11-09-2014, 08:23 PM
Heya Sam, love your design study, nice work. I have an observation to make based on my own experience with doing something similar to this over a 3 month period. I consider it a failed attempt mostly, for a couple of reasons:
1. The schedule I had similar to yours, was way too rigid, too intensive and forced for me. So I always felt like I had to catch up, or leave things behind undone or rushed. It was not good.
2. There was no underlying reason for my work besides "study" and "folio build".
So to mitigate 1. I would be a bit easier on yourself and have a regular realistic look at your schedule and modify it if you feel you don't have enough time to get things done according to what you have set.
For 2. And I think this is the kicker, instead of only random visual library building, or random concept development, try if you can to work on a personal project and build your concept design and study towards this. It has two benefits; first that you are researching and studying with a goal, rather than just randomly; second you are also able to explore and develop the other important part to design which is art direction and style consistency across multiple concepts. Also the iterative nature of designing for a purpose is much more fun because you are building a world that feels cohesive. Studios in particular love to see folio work and iteration that shows how you can apply your work to many concepts on one project, because this is how the work comes in for them. Rarely do they get one-off designs to do.
Also I would say visual library development in all areas across the board (enviro, vehicle, creature etc) is good for your general study purposes, but you can't possibly expect to pump out really good unique concept work in all fields at the same time and you can't really use your study pieces in your folio because no one really cares about that. I would really recommend you think about picking an area or two to specialise in a little bit more when it comes to your folio itself rather than try and be everything to everyone. I know the drive is to try and shotgun your folio in order to net more jobs, but this is a fear based approach.
I have consistently been getting this message myself from my folio reviews....specialise first, be amazing at one or two things, generalise later.
Hope that helps, and good luck!!
1. The schedule I had similar to yours, was way too rigid, too intensive and forced for me. So I always felt like I had to catch up, or leave things behind undone or rushed. It was not good.
2. There was no underlying reason for my work besides "study" and "folio build".
So to mitigate 1. I would be a bit easier on yourself and have a regular realistic look at your schedule and modify it if you feel you don't have enough time to get things done according to what you have set.
For 2. And I think this is the kicker, instead of only random visual library building, or random concept development, try if you can to work on a personal project and build your concept design and study towards this. It has two benefits; first that you are researching and studying with a goal, rather than just randomly; second you are also able to explore and develop the other important part to design which is art direction and style consistency across multiple concepts. Also the iterative nature of designing for a purpose is much more fun because you are building a world that feels cohesive. Studios in particular love to see folio work and iteration that shows how you can apply your work to many concepts on one project, because this is how the work comes in for them. Rarely do they get one-off designs to do.
Also I would say visual library development in all areas across the board (enviro, vehicle, creature etc) is good for your general study purposes, but you can't possibly expect to pump out really good unique concept work in all fields at the same time and you can't really use your study pieces in your folio because no one really cares about that. I would really recommend you think about picking an area or two to specialise in a little bit more when it comes to your folio itself rather than try and be everything to everyone. I know the drive is to try and shotgun your folio in order to net more jobs, but this is a fear based approach.
I have consistently been getting this message myself from my folio reviews....specialise first, be amazing at one or two things, generalise later.
Hope that helps, and good luck!!