作者：Brent Fox

经常有美术人员询问我，如何才能优化他们的电子游戏行业求职作品集。我能够提供的最佳建议是尽全力完成每项工作，但今天我还想分享些自认为可以帮助多数美术人员改善作品集的通用建议。

关于作品集应当包含哪些内容，这个方面有价值的建议很容易找到，所以多数美术人员应该对基础内容都有了健全的了解。我的目标是，在此基础上进一步深入。阅读和理解下文的建议很简单，真正的技巧在于如何将这些建议运用到你的作品集中。如果你无法发现自己工作中的瑕疵，那么你的美术设计之路可能就无法取得突破性进展。

挑选无瑕疵的作品

细致选择作品集内容。数量很重要，它可以体现出你技能的稳定性和多样性。但是，质量比数量更加重要。别人对你技能评价的高低取决于你最差的美术作品。

如果你的作品集中有9个优秀的作品和1个糟糕的作品，那么雇主会认为那个糟糕作品呈现出的就是你多数时间下的技能状态。如果你的作品集中有个糟糕的作品，它也等于向雇主暗示你其他作品也同样糟糕或者比这个作品更糟糕。

树立更高的目标

你不是在同学校中的同学竞争，而是同行业的资深人士竞争。在制作美术作品集时，要看看行业内最佳美术设计师的做法。不要因为你在学校中成绩优秀或在上家开发商中工作优秀而沾沾自喜。

给人留下深刻印象

如果你的美术作品在游戏行业中显得很平庸，那么它可能很容易被遗忘。应该让美术总监记住你的作品，即便在他花数个小时浏览数百个博客和作品集后仍记忆犹新。如果在投递作品集1周后该公司出现职位空缺，而此刻美术总监仍然还记得你投递的作品，那么你很可能就会得到这份工作。

美术优先，经验其次

如果你无法创作出色的美术作品，那么你的经验也起不了很大作用。事实上，如果你有多年工作经验但提交的美术作品仍然不佳，那么你还不如拥有发展潜力的新手。经验很重要，但只能在你用美术作品吸引雇主的注意力后方能发挥作用。多数美术总监甚至只会看那些留下深刻印象的美术集作者的简历。

体现游戏行业背景

查看美术集就可以很容易地分辨出求职者是否有游戏制作经验。没有游戏行业背景的美术人员所提交的作品一看就知道无法运用于游戏内容中。

绘制兽人和宇宙飞船还不够，需要在主题的基础上更加深入。作品集中需要包含能够用于电子游戏制作过程的美术作品，即便作品集中的内容是针对个人项目并且从未被游戏项目采用的也可以。对于各游戏开发商来说，不同美术岗位需要使用不同的人才。

体现美术技能

作品集中的每个美术作品都能体现你的特殊技能或能力。如果正计划创作新美术作品来提升你的作品集质量，那么你应当先树立某个特别艺术技能的目标。

展示技术能力是非常重要的层面。但是，在呈现技术水平的同时展示某些传统美术才能似乎更为重要。只展示技术水平会让你的作品集显得平淡，不会给人留下深刻印象。比如，你不能只为了证明自己知道如何使用Zbrush而将某个作品放入作品集中。你还应当在美术作品中展示自己的艺术才能。

基础美术技能包括：解剖学、颜色和光照的运用以及创造力等。

不要尝试去欺骗雇主。许多美术人员会将3D模型或概念美术放入作品集中，呈现的是古怪扭曲的怪物或使用某种特殊的对象。看到这种作品时，雇主会认为该求职者的构图和解剖学术不精，因为通常情况下，选择这种主题暗示这些美术人员希望借此掩盖他们在人体解剖学等方面的弱点。即便该美术人员确实能够创作出恰当的解剖图，但提交这种作品也会让雇主产生反面的印象和想法。

重视开发商的风格

要让作品集包含与开发商所制作游戏的风格相符的美术作品。如果你的作品集中满是鲜血淋漓的怪物，那么这种美术风格必难以专门制作休闲手机游戏的公司所接受。尽管你或许可以绘制其他风格的美术作品，但这种充满风格迥异的作品集会让开发商认为，你无意创作符合其美术风格需求的内容。没有开发商愿意雇佣美术风格与自身游戏风格不同的美术人员。

概念艺术

我见过许多应聘概念艺术师职位的求职者所提交的作品集中并没有游戏概念艺术内容。此刻，精妙的美术绘图或杂志插图给人的印象不及真正的概念艺术。正如之前提到的那样，确保你的概念艺术能够展示出你的艺术才能，而且要确保其看上去像是可以在游戏开发中使用的概念艺术。

成套的美术作品

对游戏行业来说，单张作品产生的印象深度不及全套概念艺术。随意绘制的星际战士所能够呈现出的概念性才能根本比不上一整套的游戏角色概念图集。

美术人员还可以突破角色的限制，呈现其他内容。在作品集中包含功能性概念艺术能够给人留下深刻的印象，比如在角色上展示可变更的队伍颜色或者交通工具在受到摧毁后的样子。也可以在作品集中包含环境、武器和UI等更多内容的概念艺术。确定所适合游戏的外观和感觉，确保作品集中的内容在风格和感觉上保持一致。

如果你想要得到一份很棒的工作，那么最好预先准备多套美术和视觉风格不同的概念艺术作品。

多角度的美术制图

动态图片可以很好地展示游戏的氛围，你还可以在作品集中加入可用在制作中的美术内容。比如，走秀角色的正面、侧面和背面概念艺术往往正是3D模型师需要的东西。在作品集中添加这种类型的图片，展示出你拥有完整设计所有角色细节的能力，这还可以显示你理解团队在开发过程中需要什么东西。绘制同一个角色的正面和侧面需要专门的技能，这往往需要一定时间的培养。

添加文字解释

展示你对游戏设计中所涉所有元素的创造力和理解力。如果你能够在作品集中描述角色将如何移动以及如何制作动画，这会让优秀的概念艺术再提升一个层次。

描述为何你要这样设计该作品，比如“兔子通体使用鲜蓝色，因为它们很重要，必须在背景环境下显得更加突出”或者“角色的面部表情显得夸张，因为阅读这种表情会让玩家获得关键的反馈信息”，这些细节都可以让美术总监明白你对游戏美工很了解。

通常在游戏开发的早期阶段，团队会制作“美术说明文件”，与参与游戏开发的所有人交流游戏的最终视觉效果。如果让作品集中包含此类文件会让其显得更加突出。这种文件要包含美术风格信息，同时还要描述和展示有关构建合适外观、感觉的重要细节。

比如，这种文件可能会展示如下信息：所有的角色都有巨大的手臂；坏人的普遍特征是尖锐和突出，好人普遍显得较为圆润；阴影带有软边界；在冰面上的倒影略显扭曲。

如果文件中描述的这些元素在技术上是可以实现的，而且求职者看起来似乎掌握这些概念艺术所需的技术，那无疑将极大提升作品集的层次。如果求职者细致地描述可以用来实现预设外观的技术，这会给我留下很深刻的印象。在作品集中包含这种类型的文件，不仅有助于你获得工作，还可能获得更高的薪酬。

实体模型屏幕截图

概念艺术最困难的部分之一就是创作游戏完成后的屏幕截图。对开发商来说，能够创造出看似游戏完成效果的作品的美术人员非常有价值。

3D模型和纹理

再强调一次，展示能够突出你的美术才能和模型才能的东西。枪支或汽车等无机模型并不能展示你强大的建模才能。

如果作品集中包含带有现实主义解剖学的人体艺术作品，那么也就能更容易地让开发商评估你的才能。就建模而言，人体比建筑物要困难很多。如果你确实想要展示你的建模能力，应该询问自己为该对象建模的难度，而不是一味模仿自己最喜欢游戏中的美术效果。如果你想要展示创造纹理的才能，就应当明确这就是自己的目标，而且要确实在作品集中体现出纹理。

行业的一个普遍误解是，模型师可以隐藏自己的技能缺陷。最棒的美术人员通常都可以展示出人体的模型和纹理。但是也存在例外的情况。我见过许多场景美术师，他们并不擅长制作人物的模型和纹理，但是却很擅长制作环境。

但是，我会慎重选择那些自认为他们属于例外情况的美术人员。多数美术人员之所以选择灌木丛、建筑物或风景作为建模对象，是因为他们无法恰当地呈现角色模型。所有开发商都知道这点。

制作可用的内容

高多边形Zbrush模型确实可以展现出求职者的美术才能，但是它需要经过更多的处理才能够用于游戏内容。在真正制作游戏时，超高分辨率的模型会被削弱，并使用其他技术（游戏邦注：比如正轨映射）处理后才能将其运用到游戏中。所以，展示可直接运用到游戏制作中的高分辨率模型显得更具说服力。

动画

对于动画师而言，如果作品集中的动画不是游戏行业通常使用的类型，那么这种作品集依然有待提升。当然，你的首要的目标是通过作品集展示自己的动画制作技能。但是，正如上文所述，呈现能够运用到游戏制作中的动画会显得更具说服力。

有些美术人员可能会辩解称，因为游戏存在过场动画，各种类型的动画都可以运用到游戏中。当然，如果你应聘的这家公司需要制作冗长的过场动画，而且会针对这些过场动画制作专用的资产和内容，那这种想法并无不妥。但是，我认为这种情况并不多见。使用漫长的过场动画、满屏的对话以及面部变形目标只能够展示有限的技能。制作能够同其他动画融合且构成良好循环的短动画需要特别的技能。

其他内容

在作品集中添加与游戏行业关联较少的艺术内容也是可取的做法。例如图像设计或摄影等艺术作品就能够展现出你的多才多艺。

但是，在添加其他作品时需要特别注意，要确保游戏美术作品才是重心。如果作品集中满是为电话簿设计的广告作品，那么你根本不可能获得概念艺术师的岗位，即便这些广告的设计很精妙。作品集应该首先体现出你是个游戏美术师，而不是兼职做游戏美术设计的摄影师。

总结

我必须承认，我自己的作品集已经多年没有更新，可能完全不符合上文所述的标准，但是现在我并没有想要找工作。我提供的这些建议来源于数年评估和雇佣美术人员的经验。我知道哪些内容能够给我留下深刻印象，而且我相信多数美术总监与我的看法相同。

不要灰心丧气。没有完美作品集的美术人员也能够获得很棒的工作。事实上，尽管我有时也会看到令我印象深刻的作品庥，但我仍从未见过完美的作品集。但是，对于那些想要寻找工作的美术人员来说，能够描述完美作品集所需的内容同样是很有价值的。如果你不知道如何提升自己的作品集，这才是真正的麻烦。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Creating a Winning Game Industry Art Portfolio

Brent Fox

Artists often ask me how they can improve their portfolios for the video game industry. While the best advice I could give would be tailored to each individual’s work, I would like to give some general advice that I think could help most artists improve their portfolio.

It’s easy to find a lot of useful advice about what to include in a portfolio so most artists already have a solid foundation. I assume that anyone reading this has some basic information and an understanding of the game industry. My goal is to take a step beyond the basics. Reading and understanding this advice is easy, but the real trick is to see how to apply this advice to your own portfolio. If you can’t see the flaws in your own work, your artistic progress may be stifled.

Awesome Art

A Chain’s Weakest Link

Carefully choose what to include in your portfolio. Quantity is important to demonstrate you can keep a consistent level of quality and to show variety. However, quality is more important than quantity. You will be judged on your worst piece of art.

If you have nine great pieces and one bad, the bad one is assumed to represent the kind of work an employer can expect to see most of the time. If you have one bad piece, it also implies that the rest of your work is as bad or worse than that bad piece of art.

Aim High

You’re not competing with your high school buddies. You are competing with industry veterans. When putting together a portfolio look at the best artists in the industry for inspiration. Don’t feel comfortable just because you were the best in a class you took in college, or at your last developer.

Make it Memorable

If your art looks like everything else in the game industry it may be easily forgotten. An art director should remember your art, even after spending a couple of hours browsing hundreds of blogs and portfolios. If a position crops up a week later and the art director remembers your work, you are much more likely to get a job.

Art First, Experience Later

If you can’t create good art, your experience doesn’t matter much. In fact, if you have a lot of experience and your art still isn’t impressive, it is much worse than a beginner who shows potential. Experience is important, but only after you have caught an employer’s attention with your art. Most art directors won’t even look at a resume until they are impressed by the portfolio.

Art for Games

It is often easy to tell if an applicant has game experience just by looking at their portfolio. The art in a portfolio of an artist who is inexperienced in the game industry doesn’t look like it was used for actual games.

Drawing orcs and spaceships isn’t enough. It goes deeper than just the subject matter. It’s about including art that would be used during the production of video games. Even if your portfolio pieces are from personal projects and have not been used professionally, that doesn’t mean they can’t appear to be “real”. This can mean different things for each art role at a game developer. I will discuss some specifics when I go more in depth about the different art disciplines.

Art Skills Mastery

Each piece of art in a portfolio can serve to demonstrate a specific skill or ability. If you are planning to create new art to enhance your portfolio, you should start with a goal of highlighting a specific artistic skill.

Demonstrating technical ability is very important. However, even more important is also showing some traditional art ability along with the technical skills. Art that only shows technical skills will leave your portfolio flat and unimpressive. For example, you never want to put something in a portfolio just because it shows that you know how to use Zbrush. It also should show off your artistic ability.

Examples of basic art skills: Anatomy; Color/Light; Creativity.

You can’t fool me. Too often, artists put 3D models or concept art in a portfolio with a weird distorted monster or use a poorly executed version of a particular style, like anime, to justify bad proportions and poor anatomy. Typically, these artists choose this subject matter because they think it hides the fact that they don’t have a good handle on human anatomy. Even if the artist actually is capable of producing correct anatomy, without proof, it will give the impression that they can’t.

Developer’s Style

Include art that fits the style of games that the developer makes. If your portfolio is full of bloody monsters and gore you might not have a good shot at a company which makes casual mobile games. Even if an argument can be made that you are capable of other styles, a portfolio full of art that is totally different than the art typically done by the developer doesn’t give the appearance that you want to create the art the developer needs. No one wants to hire an artist who would rather be making other types of games.

Concept Art

I see many artists apply to be concept artists that don’t really have game concept art in their portfolios. Fine art paintings or magazine illustrations are not as impressive as actual concept art. As previously mentioned, make sure your concept art shows off your artistic ability and also make sure it looks like concept art used in game development.

Complete Packages

Stand-alone pieces aren’t nearly as impressive as a full set of concept art for a game. A random space marine doesn’t demonstrate concepting ability nearly as much as an entire set of characters for a game.

Artists can also go way beyond a complete set of characters. It would be impressive to include concept art for features such as how interchangeable team colors are represented on the characters, or how vehicles look after they take damage. Include concept art for things like environments, weapons, UI and more. Establish a look and feel for the game make sure that everything works well together.

If you really want to get a great job, have more than one full set of concept art in different and visually stunning styles.

Production Art

In addition to action shots that are great for portraying the mood of a game, include art that would be used in production. For example, concept art of characters in a T-pose from front, side, and back are often needed for 3D modelers. Including this type of art shows that you have the ability to completely design all the details of a character and also demonstrates that you have the ability and understanding that will be needed during development. Drawing a character from the side and front that actually fits together is a specific skill that often needs to be developed.

Include Explanations

Show your creativity and understanding of all of the elements that go into game design. A great piece of concept art is only enhanced when a description of how the character will move and be animated is included.

Describe why you have designed the art the way you have, i.e. “The bunnies are all bright blue because they are important and will stand out on the background” or “The facial features of the character are exaggerated because reading the expressions provides vital feedback to the player.” These details can really help an art director know how well you understand art for games.

Often in the early stages of game development an “art bible” is created to communicate to everyone working on the game what the final game should look like. Including this type of document can really strengthen a portfolio. This document includes art style information and describes and shows details that are important for capturing the correct look and feel.

This document illustrates information such as: all the characters have large hands; the bad guys have features that are intentionally sharp and pointed, and the good guys’ features are all rounded; the shadows are a cool color and have soft edges; reflections in the ice appear slightly distorted.

It’s also a big bonus if these elements described in the document appear to be technically achievable and the artist appears to have a handle on the technical feasibility of the concept art. If something would be tricky to pull off and the artist describes the techniques that could be used to achieve the desired look, I would be really impressed. Including this type of document in your portfolio could not only get you a job but also allow you to negotiate a much bigger salary.

Mock-Up Screen Shots

One of the hardest pieces of concept art to create is a screen shot of what the game will actually look like when it is done. An artist who can create a piece of art that looks like a final game (and it’s a game everyone wants to play) is incredibly valuable.

3D Models & Textures

Once again, show something that highlights both your artistic ability and your modeling ability. Don’t just throw in a crate that is texture mapped with a photo of a crate. Inorganic models such as a gun or a boxy car don’t show a strong modeling ability.

It’s always easier to evaluate art if it includes a human with realistic anatomy. Human figures are exponentially harder to model than buildings. If you plan on showing off your modeling abilities, ask yourself how hard it would be to model that object, not how similar to your favorite game the final art looks. If you are showing off your ability to create textures, be clear that that is your goal, and be clear that you created the textures.

A common misconception is that a modeler can hide lack of skill. The best artists can model and texture human figures. There are some exceptions to the rule. I’ve seen some great environment artists who aren’t good at modeling and texturing people, yet they have become exceptionally good at environments.

However, I would caution any artist who thought of themselves as the exception. Most artists choose to model a bush, building, or a landscape because they aren’t capable of modeling a character. It’s obvious when this happens.

Usable Art

A crazy-high polygon Zbrush model can show artistic ability but it can’t be used in a game without more work. When actually making games, super high-resolution models need to be reduced and other techniques (such as normal mapping) may need to be used before they can be used in-game. It would be much more convincing to show a high resolution model along with a game-ready version that still looks great.

Animation

Animators also can deliver less than the best portfolio by including animations that aren’t the type of animations often used in the game industry. Job number one is, of course, demonstrating your animation skill. However, just like other disciplines, including animations that look like they were used in games is much more convincing.

I can almost hear artists reading this right now who are arguing that many types of animations are used in games, because of cutscenes. This is a valid argument if you are applying for a company who does extensive in-house cutscenes and creates a whole new set of assets and animations that are used exclusively for those cutscenes. But I believe that this situation is the exception to the rule. Long scenes, full of dialog, that use facial morph targets, only show a limited range of skill. There is a specific skill required to create short animations that can blend with other animations and look good cycling.

I feel compelled to mention a pet peeve. Make sure walk cycles look great. Pay attention to the hips. Stiff hips make everything look stiff and unrealistic. Including walk or run cycles that have personality is very effective if they are good. However, bad hips are easy to spot.

Other Stuff

It’s okay to include art that is less related to the game industry in your portfolio. Art such as graphic design or photography can demonstrate your breadth of talent.

However, you need to be careful. Make sure that game art appears to be your focus. You won’t get a concept art job when you portfolio consists of advertisements for the phone book — even if they are amazing. You should also appear to be a game artist first, not a photographer that does game art on the side.

Reality

If I’m offering critiques and revealing my secrets, then I have to admit that my own personal portfolio hasn’t been updated in years and would not fully meet these criteria — but I’m not looking for a job. The portfolio advice I’m offering comes from years of experience in evaluating and hiring artists. I know what impresses me, and I’m confident that most art directors would agree. Evaluation is the easy part.

Don’t be discouraged. Artists score good jobs all the time without a perfect portfolio. I have never actually seen a perfect portfolio, even when I’ve been profoundly impressed. However, it’s awfully helpful to envision what the perfect portfolio could be when compiling art with hopes of landing the perfect job. As soon as you can’t see how to improve your portfolio, that is when you’re in real trouble. (Source: Gamasutra)