How to get a job at Blizzard, with Michael Vicente

just make sure you know what you want like know if you want to make our character art or environment art this is one big mistake as well that I see all the time is a portfolio with everything like your portfolio should have your name and your job like your name and environment artist or your name and character artist or vehicle artist or weapon artist so not 3d generalist no not in the game industry my guest in the following interview works at a studio that most people would love to work at and that is Blizzard which if you don't know have come out with massive games like World of Warcraft Starcraft Diablo and the only game that I play today overwatch I just love what that company is doing so I was thrilled to talk with Michael so Michael is a 3d senior environment artist there specializing in sculpting and asset design and in this interview he gives great advice specifically for people that are interested in characters as well as anybody wanting to get into the industry someday so we talk about the steps that he took to get a job at Blizzard why diplomas don't matter and what to look for in schools if you are looking to go to them why readability is important for asset design the importance of self criticism and finally the path that he would take today if he was to start all over again so lots of good stuff in this interview we'll get to it in a second but before we start we need to talk about polygons of course a sponsor well sponsor sister company of this episode polygon helps you to create better 3d renders whether you need photoscan ground materials architectural materials HDR's polygons has the stuff that you need to make better renders so sign up for a free account today at polygon comm and you can choose from our free section of materials and download them there and try them out for yourself that's it now on to the interview cool so have you always been creative yeah since I was a kid yeah I always was drawing stuff like comics lots of comics during like creating my own uh like characters and very silly gags and stuff like that nice I actually wanted to do commit when I was a kid and then transitioned to like Oh storyboard might be something I want to do I was really into 2d before yeah yeah always drawing all the time do you remember your the first piece of artwork that you were proud of I've never been super proud of the stuff I was doing because I always was showing this to my dad and was like hey Dad what do you think about this thing and he was like yeah that's that's pretty cool but it's like it was always very critical and very harsh and the the one thing where I was super proud is actually my first head-on ZBrush I made my very first head and I show it I show it to him and it was horrible like if I look at it now it's like oh my god it doesn't even look like a human but I was I was like actually to him and you say how did you make that it was like impressed by it and that's like the first time I was like man I was like proud of what I made because he was proud Wow do you think that might have like influenced you and like made you like driven you - oh yeah harder yeah yeah if the fact that he was harsh made me push myself to make him proud because I was like it's not good enough like I have to make him I have to be looked at I'm legit you have to like witness it - do you remember what what it was that got you interested in art as opposed to sports oh I think it's video games okay it's just like starting playing games just being interested in seeing all those drawings and universes in the game is like how the game is made more than the game itself like that the artistic part I was always like fascinated by it and also just because I was I won't say like I was like super good in 2d but I was like decent compared to like my class or something so I always thought that it's something that I can just like explore and like push and make something out of it where it was always scary because art is not seeing as something that has like a future sometimes you know it's like it's a very uncertain future if you want to be in the art industry it depends on the jobs but it's like my parents were always like always like go ahead go for it but you have to know that it might be hard and it might be hard to find a job and stuff like that so right I didn't really know what I wanted to do I just knew it was like art related right right but they were very encouraging yeah they were they were super encouraging they always encouraged me to do it when I did my 3d score I didn't have to like really force it I was like I think this is the thing for me and it was expensive at the time as well like they they paid for the first year of the school this is University no it's I don't you know in in English because it's different in France but it's after your degree you have like an extra school and how it works yeah so it's after University it's another know it is University maybe it's here it's university it's yeah it's probably University here right but for me it was a 3d school huh I was like I really want to do it but I know it's like expensive even though it's nothing compared to it the u.s. the u.s. it's really really ultra expensive yeah it's insane here I was like shocked but in France still for like my parents it was like it was a decent amount but I got lucky for the second year because I found a company that paid for my school yeah so half of the week was working for them and half of the other week was doing the 3d school and being paid by the company so it's perfect yeah yeah sounds like a part time okay gotcha nice they want you to stay ideally in the company after Abell yeah it wasn't really company I like it was like a lot of flash flash okay web interface and right it was it was a very cool first experience but I knew I wanted to do like more game 3d and stuff like that yeah so this was all in France yeah this was all inference yeah we should explain to the the viewers at home your accent oh yeah yeah yeah I'm French haha but you're you're no you weren't born in Portugal no so I I was born in France I'm French my parents are Portuguese right there we go so blood wise I'm Portuguese I speak Portuguese well I lost but I still speak a bit Portuguese and I am French okay nice nice so going back to what you talked about with school like you address that the universities in America and I'm assuming most of the Western world are extremely high would what would your advice be if someone you know young 18 year old today came up to you and said should I go to a three D so it's a good question I actually thought about that a lot with a lot of people I had this conversation with a lot of people it's it's hard because sometimes I'm almost like it would be almost worse to go in Europe do a 3d school there and come back because it's expensive but it's nothing compared to here here it's like a huge life investment I noticed it's really a lot and it's a bet it's a life bet because if you can't make it that's like a lot of debts so it's really hard you I think you really need to like be sure of what you want to do and be sure it's for you because in my school in fire in Paris most of people were motivated and knew what they were doing there but honestly like half of the class was there by default they were like yeah I want to make games but I don't really know why I don't we know what it means they don't know what they're getting to and most of them just drop or what most of them a lot of them drop or they don't make it because it's actually not their finger they're struggling yeah and I remember this one thing that really like was big for me is the first day at school at that 3d school I don't know if it's the same here but the director of the school came to the class and it was like I hope you guys all like make it and enjoy this the the school and stuff but you guys have to know that at the end maybe three or four people in this entire class I think we were like 15 maybe two or three people will make it in the game industry so it was like well everybody was like scared because we all want to make it and when I think about it he was completely right I know most of them are not doing 3d anymore or they are doing like 3d for advertisement or which is awesome but it's it's not game like they wanted and the couple friends I have made it but we're like three or four or something like that so you have to know yeah that you're getting into and is 3ds like alone in that like extremely low let's go placement rates right it's like there's not many other like I'm assuming like law or nursing those sort of things you sort of more guaranteed a job when you finish it well the thing is uh I don't know in France there's very little companies for like video game so I had a friend who it has these diploma but it doesn't mean it gets a job like you still have so much competition no there are a lot of positions so like that the diploma doesn't I think it's one industry that the art industry or the game industry where diplomas don't really matter I honestly think that they don't matter at all like the only the only thing where the only reason why they could matter is for a visa the only reason yeah that's the only thing like I know some people in the game industry they're extremely talented they're awesome artists and they have no diploma like they they failed their botched bachelor eeeh or stuff like that it doesn't matter because your diploma is your portfolio that's all you need you just need like a really really strong portfolio with very strong pieces so you know quite a few artists a blizzard that didn't go to Universal oven mmm yeah or in other companies where the only problem is when you are a foreigner and you want to go into a different country you need diplomas for the visa so the fact that I had some diplomats helped a lot to get my visa because you have to you need certain like steps right yeah that makes sense hmm what what do you think that an advantage that school would give you of somebody being self-taught what would be a reason to go to university and not to go like a pro and a con it's um it's a framing okay it's the fact that when you are alone oh sure you can like find tutorials and you can like learn by yourself watching I did that at first before I got into the three school I was like watching it really stuff gram on DVDs and like all those DVD like tons of tutorials on internet the problem is when you have no idea how this industry works you don't know where to go what to watch and I think it's just easier when you have a teacher there is there all the time and that tells you like the steps you know like every day you go to the school you know today I'm gonna learn this tomorrow I'm gonna learn this it's just like a frame that I think is way easier for students instead of just like watching a tutorial and it's so much information and you don't even know where to start and I think it's it's good to like learn the basics like for me in the school I didn't learn ZBrush it wasn't something the working she teach in there it wasn't even really like a game school it was more like generalist like and oh it was actually animation so I learned a lot of animation and rendering yeah but it's the fact that yeah you learn all the basics like 3ds max how it works the the the mapping the UVs all this is like basic stuff but it's way easier to learn with the teacher I think hmm right you know I think that's definitely one one thing that self-taught people struggle with is knowing which videos to watch in which order because it's like there's a tutorial on how to make a chair yeah and it's like always where does that fit on the timeline yeah it's a good question though because there is a lot of good content as well there is very on the internet there is awesome gum roads there is like now if you love a specific artist you know okay I want to learn Anatomy and there is this one character guy that makes it like really good characters and it has this Gumroad where he shows you every step of the the body and stuff like that and you're like and it's not that expensive you you like for 20 bucks you have a whole tutorial about the entire human anatomy and it's really professional like from a guy from like naughty dog or someone like I'm thinking about like refferal grocery for example but that's the guy with the anatomy cause yeah he has one I'll check it out how do you what's his name Rafael grazetti Rafael Garcia he'll grow say yeah yeah I think he works at Sony yeah you worked on god of War's it has it has a very good Gumroad for anime I'll check it out I I was just like working and watching his stuff on the side and just watching it I learned so much just and in the funny thing is that he cut all his tutorial by different parts of the body so if you're just interested interested in like learning how to make and you can just buy the hands section alright yeah yeah now for a student you can have all those informations you can just buy the one thing that you really need you just have to know where to buy yeah but it's yeah it's a good question like is it worth paying so much for a class where you might learn the basics but maybe that's gonna be mm just average or are you motivated enough to just learn by yourself and be really good by going into the right tutorials and and do you have motivation as well at home to just like work by yourself alone because it's also another thing with the school is you're not alone you're with you have friends around you you have other students and this is huge as well you learn from each other because the teacher says oh we're gonna work on these projects everybody makes their own version but every student communicates with the other one and you share tips so this is like really important as well the the community part yeah there's like there's a certain person that the university is it good for like that because some people can't learn they're not they can't be soft or they don't have the drive which almost makes me think like 3d isn't for you the game or wish that it wasn't for me at first okay I always thought 3d wasn't for me what would you look for in a school what sort of key things would you say like good school bad school make sure what the teach is on is up to date because the problem with lots of course is that sometimes there's there teachers are X tudents this is really common in 3d schools they can't find someone that is part of the industry or they tried sometimes there is like one or two teacher that is part of the industry and still working in the industry or at least was working on the industry but most of the time it's graduated student that they hire and they just come back in the school as a teacher to just teach the new students and the problem is that is that they have no idea what the pipeline the the the the pipeline is in the industry at the current state explain what a pipeline is it's basically a set of tools to create something it's it's the path that gets you to a 3d model I guess it's how what kind of steps do you use what kind of software it's all of that if all the infrastructure structure that makes you build something so the tools that you use mostly right the order in which the yeah yeah like you start with this program then we all use this program it's complicated to explain for me English words plus everything something complete complex yeah it's right yeah I guess it's workflow and pipeline are kind of like as similar terms mm-hmm yeah I'm right because I think workflow when I say pipeline as well so I guess pipeline is more like in the tool side and a workflow is more like the way you work mm-hm as well yeah yeah yeah make sure the the programs are up-to-date they teach you like it's an example right now but substance designer is becoming really big right now for example right and I think it's it would be a huge mistake if you go to a school and nobody teaches teaches you substance it's the same thing for ZBrush like when I went to my school they didn't teach you brush so I had to like learn on mice on the side this is actually something I had to told myself because I was while at school well it's going really Wow my teacher actually knew a bit of ZBrush it wasn't part of the program but he knew a bit of ZBrush so after the class I would go to him and I would like ask questions and he would help him it it it would help me a bit on ZBrush but it wasn't part of the program it was it wasn't like tomorrow we're gonna use ZBrush for this or that so that's the thing I knew ZBrush was big I knew it was becoming this like big thing so just me sure you learn those programs that you you see everywhere and you're like oh this is what people use in the industry right now yeah right yeah and check the work that the school shows like showcase is it like does it look good does it look like something where you don't really know if it's the student or the teacher you know just make sure it's legit yeah and the way you could do that I guess is by comparing it to what you see on art station yeah yeah that's a good that's a good way yeah yeah and also the software's that they use as well seeing which ones are listed yeah also just ask people just ask people who went into the schools just like is it worth it just check if you see someone that is really good that that came out from that school just ask him just like how was it did you learn something was it good for like learn the basics and I know the school I had in France was not the best one but it was just good enough like I knew some people I complain about the school some other people are fine with it I personally won't complain it just delivered what I expected you I'm gonna learn the basics I'm not gonna be like crazy good or but it gave me the the jump for my first company and my first job and it's all that matters it has to just be good enough so you get your first job and it's once you get a job that you'll learn everything it's once you're there it's not the school that's gonna make you like super good it's the job your second or your third job that just like makes you grow as an artist I think yeah yeah totally yeah what what were the steps that led you to getting a job at Blizzard so my previous company so I was searching for a job before Blizzard and I got into this very small company in France and I won't say the name because they actually I think the company actually collapsed they went into like economic dismissal okay so the cool thing with this company though is that it was a very small company and all the people that I met there was really passionate and we all learned a lot with each other like we all wanted to make like next gen stuff and even though like the company wasn't that big we wanted to like let's mix next gen let's sculpt like let's use ZBrush so we really like pushed each other to do that kind of stuff and I just had the chance I guess to have the freedom to do the the work that I wanted like we had an art director that was really open and gave us like freedom to just like push the style it wasn't like too harsh you know unlike how I wanted he we had a lot of freedom so I basically build my portfolio at that company every piece of art that I made I just like put like the the flavor that I wanted and I just all I did was just render all that and I did an art dumped on poly count the the forum yeah by the way any student should be like on poly counts our station all those web sites this is really important so he added an art done in poly counts and I did have one as well in ZBrush central and I got a highlight on ZBrush control so that was really good for me for like exposure and so people could see my stuff what were you is this seven years ago okay 2010 yeah yeah how long is a brush been around it's been around for 20 years as a real it's the anniversary right now really yeah spinnerets is 97 yeah I think it's like 20 years in terms of like how we started the code okay yeah but I think that's the end of the 20 20 right now yeah have I got any big big releases planned or I'm gonna change the user interface I have no idea maybe for ZBrush are maybe for ZBrush 5 I don't know yeah I start on with ZBrush 2 so it was a real long time ago where that's that's how it started I just like did an ardent on polycount and one of the head headhunter from Blizzard so the work and he just contacted me by mail the funny thing is that actually I was in France when I got the mail and I the man went into the spam my spam box and I didn't even notice and it's just like one day like I think one week later the main Westen's like a week like a week before already and one week later I saw this mail in the spam I was like blizzard entertainers this is just like this is like just a spam like a fish like and I still opened it because it was it looked like legit and I was like oh man what I miss that so he was asking me for a phone interview and I was man I almost missed that that mail and so I I contacted him and we had the phone interview how did it go it went good but I was like dying of stress because I'm my English now is like decent but at that time I couldn't even speak like I couldn't say like three words in a row Wow yeah it was horrible do they care that the artist can speak English is that a factor I think it's always better if you can speak if it's always better but I think it's fine if you're an artist because all you have to do is make art so as long as they like your art I guess they expect you to just like grow your English and they they offered like English classes and stuff like that I didn't do them but you can like have ways to just like improve your English yeah that's pretty much it I have this like for an interview and I was it went really well and it was like I got I got another mail saying okay with the phone interview was good we're gonna have a insight interview so yeah on site enjoying yeah so they sent me like a plane ticket okay come here yeah and yeah just for an interview yeah for like I just stayed like two days or three days Wow so from France to Irvine counselor to the campus yeah yeah so I was there I was dying I was like really really stressed how did it feel walking into the doors of Blizzard for the first time it just felt unreal just like because the the weird thing is that Blizzard was like a dream job for me I always wanted to get like if I had to pick a company in the game industry I was like I would go to Blizzard definitely because it's the style I love it's the games I love the most what games did you play that I made oh I was a huge huge fan of work with three I played a really like thousands of hours yeah it was insane and yet you still got a job there yeah and I and I work on the team who made the worker train yeah Wow yeah so that's that's your way you work currently yeah yeah all right which is really cool because uh I used to draw the I used to make copies of the drawings of some wise didi who is the art director yeah I used to draw all his stuff all the time just like copy it or make stuff in his style and now I work directly with him I'm like I have like concepts from him and I'm like oh I'm it just still feels unreal like I'm making 3d from his step and like a couple years ago I was just the kid like drawing his stuff it's really weird did you tell him II used to yeah it's really cool it's uh it's rich like a dream came true and like as an artist it's really refund to work with all those guys yeah do you ever like a blizzard do you have like game game nights or like a big yeah we we play a lot and blizzard which is cool which is one of the cool things is that you're not judged by if you play at work like not during like work hours but like during the lunch or something you can play any game not just blizzard you can just play what you want and or after 6:00 or when your work is done you just like just play what you want and nobody cares I know like some companies are like very corporate and like gaming in your it's just like impossible but in a game company you can do that so it's cool that's pretty awesome do you you guys heard that Elon Musk is a huge fan of overwatch that's cool that's crazy that he still has time I mean it makes me an even cooler game yeah I know right yeah how is that possible yeah that's that's crazy so yes so you got your your dream job working with the people you looked up to yeah yeah and you've been there how long I've been there six years six years yeah nice cool and so you mentioned that you can switch projects so if somebody says like I've been doing wall of Warcraft I want to try overwatch or whatever you can just move yeah that's pretty cool I mean there is internal offers for like these of this game and you can just like oh it's been like a couple years I'm working on this game maybe I want to change maybe I want to experience a different style or something and you can just apply to another team and just move there I was on that overwatch team before I was I really really like Warcraft and the fantasy of like the Warcraft universe and you work with free was like one of my favorite games so for me this team was kind of like special for me so I was like at some point I just wanted to like work with them work on heroes own system that's the game I'm working on I'm working on heroes of the storm is that mobile game it's a MOBA yeah yeah yeah the cool thing with heroes is that it's basically Blizzard the game because we have every IP in the same game so as an artist it's perfect because these months I'm working on Warcraft the next month and well maybe two months later I'm working on overwatch it's like you can yeah I can make a mech I can a tree I can make like a fantasy probably you can really change your style all the time and you're not stuck into like one specific thing so it's really a cool thing about this game yeah like it seems like Blizzard gives you a lot of like freedom flexibility to sort of keep you interested is that normal for a game studio is that something blizzards good at I think it's something blizzards good at but I'm I'm sure there's others companies there's other companies with the same mindset okay like I won't say like it's just Blizzard because I don't know about all the companies but sometimes in small studios it's not the case because they have less budget they have less time they need to like hit deadlines really hard and like we have deadlines as well but I think it's maybe less free in some companies I think that Blizzard the thing is as long as you're good at what you're doing they trust you like if you wanna if you want to make a skin like I mean I'm an environment artist but I really like to make characters as well and as long as you show them hey here's a skein that I made or here's like they give you a test and they're like yeah sure you can make it skin and they see how it looks and if it's fine if everybody likes it then that rescued our idea you can make a mount you can make something else so I think that's the awesome part with the heroes for example is that I'm not just stuck in the same IP but not but also not just stuck on environments I can make characters I can make I make effects animation so you can really touch a lot of different aspects of the game process yeah first of all how important is it to have experience of working with the team before getting hired by studio I think the more you work with people the more confident you are in general because I know for myself for example I'm a very very shy person like I I really struggle with like socializing and speaking in crowd and even this interview is stressful for me but I think the more you work with people the more you have experience the more confidence you get even just as a person and you just also get more confident about your work you know oh okay like I have this rock to make and I take the rock as an example because rocks are this thing that sounds easy to make but it's actually a struggle if you want to make it good and like stylized or even even not stylized and you know okay I have this like for example rock to make and I made so many of them before that I know exactly where to start what to do it's not such a struggle when you the more stuff you make the easier it gets to just like jump into it and not be afraid of it when it's like a new task you know and just like having that experience working with working with people that give you tips all the time and just like seeing their work as well you just learn from it like one thing that I can say actually when I join a lizard and I think this is a huge thing for an artist I don't know if it's the same for every artist but we have something at Blizzard in every team it's like an art gallery and every time you make an art piece you just put that asset into the this gallery and everybody see what each other makes you know and you're just like you just like dropped with so many art every day like every day like when I came in to Blizzard every day I'm I was like logging into this gallery and it was like 10 new pieces of art and I'm like it was a lot of art every day and just looking at that makes you a better artist just looking at that it's you're learning that you're not even like doing it you're not even like replicating it in 3d but just looking at art all the time all all the time and you see those like awesome characters this awesome Anatomy this and this awesome like stylized shapes and stuff and you just it just like you get like all this printed into your brain like in your subconscious subconscious hard work so I think it's just this whole thing of like the more people you work with the more tips you share with each other the more art you see every day all this helps you to become a better artist I think it's just easier than being alone at home and just like you just know what you do and not what everybody else around you can do yeah I agree what what sort of what what software and tools do they use it at Blizzard I'm not sure if I can say it is all true okay no no no yeah sure yeah yeah that's that's a foot so we obviously use ZBrush because we show ZBrush all the time and yeah you guys know we use my on Macs yeah that's not like a secret for anybody but we use a lot of softwares yeah we use like anything we need whatever works yeah I personally use 3d coat a lot I use Treecko all the time what do you use it for it's awesome for texturing not the way you could see texture but just to like fix seams for example you know like if you just apply like a grunge on all your hub your object for example and you want to get rid of like the seams on the grunge on some movies stuff like that to do gradients as well to do like top-down gradients because in 3d coat you can press I think ctrl alt P and it projects everything you have in Photoshop and you can do whatever you want in Photoshop and reproject it in 3d coat and it automatically applies everything into your gibbie's so yeah it's really really powerful or if you have like a character with like his arms or something and you want the tip of the the arms to be brighter or you want like a specific gradient you can just do all this in 3d coat with just like the camera mapping how does it compare a substance painter I don't use substance better we're actually I'm actually trying to learn so it's really really early steel for me very it's probably really close yeah you can probably do the same in substance painter yeah I use a three coat a lot for reachable that's my main thing I fingers as well I just read up where everything with three good it's really powerful yeah that was something I learned I was like trying to get into like what do 3d artists use for retopo a lot of people used to plug-in as well yeah which is like not supported anymore or something like it's dead yeah maybe a lot of people at work you stopped again I noticed I just loved three Goods yes so easy to use nice can you recall the time when somebody has pointed out something like a problem with your work that you previously like you would never have thought of it maybe when I joined the team one actually the team on heroes because we work on everything we do is very top-down you know like the camera is very high it's like a top-down game okay yeah and everything you make for a top-down game has to be readable for that game angle it's not like when you make an props when you make a prop for like a fps you just make sure it looks good when you look at it from like the first person camera but that's pretty much it but when you have the camera above the ground everything has to read from the top and sometimes when you make things that are very straight like some angles don't read you know like some shapes don't read at all from the top and that's one thing I had to learn the hard way on heroes is just make sure everything has this sort of like pyramid shape like when you make stairs when you make any like box or something make sure it's like tapered so you read those faces from any angle from the top all right like beveling everything right yeah so sometimes when you look at the asset from like a first-person view a first-person view or like in the editor it looks totally broken if you look at it without the game the proper camera it's like it's almost like deformed sorry strange right but in the game it works in the game with that camera it works and it's it applies on characters as well like if you make a character if you make I don't know I mean just like saying it's if you make like a monster or something like like a big I don't know like a big monster like his head could be like tilted a bit up you know and just make sure the pecs are like higher you know like his chest is kind of Leaning a bit to the camera because if you just make him straight like an FPS you won't even see his face sometimes you won't even see his abs or something you know because of the game angles so this was something I had to learn and I had like some feedbacks about my work though just make sure get it get it in the game make sure it reads and adapt the sculpt to like really thin game yeah yeah we have to find a balance because we also have like the shop in the game which is like a bit of a different angle and so it's yeah we have to find like a sweet spot so I guess all the morals for Heroes was redone completely from the from the ground up oh yeah every everything in heroes nothing is grabbed from another IP we all we remake everything from scratch right and also because of the style because we have Starcraft Warcraft Diablo all of these are like completely different styles and we can't go all the way to the Warcraft style because we have Starcraft characters that are like a bit more sci-fi and we can't also go all the way to the sci-fi style so we had to find a middle ground that is like stylized sci-fi where everything can work together yeah so yeah sometimes it's weird because you see Diablo next to tracer somehow it has to work yeah yeah that's that's tricky what's the what's the workflow process for say a new character in overwatch like doom fist came out like from the initial idea to its final what's it a process does it go through I can't speak for that team specifically because o is something you're working I like here is a storm or something yeah for like oh and don't don't speak on if you're not allowed to talk about it yeah that's the thing is I can't I can't talk about that process the only thing I could say is actually they did a really good talk at Comic Con and I think Renault show a bit of like the process for like the characters run a gallon the the lead character and it's a really interesting told like I think it covers a bit all the spectrum of it's mostly like a back and forth with like concept and 3d and they always just try to find like the perfect balance with like how it looks and how much character it like how much character you can see from the concept you know like lower wise I guess like it's like if I take like soldier 76 it's not just a soldier it has like a lot of personality it has like a background it has a story so they try to incorporate that a lot into into the characters every character is really a hero it's like a hero asset it's a hero prop character and I think that's yeah the big thing is making sure everything is really unique and not something you so like 30 times and for heroes I guess for like a prop or a character in heroes would like which one I would say yeah whichever one okay let's say character a character in Heroes yeah we'd say it's mostly taking the hero from a specific IP and making sure it reads for our game adapting all the proportions usually we go like chunkier like we make bigger shoulders bigger forearms you know we make everything a bit like chunkier and more readable and reducing details a lot because I watch characters for example are super detail very sharp and we have characters that are that small in our game so we have to make sure like the correct the edges and everything is like thicker and that the bevels are like white on everything reads even if the cartridge is really really tiny and this applies as well for the props like every time I make a prop I make sure everything is like really simplified like it's not a bad thing to simplify things it's it's pretty good like you it's gonna read better it's just really important and also it gets it's better for the aliasing because you know when you have like really sharp edges you get this very like Aaliyah's lines so it gets rid of a bit of iosing as well yeah that's pretty much it yeah we just make sure everything reads everything is stylized mm-hm nice is there I'm always curious like the job prospects for a game artist versus a visual effects artist how easy do you think it would be for someone to transition from a game studio to say like method or something like that and vice versa for visual effects to gaming I think some jobs are really close like we have a lot of animator for example that come from Pixar yeah we have a lot of people who come from the film industry like in cinematic there's a lot of people from the film industry and vice versa in the film industry there's a lot of people who were in the game industry maybe there were sculptors like sculpting monsters or whatever and they came from the game industry that translated to the movie I have a like a bunch of friends like that which is like went into the movie industry I think it's really versatile like it's really possible to like just switch from a job to another because like for example if I take ZBrush I sculpt is a sculpt like if you know to Scott really good characters once if you go to the movie industry it might be the thing that they want you know like these guys calls really good monsters or really good max or something and that's exactly what we need for our movie and I think it's totally doable and also like in enlighten specifically we do a lot of a bit of everything like it's very generalist we do like there's some props where we have to do like the sculpt the texture the animation the effects the rig so sometimes we do like the whole thing which is cool but sometimes I wish I could just do the sculpt it depends like on the the thing were making but it's a cool thing as well it's the fact that we touch we can touch on everything as long as it looks good enough and it just reads in-game you know mm-hmm yeah it's got to be good that's all that is pretty much just gotta be good if it looks good and that's that's fine yeah yeah what do you think that is though that that because yeah like the majority of the your classmates no one else had the the motivation to want to go home and I think that's that's why you're here and they never got a job what like do you know like how could you if you if like say if you had a child of your own and you wanted to try to instill some of that in them what do you think it would be it's a hard question I had a child and I wanted them to be like good yeah because it's I don't know it's a pattern that I've noticed after interviewing a lot of people is that they all had this drive to want to do it in their own time and it wasn't that they were doing it for work it was like it was a it was a love for the thing and not just like I'm just gonna do this so I can get a job but it was like a like they had like they just wanted to see it I think it all goes down to passion like if you just want to make 3d or if you just want to get into the games because you like to play games then it's not enough like if you just want to make 3d because oh that sounds cool unlike my resume or something there's no point like yeah it's not gonna happen at all like I think everybody who share the same pattern they all have this one thing in common is like they'll love art in general they love to draw not all of them but like most people like to draw they liked seeing like art and they all like to sculpt they all want to like improve their art all the time that's one big thing as well like you don't want to be stuck with like your art and not progress you know like there's the industry like changes all the time all the time all the time so you always want to make sure like you you're on track of like the new software and the new things coming what else yeah I think it's just like a passion thing like you just have to be passionate about what you want to make like about art it just goes down to that you have no answer I have no like perfect answer for that I think is if you're not passionate if you if you don't wake up and you're like oh I can't wait to like finish this model or like show this thing that I made and I'm really proud of or if you're not passionate like that what's the point yeah I don't know I think there's also a degree of like being a self-starter as well like willing to fail and like because some people I don't know how many emails you get hello I've but yeah right because you've got it on your yard station and they would ask you like basic questions like how do I go from ZBrush to Maya or something and I'm hoping you don't reply right it depends you I try to reply to as much people as I can unless it's a question that is just how can I say there's just some questions where I'm like hey I want to get into Blizzard can you like like help me get there and then the show they send me their portfolio and their portfolio is like they've been in school for like three months or something and I'm like dude finish your course and maybe have a first job and just like don't burn steps you're jumping ahead yeah I mean it doesn't mean after your course you became like super good and you go to Blizzard if maybe but I get those made sometimes when I'm ready I just want to go there and help me get there no you're not gonna help you get there just like you have to like analyze yourself like how do I get there you know like what what is needed how can I improve my art I think there's a lot of like self-criticism that has to be done and you just can't just ask everybody all the time to like make you paint overs and like fix your stuff like sometimes just just watch the art around you and watch how they do it and like take a look back at your stuff and in like how can I improve this without asking asking is good I'm not saying like never ask actually do ask but also try to have like a self-criticism like just how can you improve your stuff yeah yourself I like that that's good there's self-criticism that's so true I hadn't thought of it like that well yeah like the painters and stuff and getting feedback from a professional like that's that that's good but you got to pay for that usually I mean you can sign up for a mentorship you can it takes somebody else's time whereas the the only method that is surefire and then you everybody he took them it took them time as well right I mean you it takes someone somebody else's time to like kritis criticize your work make painters but that person had to go there that person had it took time for that person as well to get there you can't just be like good in like a month or a year like it took me a year to be like okay with ZBrush and it was like zebra three well ZBrush to up to ZBrush three and it took me a year to be like I'm not good at ZBrush I'm like just starting to understand how this works you know how the UI works and how everything is that the philosophy of the software now it's a lot easier now with the new ZBrush but back then it was like it's hard yeah so it takes time it's just like you have to uh knowledge that you take your time like it's gonna be better at the end yeah don't like rush yes yeah exactly yeah Alessandra he was here he was talking like he's like kids today they've got social media and they just email everybody yeah it's like no I started I had nothing yeah I mean that's that's a positive thing as well is that we live in a world now where you can have really good information right now like you like I'm not saying it's gonna take you forever it it's gonna be faster than before that's for sure because we have a lot of tools now but you still have to take time to just make sure you understand like how it works like I see a lot of people using ZBrush and they jump into the detail instantly they're like yeah I'm like doing wrinkles and scales and like and the form isn't there the anatomy is wrong the ships is not readable and you're like pointing at that you're like dude just go back to you the basic like your form is is not good like it and they don't see that they're just seeing like they think their model is like super detailed and like it's and it's just wrong and they don't they can't see that because they're just trying to burn steps to fast hmm no yeah that's that's that's a good point where that that's something that is it's it's hard to hard to say cuz I know like a lot of people listening I like oh yeah like why don't I add wrinkles you know just a yeah just make sure it's like the final final step right the more eyes you get on something the more interesting it can be if you just rely on one vision it might be really good for a specific project if that one person has a really good vision but in terms of art in general I think it's good that everybody just has different visions and it just evolves from that yeah I want to see everything we make is based on something we saw there's nothing new anymore like yeah we can create something that is totally unique it's that it's not possible we always combine things we're like oh I really like spiders and I really like this style of like this artist or something and you try to make a spider on that style and and you mix something else because that could be cool to have like something there that you just like so like two years ago and you don't even realize it you know you just like combine ideas that everybody already like did a thousands of times you know but until someone makes a combination that is like really interesting and a bit more unique than usual and then people are hard at school yeah there's nothing there's no one region I think it's a funny story I'd say I remember once I I made this I made this artwork of this old man who was like climbing up an old hill this grouse hill and there was like a tree and a swing and all that kind of thing and I thought it was totally original I thought that I you know I'm just king of this you know and then I was watching up and up just came out and there was a scene in up and then just like my picture of this old guy like climbing a hill and I'm like how did that happen cuz I made maybe they saw your art well the thing was is I didn't realize it I'd been reading Pixar blogs and somebody posted some early like concept behind and I completely Hugo and you don't realize it yes it's memory its memory print I don't know how to say photographic memory yeah yeah we just have tons of which is why it's important to check our station and just galleries of art and like because we print all that stuff without noticing but it's kind of like a a memory library that you have all the time that you can use on your advantage yeah yeah definitely like I know it's it's a it's a simple example I'm not a character artist but I really like characters and I'm still interested in it and sometimes I do like characters once in a while but I'm still interesting it and I bought this Akashi for my desk and it's just a it's just a character with like half faceted half muscle definition and with like different poses and stuff and I don't need it but I just look at it every day every day I'm working even on something on something else and every day I just just by looking at it it it prints you know like you you you learn you're like oh you look at the muscles and you look how they flow and you're like oh that's you just you just learn by just looking at stuff like people think you just learn by practicing practicing which is true and only practice but just by looking at stuff all the time I personally I'm like this I'm I learned by photographic memory a lot yeah like I know I can like sometimes I have like a new task and I'm now it's something I never did yeah but I'm not afraid because somehow I saw that kind of stuff so much that I'm like I kinda know how to start and what how to do it so I think it's super important as well to just learn by visuals just like watch all the time you know stuff and that's way about this a crochet just to look at it what is an echo shape Oh Akashi it's the French word for skinless you know it's this anatomical body without the skin so you just see the muscles all right than they crochet okay sure I think I think it's okay okay so it's like like a scientific study yeah yeah okay gotcha you see all the tendons and the muscles to the connections and stuff and you've got that what next to your computer I have this like big dude big naked guy next to my computer and I just watch all the muscles and older how is it the character is it a physical sculpture yeah it's a it's a 3d print I think I got the same one from the 3d totally exactly that's the one yeah yeah yeah that's one it's you and it comes with a book with like the face with tons of like facial expressions and so yeah and this guy's super here's one you can like it's magnets so you can like remove the torso remove the arms and sometimes I'm making a character or something and I just like remove the torsion I can like look around look behind and it's super useful nice you must have the advanced version mine's just stuck together okay yeah yeah that's cool nice yeah people should do that they should like just if you're really interested in something just make a library of it look at it every day right nothing is important yeah I heard one tip from somebody which I've adopted which is its if you're making something you got to have reference of course everyone knows but it's not just enough to have that reference in a folder you have to have it out where you can see it I coming before was that said there's somebody in Norman and he said like what he has he has a separate monitor that plays a slideshow obviously a reference photo and I'm like that's a good idea that's good and it actually works like I started doing it because you know I've got a spare monitor and it's like you're working on it and your eyes just glanced over and you're like oh that's not right oh my go you know and it yeah it's crazy it works it does yeah so one thing I'm really like if somebody's starting in 3d there's so many avenues there's so many directions that they can go let's say somebody wants to get a job in the game industry whatever that is a first job they just want to get employed and then maybe one day get a job in a big studio and they've got the basics they know the basics of 3d and they want to get a job within one year yeah what would their training regime look like it's really hard to say because entry depends on the job they're aiming for I don't know let's say like I'm gonna take my example like a let's say environment artists I think they need to know exactly what are the software's used you know like what do I need to learn okay I need to learn ZBrush I need to learn max or Maya it doesn't really matter if it's maximum area blender okay sure maybe yeah yeah honestly yeah it's it as long as you can have something that looks good at the end that's only the only thing that matters at the end is the end result it's the output so they need to learn the basics of 3d software sculpting program I would say like ZBrush or notebooks but I mean we're just gonna say it's embrasure of course yeah yeah it's industry standard obviously how to bake like the process you know they have to make one maybe an environment where they can learn I would say one or two environments like maybe the first one won't be as good as the second one but it's gonna get there you know it's they're gonna learn the process on the first one what sort of environment what's an example like a forester again it depends on what they're aiming for if they want to work on a realistic game they have to make really really realistic stuff if they're aiming for a stylized company make sure you have stylized work that's something that blows my mind sometimes we have because I was actually a part of the recruiters on my previous one of my previous jobs and we had like something a bit stylized in the game the game was kind of salad and some applicants would have just like really sick stuff or military stuff or you can do that like if you apply on a specific job you have to know where you are applying because if you are like a vehicle heart artist and you are applying for World of Warcraft that you know that's not gonna work there's no point doing that and people do that people do that sometimes that's the me I like that's an interest bike that's a really good point I don't think it's that obvious like to me so can you explain why wouldn't a vehicle artist be able to get a job on London because there is expectations that have to be met let's say you you're a stylized game where it's like hand paint and you expect to see a certain level of hand paint you expect to see a certain level of maybe drawing maybe shape shape language you how does this guy stylize does he stylized at all so sure we can give him a test and see and sometimes it happens if the guy is really good at that thing even though it doesn't really match the game if we see that there's still like a huge potential we can always give a test and see if it can adapt but usually it's very hard for someone who did the same thing for years to adapt to something completely different so just make sure you know what you want like know if you want to make our character art or environment art this is one big mistake as well that I see all the time is a portfolio with everything like your portfolio should have your name and your job like your name and environment artist or your name and character artist or vehicle artist or weapon artist so not 3d generalist no not in the game industry unless it's like a small company where it's more like the politics of the company where there one more generalists they don't have like a lot of people and that might work but even if it's a small company still aim for a specific job even if you're gonna do more stuff in the company just show that you know what you wanna do because if you are generous it means your average on everything and you're not good at that one thing even though if even if it's not true that's kind of like the impression it gives ya so if you are a character artist make sure you have characters in your in your portfolio you know like at least like 80% of your portfolio should be characters doesn't mean you can have some props but I have props in my are station I have characters in my origin but I am still an environment arts because 80% of my stuff is environment art so just make sure you have that so it's got to match the style of the company appreciate and that's the other thing like if you let's stay let's take Blizzard for example if you apply a blizzard it's always good to show that you understand the style of the game and I think honestly this is like one thing is if you apply for a certain team at Blizzard for example one thing that would be really good is having like a fan a fan art of like something that could match the game that's the best way for like the recruiter to be like this could totally match to our game this is like once you want let it could be right there like making a new character like new ID for example like someone wants to make characters for overwatch make a character in the style of the watch just make a character in the style of a watch with the process that looks really close and even your beauty shots make them look like overwatch you know add that play of the game or whatever you know like make it like it oh it could fit you know like give them something to buy it you know like I could see that working you know and same finger for environment same thing like make sure your stuff could match the project your going and and also make sure the stuff that you have on your portfolio isn't your best one get rid of all that all stuff that's like one big mistake I see all the time is you want to show everything you make but it's better to have two pieces that are really good than 10 that are average you know even if you have one that is really good but next to it you have a horrible one where you're like yeah but I liked it three years ago I and use your biast you know in your brain you don't see that it's really old now get rid of that if it's like to all just get rid of it it's not worth showing that the only thing that matters is no the software's your you need to do like learn the software's you need to learn make sure you aim for the style and make sure you have something that looks good at the end and a couple pieces that are enough you know like the output is the most important thing the output the output that the end result like it doesn't matter if you that's what I'm saying it doesn't matter if you use blender as long as the final piece is a next-gen asset that could work with this next next-gen game they will just see the output they will see how this looks great oh I can see that a used blender it doesn't matter we hire Ramiz gonna adapt you know I mean he's good we can tell that he's good he's gonna adapt like you will learn max or Maya or whatever if it needs you know the only thing that matter is that one piece that they see like yeah that's because that can transfer to anything yeah I think a lot of people get hung up on the software yeah yeah it's not really a big it's only the beauty shot that matters and also you don't need that's it depends on the industry but I see a lot of like demo reels I don't think that's really needed in the game industry that's something a lot of people do but honestly like nobody nobody cares so an animation you don't know 1k oh I mean unless it's unless you're animator oh okay and unless you are maybe like an FX artist okay maybe an FX artist might make sense to have like a demo reel with showing a ton of FX you made on different games but for most of like character artists and environments and stuff it's really like we don't even watch that stuff and I can tell I was recruiter we don't watch it all we want to see is your screenshots we don't want to load and we we have so many stuff to see every day as a recruiter you like the only thing we need like we don't read the motivation letter I'm saying this I'm serious I'm saying this as a personal experience from my previous company not the the tube to not the person that the one before I was recruiting there and I don't I don't read motivation later I don't I don't care about Demerol the only thing that matters is how good your art looks in your website and also like your website interface like forget it just make something simple simple clean don't make like tons of stuff just make or douching is the odd station it just our session that's perfect yeah that's what I did actually I killed my own website and I centralised everything in our status that yeah yeah way easier yeah yeah so yeah we don't the only thing that like the motivation letter this can happen if but it's after it's like okay I saw that this guy is good and there's this other guy that is really good and I'm gonna read his stuff yeah but it's at the end you know it's like once you see the art first and you're like oh this looks great what about the guy you know like yeah yeah right yeah I almost feel like that because I did that as well like I was trying to find a team of people to work on this short film that somebody was making and got like seven hundred applications and going through and it felt bad because never looked at the resume or the work history or anything I'm like yeah where's the art nope clothes time yeah that's right there's like 10 of them every day every morning you have to like watch ten of them you don't have time to like read every resume every motivation letter click on videos all you want to see is like instantly oh this looks great or this isn't you just like swipe you know like yeah so just make sure everything is like instant like same thing like if you have a website get rid of the introduction page we don't want that display so yeah the splash like this is my logo or whatever go directly on your work yeah like your name your job your work that's all needed yeah yeah it sounds brutal and I don't think people realize how brutal it is like they don't care about the music in your demo reel it's cool if I mean if you have music on you're on the turntable or something yeah sure why not it's it's a plus but it's not the plus that will matter it's just like it's cool at the end you're just watching the thing that's turning not the music is it good or not yeah that's right cool yeah so so focusing so going back to US service one year so first of all decide what studio they're aiming for and what style that they should be matching for and then make something which could fit into that movie or game whatever it is what do you think of because I see this sometimes where a beginner is spending too long on something that's a good question right that's a good point yeah mm-hmm what's your thoughts on that yeah I think it's a mistake I think unless you set yourself you're like okay I have two months to do this like scene unlike unreal or something and you stick to it and you're like motivated enough to polish everything to a certain level and finish everything in time then okay sure that's fine but I think honestly you can make a diorama with a lot less stuff and sell exactly the same idea you know like sometimes I see like a huge scene with like it's a ton of stuff and I'm like you spend so much time but everything looks average because you didn't have time to really polish everything or the light isn't that good honestly like a small diorama explain what a diorama okay so adore Emma is is basically taking a chunk of an environment it's like instead of making a whole castle you just make a bit of ground with maybe a tower and a door or a couple props but it's just contained into this like small space you know and this sells the whole thing it's like the the tree covering the forest you know you don't have to see the whole forest you just see the tree and you understand the picture it's the same thing you can have a small diorama that shows like maybe a bit of wood a bit like a door a bit of metal a bit of every material as like how you sculpt that part how you do like the texturing and stuff and all this is contained and you didn't spend like so much time unlike a huge thing and you can like really spend time like having great lighting like maybe putting it in black marmoset or something and it's just enough and it sells the whole idea it sells the it shows how it shows like what your level is it's enough you don't have to make like huge stuff hmm so it's better to focus on a limited number of assets I think so it maybe that's like up to debate but I personally think so that like if you're an environment artist for example it's it's fine if you have a couple props that are really really good just like make sure they're perfect that's the form that that's the thing though it's that maybe it's just a profit make sure it's perfect and a small diorama to show a bit more environment you know it's and maybe maybe one scene maybe one full scene to show a bit like how you handle a composition and lighting this is also important if you're an environment artist but again there's like environment artists props artists it can be different but that's one mistake I see a lot is trying to do too much spending too much time instead of just focusing on like small things that are just really good and that could be enough mm-hm in my opinion yeah how how do you know like when you've spent long enough and it's time to move on I think when you change your stuff too much you know like like you think that you're done with something and then maybe someone gives you a feedback and you change again and then maybe someone else give you a feedback and you change again and it happens like a couple of times I think it's because you're already too far like if you change your stuff like five times once it's done like you retexture retexture or five times and every I think is you're like banging your head on a wall at that at that point you just like should move on to something or also like going back into old work never do that never do that like I think it's a bad idea to like I see that sometimes unlike student portfolios is they have this like old piece they made a year ago and they come back to it and they finish it oh yeah I wouldn't do that just if you want to do it start from start from scratch yeah maybe yeah sure make the same thing let's start from scratch make sure you just start from a clean process you don't keep those like weird things you had a year ago like explain why it's why remaking it is because you it's easy it's I'll take this example sometimes I work on like ZBrush I make something I'm really happy with it and then my ZBrush crash and I forgot to save and my my saved my you know autosave it's corrupted or something so I lose my work so the only option is to remake it from scratch and I I'm always like sad and like annoyed by the fact that ah I had to remake it from crach but at the end when you remake it from scratch you realized it's much better than the first time you did it it's always like that I'm like at the end of remaking it I'm like I'm actually not I'm actually happy that I redid it because it's actually much better than the first time because it's like iterating on your own work because you know exactly what you did before and you know exactly what the problem were and just kind of avoid them already and you I don't know it's I think it's the same idea for like portfolio you know the struggles you had on your old work yeah what do you know now like what's your skills like just remake it with the things you know nowadays the things you know in the present time and just try to remake it and you will see that it's gonna be much better some like some students are like yeah but it's they it takes time and like it's gonna waste my time and like I had this thing almost done you ever dude it's old or it's like it's not good enough like just start from scratch it's gonna be much better or do something else do you ever add that to your workflow like you finish a project and then go okay I'm gonna remake it no sometimes yes on all that sets and the things that are like 2 years old or sometimes and that we still see in the game or like I know some cores that I made for heroes for example I wish I could just go back with the new things that I know and fix some even the texturing the way I texture now is very different I have some I have a process that is much cleaner so I wish I could just like take time to just retexture some stuff so eventually it might happen yeah sometimes it did yeah it's just a matter of time cool there was one question I wanted to to end on and that is that yeah a lot of the world is like worried about in the future like AI taking taking jobs and some people are like oh it does that apply to games or visual effects you know are there any jobs that you could foresee being replaced by let's say smarter software in the next it's already kind of the case okay yeah it's really kind of the case in some companies like it would scans for example there's a lot of lots of games now I won't say any specific game because but I have some in mind but I know there are some companies where the artist doesn't like even open Photoshop or everything is like scan data so it's very frustrating sometimes for the artists is like oh I'm gonna work on this IP and I can't wait to make this like cool thing and and then they actually realized that it's just like an hour source company's scanning a ton of stuff and like sending to them and they have to just clean up well and so I think some games will be impacted by that I'm not saying it's a bad thing like it looks awesome when it's like well done and it's a kind of game it's part of the game I think the only thing that can survive this is just like stylized stuff and also all the things we can't make even if it's realistic stuff you know yeah like if it's a dragon or something with you we're not gonna scan that's right doesn't exist yeah there's always gonna be like an artist to make like really super cool sculpt and make sure yeah there's an artistic input but it's true there are some jobs that will be cut I mean it's already kind of the kids with animation with a lot of games that are motion capture oh okay of course yeah there's a couple animators but still it's not as creative as making an animation from scratch it's mostly cleaning motion cap and yeah just doing maybe some animations here and there that were we're not planned initially but you still need a couple of them but it's not like before you had this team of like 30 persons 30 percent and now it's like three-person like cleaning stuff it's the cleaning crew it's really kids on some company yeah there's also the case of like programs automating texturing you know like we have those quick sell sweets and even substance I don't see it as a bad thing though I think some people could see it as a bad thing I think it's a tool that can be used really well like I think it's I personally use quick stuff like doing scratch passes and things like this I think it's really awesome I think it's it helps a lot but yes that's true some games don't texture they just use generated type textures you know like I know some companies that do that me know like like procedural procedural thing yeah and do some friends I won't say the company but they never open Photoshop really they had never opened for chalk is just like photo bad texture from like photos and directly in the game in some realistic games yeah and it's a shame so and I've even seen a actually you mentioned stylized might be it might be safe but I saw automatics have you heard of them they're a texturing company that uses AI machine learning to make like seamless textures but the other thing is that they they do is you can take like a texture of like a brick wall if you get so that yeah and then you could add applies the style of the yeah you can get like a stylized wood texture and say like take this style of that but apply it to the brick and it it's it goes kind of how what's this game dishonored did a bit there's some of their textures are using like Photoshop filters to kind of simplify them so it's almost a process like that where you take something a bit realistic and you run it through a filter make it look for that specific style and then apply it yeah yeah I don't know how how automated everything is gonna be in the future but some stuff will for sure yes for sure and I think it looks pretty janky at the moment like it's not great yeah but I think it's for one inch early days but it's also it's like the the scanning thing it's like you probably want to get rid of a hundred percent of the artists that we're doing stylized work but maybe you'll cut it from thirty to three that are cleaning up AI algorithms yeah it's an interesting interesting thing to think about yeah it's it's I think stylized is always gonna be hard to automate it to make it like it I made it because you can't really because the style is defined by a person vision so it's hard to like program a person's vision into like automating stuff so so we think in meanwhile Google in the background is like we've got just the program we'll see yeah it seems like the only thing that really really matters in like the whole thing is like a a desire to as as cheesy as it is it's like a desire to self-improve like self-improvement right like if if you could only pick one character trait to ensure that you would be a success in the industry it's like that seems to be it like instilling that the passion that you mentioned because if you yeah because if you've got that you'll not only be okay with whatever software yeah replace it it works for every job it's like it's not just for art like if you have passion in any job that's how you're gonna be really good at it yeah because you some people are not passionate enough which means they won't put as much time as needed because there will be like oh yeah I did this thing and that's that's fine it's it's good enough and I'm going home yeah meeting with standed yeah yeah when you're passionate you strive for like pushing further and you want to test things you want to like try different ideas and you invest a lot more time you invest a lot more of yourself in it so it makes sense that you have more results it's just logic yeah yeah there's a great book that talks about that the linchpin I don't know if you've heard of it by Seth Godin but yeah it's like that that sort of mantra applied to all work it's like even if you work at a fruit fruit store it's like a feel passionate you'll be thinking about ways that you could increase sales for the fruit you tell that to the boss now you're putting the oranges out the front whatever and it's like when it comes time to fire people because they they're going bankrupt or whatever you'll be the last one to lose your job because you were the only one that went ahead and and did that I think just applies to everything yeah it does yeah totally cool that is that is basically gonna do it for us Michael but that was fantastic thank you very much for your time and that's what having me little school that was fun no worries thank you very much q very much you

Channel: Blender Guru

Views: 276,566

Rating: 4.9504943 out of 5

Keywords: blizzard, artist, career, interview, 3d, zbrush, environment, art

Id: dY-Ts69F4Xo

Length: 88min 33sec (5313 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 07 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Rustfe]

Good share