I have a BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA in Computer Animation from The Academy of art San Francisco. I've been working for High Impact for about two years now and have worked on the following games:
Secret Agent Clank (PSP)
Ratchet and Clank Size Matters (PSP)
You can look in my Gallery to see the exact Levels I worked on with notes form me and stuff. Feel free to write me if you have any questions or criticisms or whatever. Hopefully with work being so slow at the moment I'll have time to do more color work.








Anyways the reason why I'm contacting you is because I'm currently enrolled at a Art Institute and majoring in Media Arts & Animation. So basically my dilemma is that I still can't figure out if I want to work making video games, or stick with animation. I want to create the characters and/or levels. Now your current job is one of my dream jobs. I love all the ratchet and clank games. I just need a sense of direction. I cant really explain what or how just so lost kind of. I'd like to also create like the special effects in movies and/or characters/scenes in movies. So basically Im trying to figure out which will be more stable like money wise. Which is more fun. As you can see Im probably making no sense lol. thats why I cant figure out what to do.
Hopefully you can help me out by giving me some advice or something man. Thanks.
About being an animator. I would say if you have a burning driving passion for it then do it. however do know that animators are really a dime a dosen so you really have to be good or have good contacts to make it. don't panic just know that animation is a tough route. For me, actually games was not my first choice in terms of work. It was my back up. I can't stress this enough! have a back up portfolio or plan! Take a good solid look at your skills. what do you do well? then, if you couldn't do that what's runner up? that's your "back up". I'm not suggesting you become 'Jack of all trades and master of none' just that I bet you can do more then just one thing so you might as well show it. Just know where your strengths are and focus in on those.
On that note, here's a little inside hint I can give you. Character artists are also a dime a dozen. however it's really hard to find environment/prop/User interface/special effect artists. It's not a glory job but it will get you work. so much art is needed to make a game but people forget that your character needs to run around in a world, interact with objects, you need to be able to select things from the pause menu, and you need cool fireballs when you blow stuff up. That's like 4-5 artists right there just to do that while you only need one artist to make characters. Again, if you have a burning passion to do characters then do that but understand that there is a large gab between passion and the needs of the workforce.
my final bit of advice would be what year are you in? If your just starting out and have a while before graduating i would say chill just focus on being a well rounded artist. those figure drawings and stuff really do matter. if your about half way done or near the exit door then i would say start looking at job boards and look at what jobs you like and which jobs are looked for the most often by companies. this should give you a good idea of where you stand.
i hope that was helpful. take what i say with a grain of salt. Just because i "made it" this way doesn't mean that you will, find your own path. trust yourself, be HONEST with yourself (can't stress that one enough). and really, believe in your dream cuz when your up at 3 am working on something sometimes only your dreams get you through
Games was always my first choice, but I just wanted to be sure that movies wasn't so that's why I entered the media arts and animation program, just to get a feel for it. Now most I might probably switch majors into game art and design; however, like you said I'm gonna chill still and check it out some more.
As far as software, what would you recommend I should be practicing with to get ahead of the game? and do you know of any good tutorials videos or anything?
(I use photoshop a lot to do photo manipulation if you check out my gallery so I think Im ok with that unless theres more I should know?)
I really appreciate you helping me out man, thanks again.
Visit mine
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Imperfection has its own beauty!
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My Furaffinity page : [link]
My Pixiv page : [link]
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If you can, commish my friends please : ~MakotoIshinobi
=FastSpeedy =damyannn
Curious, what's The Bunny Project?
I was thinking of working on my own videogames.
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Art & Artistry for Beginners to Masters
Blog Web Site
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Art & Artistry for Beginners to Masters
Blog Web Site
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