[Naeem]

Hey guys
I suppose there are some highschool artists on sijun, like me. I was doing some research on the job outlook for concept-artists and such, and it seems that we're the only faction in art that will be more in demand. The only menacing problem could be outsourcing.

Anyhow, the stats are at at the US Department of Labor Site for those interested;
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos092.htm#earnings



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[Tzan]

Hmm interesting site.

I work as a self employed architectural designer (not registered), residential.

I made just in the lower edge of the 50% range for architects and just above the top of the 50% range for draftsmen. Not too bad I guess, although the last 4 years were very very bad

[Ranath]

I was looking at statistics and noticed that industrial designers have the highest percentage of getting employed.. might be nice to get a degree in ID and you could work in games, but if that isn't working out for you, you could always do "real" ID work as well.

I think Feng Zhu said that good ID guys are always in need in game/movie industry, so it's not like you need entertainment design degree or anything..

[Mikko K]

You don't need any degree, just the skills.

[balistic]

You do generally need a degree if you ever want to teach though. That's the only reason I wish I had one. I don't want to teach right now, but it might be nice to consider in the future.
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brian.prince|light.comp.paint

[Naeem]

ranath> yeah. i think i screwed up applying to AC as illustrator. Perhaps i'll switch gears once I'm there and do ID.

Mikko> yeah... You're right. . Look at Capt. Flushgarden. Prodigy, I suppose.

Balistic> I don't have the patience to teach... heh. I'm one of those people who don't know how to explain themselves. I trail off, start thinking of too many things. I can get my point across if I'm arguing nicely, but not if I have to teach someone one on one. Has to do with patience, I guess.

Tzan> Hang in there buddy . Good luck.
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[Ranath]

I think you do need a degree if you want to be an industrial designer. I think you can get illustration jobs with no degree and you definitely can work in entertainment design with no degree, but I guess ID involves a bit more than just drawing concepts, and you can't very well learn them on your own.

The reason I'm talking about ID so much is because, like I said, chances to get employed from that field are pretty good. Trusting purely on gaming industry might be unwise, and you might be looking for "real" jobs as well at some point of your career and degree might be in that case.

[Naeem]

so, i never got it out directly. ID is good for me to undertake a path in the movie/game industry? i mean, is that the best/safest choice? or is illustration with some visual communication classes... i'm beginning to fear it's the former, and that i should have applied to AC for the ID.
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[Ranath]

it's probably not smart to listen to me, but at least Feng Zhu recommended industrial design as "good ID guys are always in need" in CG industry. Also incase you don't get to work for CG (which can happen) you have chances to get "real" job instead.

[MacJ]

So what seems to be the path for concept artists at this time? Recently at my studio (its a major game studio) we laid off every single in house concept artist. Does this mean that the life of a concept artist is destined to be that of a nomadic freelancer? Do they think that since there is zbrush or something that we don't need concept artists to make games or movies? I'm think its stupid as hell, and I hope most studios aren't following in the footsteps of the one I'm at currently.

Just out of curiousity, are we optimistic that there will be stable work for talented, able, concept designers in the future?

-J

[Jimmyjimjim]

[MacJ]

JimmyJimJim

Yea it is true, my studio is tightening its belt overall as well; of course the concept artists were the first to go. The head count for our team has been drastically reduced compared to the original expectation.

So, perhaps this is just what happens when we make the transfer to new a new generation of gaming hardware, there just isn't the user base large enough until more systems are created and sold. It goes a little something like that I heard, so maybe things will pick up once PS3 and Xb360 are more established. But if I am planning to switch from character modeler to concept artist, I want to know what I'm getting into, and how to create a successful game plan; perhaps freelance is the path, and that its a waste of time insisting on being a fulltime employee somewhere.

-J

[Popeye]

well mac, honestly speaking, you know who you are working for, it is one of the major game companies here and they are making good money. it is something beyond what we can do now. it is the market that determines what they are gonna make. if you really have to blame,put it onto the tasteless gamers all over...

it is all narrow-minded people taking control in this so-called game industry.
art directors who has known nothing about art and is good at business are all over the place..or you are just demanding too much out of a consumer product..maybe the design are 'good' enough, 'good' enough that most of the gamer will not complain.

it is something a lot of people can see but not the american( i myself, is not an american) and if they really do see it, they could have fixed it earlier... as far as i know, american games are not popular at all in asia. ( not like hollywood movies.) i have heard complaints about how lame and generic the designs are, etc. but in the opposite side, the japanese games are strong even in the us.
really think about it, i think we have discussed it before, how many new games coming out from the us are good? there are some, but consider how many games coming in a year in here, it is a pretty sad figure.

i seriously would not put too much hope in that, especially when you see so many people in one of the so-called top art schools who are supposed to be the future of the industry doing really uninteresting/cliche entertainment designs and very proud of what they have done.

[Jimmyjimjim]

[Popeye]

jimmy:

dont you agree?

[Jimmyjimjim]

[balistic]

I think it's disappointing that so many games are content to copy production design from movies. I understand why it's profitable to do it, because your average person thinks "wow, it reminds me of that one movie that came out three years ago", but to me it's just derivative and boring.

I'm sick to death of scripted first-person shooters that try too hard to be movies.

Spore is the only upcoming game I'm actually looking forward to.
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[Tzan]

I saw the Spore video too, very nice.