Hello, I signed up for a Blender Artists account years ago in animation college, but I have not felt it necessary to actually post here until now.
So basically, I graduated with a B.S. in Media Arts and Animation degree in 2018, but my for-profit college shut down mere months later, nullifying the one advantage of going to college vs. self-studying, that being having an in-person network of industry professionals to continue to give me guidance and recommendations to local studios at least a year or two after graduation. Since then, I have fumbled on my own to try to break into the industry simply by trying to improve my portfolio. Although I now have a nice day job that allows me to live on my own and gives me plenty of time to model in Blender as a hobby (due to it being one of those lovely four-day-workweek arrangements), I would really want to know why, no matter how much I adjust my portfolio and improve my workflow, I cannot convince even the smallest indie studios and companies that I’m competent enough to even interview for an entry-level position related to 3D art.
Finally some Internet comment came along and bluntly told me my demo reel is nowhere near “production-ready” for my preferred studios (Disney, Pixar, Nickelodeon, Dreamworks) and despite all the sheer amount of years I’ve put into my portfolio and demo reel so far, it looks like I just started using Blender yesterday. It’s a good thing I have a job when this Internet stranger told me this, otherwise I would have dismissed them as some Internet troll and/or taken it personally, but frankly I see that they have a point, regardless whether it was just some opinionated animation fan on the Internet or whether they were actually an industry professional giving me the “tough love” my non-artist community and family cannot give me, no matter how much I ask them to not hold back.
So that’s what I want this focused critique to be: WHY is my best demo reel yet still nowhere near “production quality?” I was planning to finally get an answer to this question after going to Burbank’s CTN Expo this November, but it would save me a lot of time, money and traveling if I got some feedback online, plus the same commenter I mentioned in the previous paragraph argued I would likely get the same assessment if I showed my Demo Reel to such industry networking events, also without an explanation as to how I can improve.
Clearly I’ve gone as far as I could just from trying my best to critique myself, watch various tutorials on various art topics, and trying to gleam insights from other forum posts here on similar frustrations with getting into the industry. Some specific questions I would like addressed:
- Could the problem simply be that I am using my own, admittedly-bizarre OC characters (outside of the female character, she’s a design from a NewGrounds artist called “Flikki”)? Would it be better if I had dedicated 2D concept artists design more conventional-but-still-striking character designs so that I can simply focus on re-creating them in 3D?
- Am I still too much of a Jack-of-All-Trades, decent at everything but excellent at absolutely nothing in the Blender pipeline? Should I maybe focus on specializing more, especially as an American who needs to basically master his craft before being considered in Hollywood, an industry that generally prefers to get cheap, unskilled labor from outsourcing and increasingly AI?
- Am I being too stingy with the poly counts and texture detail? I often take pride in making my character models as low as 10,000-15,000 polygons while still having separate fingers and a fully-poseable face, but clearly that does not seem to be impressing recruiters that are equally interested in whether the character is simply appealing to laymen audiences. Likewise, I am struggling to find a balance between textures that aren’t too detailed and Silent-Hill-esque for my kiddie designs, but at the same demonstrate my PBR texturing skills better than basic colors for textures could and would especially shine on 4K/8K theater screens.
- Should I maybe just consider starting over with a more 2D-centric portfolio, since I personally find it easier (even frame-by-frame 2D animation, more time-consuming than genuinely challenging) and have essentially honed my drawing skills since I was 6 years old, even though that would basically limit my options at companies like Disney, who have long decided “2D” anything was somehow “obsolete”? You can examine my Newgrounds Art Portal submissions for a direct comparison of my 2D drawing skills versus my 3D rendering skills.
- Finally, how seriously should I focus on making portfolio-centric pieces? Clearly it has led to a bit of burnout and discouragement just focusing on making EVERY art piece worthy of putting on my next Demo Reel, especially since I have the most fun designing abstract OCs that certainly don’t fit current Hollywood trends and perhaps never will, yet I need to make my designs more “mainstream” for my demo reel to prove I can work for any artistic vision besides my own. I wonder if it would be paradoxically be faster and more rewarding at this point (especially since I have a stable job to fall back on these days) to just make and share whatever I want, without thinking too hard about whether my hobbyist projects are “portfolio-worthy,” until I get sufficient practice just from actually making stuff and potential indie studios (if not bigger studios) start asking for my services, instead of the other way around of me constantly sending my reel on online job boards to no avail?
I know this is A LOT to just read, but your input would be GREATLY appreciated considering how little qualified help I can get from either my now-nonexistent college or people who even remotely understand how this stuff even works. Thank you.