Curiouse question, but what university did you go to?

@@ghost4439 I went to Norwich University of the Arts and then Teesside for my MA :)

@@JordanGrimmer wow 👌

Going through this too. I know some people can just bulldoze through art block and all but I'm definately not one of them. Sometimes I wish I could but it's exhausting

As for me, I did decide that I want to become an artist. So I went to art school, and then another one simultaneously. And furthermore, I quit my job to study more and in 2-3 months I began to study for 40 hours a week. Basically studying as I was working. I maintain that for 2 - 2,5 years now, I have my ups and downs, have had several big blows, but I keep going for 30-40 hours a week thanks to my discipline. Never had any of so called 'art block'. And I believe there is a really small chance to succeed as an artist if you study for less than 15-20 hours a week. Employment in this case would take you decades. Just because there are people that are willing to study for 40+ hours to apply for the junior jobs. So take this particular advice with a grain of salt and a careful consideration of your aims and your character traits

Glad you enjoyed it!

My pleasure!

try doing manipulations and whenever you can, draw into the picture, learn where the shadows and the lights are, how the colors are beeing used. also try photobashing w/drawing. from time to time you will see, that you can achieve better results by drawing. till you reach a point where you dont need to bash and just draw :) and what really helps: pick something (f.e. a rock) and draw it 10 times - see the progress in your drawings. at first use a reference image. that should help

@@etiennemanuzzi9486 Thank you this was helpful😍

Hey! Firstly any art you do should be fun first, so if you really want to learn try to paint/draw things that you find fun. Environments, characters, whatever. Then to really get started I would ignore all the custom brushes and the extra junk that goes with digital painting. Use only the default round brush with opacity turned on, this will force you to only focus on what you're drawing and painting. I would recommend doing some studies of whatever art you want to do, always use reference and don't give up with it. Reference is the most important part of this, never listen to anyone who says don't use reference, that's a moronic statement. We learn by putting things in our head, the reason I love painting environments and can do them from my brain now is because I've studied environments for a long time now and that knowledge is now in my head. Just keep going with it and you will find yourself starting to improve.

@@JordanGrimmer Thank you very much for this response. I find it interesting and important to start with. I hope to do it one day. Thank you

I don’t know if Jordan will answer, so I’ll give you my teacher one instead just in case 😂 He said that it was better (when starting as a pro), to do only one thing well (be somewhat ok in other) and put that one thing in the portfolio If you do landscape and environmental design you only put those (differents universes works) but try to keep a consistent art style. Same for characters Same for 3D designs Don’t mix them At the start our skills are less good than the pro. So to set a foot in the industry focus more on one thing that you like, and push it further than all of the others skills you possess. Once your confortable in the industry, you can do whatever you want. That’s what my teacher said, other pro have probably other opinions, and are valid too Hope it can help.

This question has come up on a few GDC portfolio talks (they're on KZfaq and definitely worth a watch if you're building a portfolio) and the answer they usually give is that you 'd want to specialise (in characters, environments, props or whatever you choose) if you plan to work for a big studio and generalise if you want to work for a smaller indie studio. Because big studios can afford to hire multiple concept artists which specialise in different areas where as smaller studios will want to hire one guy that does everything. As for genre you would typically cater your portfolio to the studio you want to work at, if you want to work for blizzard do fantasy etc.

Hey! Thank you :) I think it's about remembering that when we're aiming to be a concept artist we should have a folio of work that shows concept art, and if you really want to go all-in most studios won't want to see anime in a concept art based portfolio, unless the art they're looking for is specifically in an anime style. I think it's about asking yourself what you enjoy, if you really love your anime style, why lose it? You can do both, but it's about having one folio for one style and another folio for the other.

@@JordanGrimmer thank you so much for your reply and feedback!! Im gonna have 2 different folios for each own style then! I knew some people in industry really don't wish to see an anime style concept/artworks because they had this childish stigma on it but ngl Im still loving the style since i grew up with it (especially final fantasy / granblue fantasy) haha. Once again thank you for the reply hope you have a wonderful holiday man!

No problem! In actuality the international job I mentioned in the video was when I worked remotely as a freelancer for EA for a while a few years back. This was me being based in the UK and the EA studio in particular being over in the US. On top of that I've been a freelance artist on the side ever since I started working professionally as a concept artist too doing book covers, album covers and other stuff. Loads of studios hire freelance/outsource artists if there's a gap where we need a bit of extra help. The work they do has to match what we're looking for, but we make sure to fully brief and get them on board with what exactly they need to do. Loads of freelance artists work like this instead of actually being in a studio. There shouldn't be a difference between the work they produce and what the studio do, that's why we hire to either match our style or the art bible of the game.

@@JordanGrimmer thanks so much for the info! That clears up a ton of questions I’ve had, and definitely provides a little more hope to this journey. As I’m sure you’re aware there’s a ton of doubt and disappointment (self induced mostly) surrounding getting into the business of art. Personally, I’ve really dedicated myself to getting in, so has my daughter, and we would work ourselves to dust in gratitude for a studio that would give us the chance. But there’s just so much to know and learn, all while getting your art skills up to par… it’s all just a bit intense. Acknowledging that I have no idea what your day to day work life is like… I envy you. But I’m truly grateful to you for providing some insight to us hopefuls. Best of luck with all your endeavors! And thanks again for the service your channel provides.

That is honestly one of the nicest comments I've had on here, I really appreciate that. I'd be more than happy to look over yours and your daughter's work, if you find me on ArtStation and drop me a message I'll be more than happy to give you some feedback.

Hey! No problem, glad you liked it. I think it's a good idea to apply to both big and small companies, alot of people think that the only ones out there art the AAA ones and that's just not the case, you can have an amazing working experience at both big and small places. I've worked at big and small places now and for the most part have enjoyed being in a more close-knit team. Portfolio-wise I would say if you've just got 1-2 finished concepts now you should definitely spend some more time getting more finished ones in there. We want to see sketches etc. like I mentioned in the video, but you should try to have a nice amount of stuff to really show your range. There isn't really a number I can put on it, but just try to use your best judgement and don't be scared to show your work.

I'd like to know that too! Sometimes I see a really cool illustration but the title says "concept art". I have always thought of concept art as Jordan described in this video, but I keep hearing that boundries between concept and illustration are getting thinner and thinner and it kinda confuses me in times.

Concept artists here . so theoretically a concept artist shouldnt ben doing illustration like work , the job of a concept artist is mostly visual problem solving there is a lot of study on how to resolve design issues and stuff like that , its pretty technical stuff like top down views of envirornments turnaround of props or characters or stuff like that , sometime you have the chance to work on more illustration like tasks , mostly in envirornment concepts , to nail down a mood or an idea for a place . When you get to do a fully rendered illustration of an environment is called production painting , its usually used to sell and pitch an idea to other departments or even other studios . its the cool image that explains the game or the map or whatever , mostly because not always you have artists on the other side , you could have producers , programmers , designers , so you need something striking to show and sell the pitch . But these prod paintings are usually made by seniors and lead artists with a lot of experience .

@@lazorman96 Thanks for the detailed answer!

Yeah, like I mentioned in the video there's a real misconception about concept art and illustration. Alot of people think that concept art is creating these highly detailed pieces when it's really not, concept art is idea generation, not spending 30 hours on one piece. If clients are asking you do to this they are themselves not clear on what exactly concept art is. As someone else has mentioned here you might have to spend more time on some pieces then others, these could then be used as more highly detailed pieces of promo art or a mood piece that gets across the feeling of something when you're pitching an idea. But overall the main job of a concept artist is to create and show ideas, not spend days/weeks on one piece.

@@lazorman96 Thank you it's very detailed, in that case concepting must be quite demanding compared to illustration in the industry I suppose? I see companies hiring concept artists all the time but less 2d artists. At least concept artists can do concept and illustration if needed.

Hey! I've actually worked for companies in different countries before, it's quite a normal thing especially now with remote working! It's all about what they're offering, if it's a studio place they'll want you there, but if not you can usually be remote anywhere with reason of timezone etc.

It's tricky, finding other people to work on indie stuff with can be really hard if you don't know many people already. Alot of people tend to find teams through doing some proper research into small time studios and sending out a few emails to see if they're hiring, but this isn't always the case. Social media, folio places like ArtStation (maybe not so much now because of so many people leaving) and things like Discord are the places I think are best to put the feelers out, it's about trying to latch onto or building your own community and seeing if there are like-minded people out there. About posting, I think your best stuff should be on both of them, but when it comes to portfolio websites you should have the thumbnail images being the best and then the sketches/unfinished stuff below that within the same project (if they are in the same project). Show us your working, don't open with sketches but make sure they'll also there so we can see how you got to the finished piece.

@@JordanGrimmer thank you so much for the insight! It's very valuable info because the industry where I am is pretty much nonexistent and noone I talk to knows about these things

Yes I am :)