Finding a place in the industry in two directions? (Recent grad)

#1

Hi there,
My name is Audrey Vandermeulen and I recently graduated Pratt Institute (NY) with a degree in Illustration. I want to go into visual development and/or character design, but I’m coming across a big dilemma after getting back from Ligthbox Expo. I really love both feature film animation styles (Pixar/DreamWorks/Disney), and semi-realistic fantasy-type styles (Blizzard/Riot/Magic), especially splash art illustration. To add salt to the wound I also sculpt traditionally, and I know I need to move to learning digital if I want to continue 3D work professionally.

I really want to get my foot in the door in entertainment art somehow, but I feel pulled in two very different artistic directions. I need to work on updating my portfolio, but I’m not sure what to do. I plan to make two separate portfolios at the very least, but I don’t know where to put my focus. I like both styles so much and want to work in both, though I understand that’s not really possible. I feel ‘stuck in the mud’ right now and feel that I’m wasting time trying to figure out what to do instead of doing something. I’m not sure where to move forward from here, and if anybody has felt the same, any advice would be extremely appreciated!

This is my current portfolio just to get an idea of where I’m at/where I might fit in. It feels way too varied and I know that I need to concentrate it more: Portfolio link

#2

Not sure if your dilemma is between doing 2d or 3d or between cartoony and semi-realistic?
I would say your portfolio is pretty strong on the cartoony side and the fact that you are already doing 3d is a plus because there can be some cross over in the right feature animation studio and don’t forget game studios do cartooney as well.

For the semi-realistic and more detail oriented styles I don’t see anything really doing that yet. But I can see you have the chops to at least attempt to do some pieces in that direction and see how you like it. Being able to do both styles just seems well rounded from here so doesn’t seem that conflicted.

If you are wondering about 3d as a medium for concept art -it happens- but its much less common than 2d actually. The fast turn around of 2d means a concept artist can flesh out more ideas quickly and then the 3d happens as more asset developement/modeling(for approved consepts only). 3d concepts are more for solving things 2d can’t quite show-a best example I can think of is 'how a Transformer ’ transforms from ‘this’-to-‘that’ very hard to ‘show/details/transitions’ and ‘approve’ with 2d only. But generally 3d is too slow and expensive for an artist to ‘skip’ the 2D and try and develope 10 or 20 charcter ideas in a short period of time-especially if many of them will be ‘thrown out’ as concepts. So 2d concepts still dominate ‘concept art’ for good reason. By the time the 3d happens the characters are usually ‘designed’ already.

Hope this kinda answers your question.