for character designer/concept artist, which usually doesn't require any 3D skills. If you want to do general concept art, then you do need some basic 3D at least.

i cant believe the op graduated from a school and doesnt even know the difference between a concept art job (lol) and 3d modeling job (lol)

>>2859980
That's just typical art education for you. Especially the case if it's a video game related school

>>2853615
Let's look at the professionals who're telling us art school is not worth it. First we have those who went to art school but felt it was a waste of money. Even if the courses weren't worth the bucks, the professionals who finished art school definitely gained at least something from it, like the ability to self study and probably valuable industry connections. It also helps being in an enviroment that encourages learning. We don't know how many of the professionals who went to artschool would have made it without the school. Second we have those who made it on their own and thus prove you don't need an art school. The problem here is: While we hear of the art school graduates who didn't find a job in the industry, we don't know how many people who tried to get into the industry without official education in art actually made it, the numbers might be just as high, if not higher than the art school graduates.

It's debatable if art schools are too pricey for what they actually offer, but I think generalizing art school as a pure waste of time and money goes too far, especially since there are some really good schools out there.

Considering that I have enough of free time to learn new programs, which I should focus on?
So far I thought about getting into ZBrush, anything else?

>>2861944
If you're going to learn 3d then it's probably best to get into Maya first.

>>2861944
depends on what you want to do.

If you want to get into 3d in general, learn in this order, maya->zbrush->your preferred 3d paint program. MARI is good I heard, but that may just be from /3/ circlejerking over the foundry.

If you just want to sculpt shit, learning maya would be a waste of time, so long as you already have a basic understanding. of how polygons work.

>>2856683
>sculpt in a software like 3dsmax
You can't sculpt in 3ds. It doesn't have any sculpting functionality whatsoever.
Autodesk's sculpting tool is mudbox, which is terrible.

3d concept art exists. It's very easy to shit out sculpts quickly if you know the program.
Concept art doesn't have to be strictly 2d, it could easily be done by a 3d artist.

>>2862115
How would you do all the environments with just 3D? That would take forever.

>>2862115
I just want to sculpt shit, for my own satisfaction or to work at some company.

>>2852242
>(Me)