Task 5 – Game Art Careers

For this task I need to find a company with a job role I would like to do. I have look at a few different company but in the end went with Valve.

Company - Valve software

Job – Artist

Job description - We’re looking for versatile, self-directed artists who have experience in 2D character and world design and enjoy working in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. Your folio should, above all, demonstrate originality, an ability to iterate, and an understanding of color and form. It should also reflect a solid understanding of anatomy and painting, and contain examples that show your awareness and appreciation of Valve’s various Intellectual Properties.

Duties:

Integrate into a multi-disciplinary team (6-8 people) and continually produce useful concept design based on the group’s collective conversations and decisions.

Iterate quickly and submit work that solves problems rather than creates them.

Self-manage and also be aware of the needs and requirements of those around you.

Generate ideas and use 2D/3D work to communicate those ideas to the team.

Requirements:

Working knowledge of 3D packages such as ZBrush, Mudbox, SketchUp, etc.

Communication skills that allow you to describe your process maturely and succinctly

Ability to change gears quickly when needed

Why did I pick this job?

I have been a long time valve fan because of the video games that they create like half-life 2, portal, Dota2 and many more and it would be great to help work on their next game. Also valve have a very interesting way of working that appeals to me and that is they have no managers and employs are allowed to work on what they want, when they want but this means they are looking for very hard working people and love what they do.

How I compare myself to the job description

Valve is asking for a lager verity of different personal skills and abilities. The first thing they are asking for is someone who is “self-directed and who has experience in 2D character and world design”. I do have the experience in 2D character and world design from the work I have been doing on my course, that I’m on right now but I do not fell like it is self-directed because its work I have been told to do and I have not really done anything by myself in my own time to practice these skills that I have been learning.

They also say that you need to enjoy working in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. This is something that I fell I fall down on a bit because of low experience, I don’t feel like I can do my work fast and that I have to take my time just so that I fell like I’m doing right. It’s the same thing with the collaborative environment I really have no experience with this because I do like to keep to myself what I know is not very good if I’m going to be working in a team with other people and that we need to communicate with each other.

Looking at what they want in your folio I think the number 1 thing they want is to “demonstrate originality, an ability to iterate, and an understanding of color and form”. I think from the work I have done I can originality but they will be looking for a lot more. For the iterate skill I could repeatedly do the work but again not at a very fast pace that they would be looking for. As for understanding color and form. I think that I could maybe do a bit more for understanding colour but from the work I have already done, I can show a good understanding of form.

They want people to show that they have a very solid understanding of anatomy and painting. I can show that I have a good understanding of anatomy from the life drawing but it can always be improved. As for painting I have a lot that I need to work on because I have only ever used watercolours and nothing like oil paints or acrylic that they would be looking for as well.

What I think of the duties I will have to do

Form looking at what I may have to do I think one of the think I may have a bit of a problem is that you will have to be working in a team of 6-8 people and that you may have to integrate. I think I would have the most problems with because my people and communicate skills are not as strong as I would like them to be and as I said before I don’t really have much experience in working in teams.

Next they need people who can “Iterate quickly and submit work that solves problems rather than creates them”. I do like to think that I am a good problem solver but doing it quickly is something that I don’t know if I could do.

They are saying they want people who are “Self-manage and also be aware of the needs and requirements of those around you”. I do think I can self-manage but could be a lot better if I was more organised with my work and I do like to help other people but the only way to be aware of other people’s needs are is by communicate. So I feel this may be a bit hard for me to do.

They also need people that can “Generate ideas and use 2D/3D work to communicate those ideas to the team”. I think I could generate ideas very well but have not way to really show that right now and then to communicate those ideas to other people could be hard for me.

What requirements I have that meat what valve want

I have work with 3D software a lot but not of any they have listed but don’t think that will be much of a problem as long as I show I have a good understanding of 3D.

As I have said many times before now my communicate skill are not very strong and could use a lot of work on them. They want people who have the “Ability to change gears quickly when needed” I think I could do this but still would not like the idea of maybe leaving uncompleted work.

What I think overall and what I can do to improve myself, to make myself better fitted to the job?

Overall I think I need to do a lot of work if I want to work a valve as an artist. What I think I should be looking at to improve is my self-directed work, to be more organised, and people skills. With the self-directed, and organised I think I could kill 2 birds with one stone by planning out my own work, that would help on improving my artist skills that I don’t have. For the people skills I could start spending less time on my computer and just find more things to do in my free time but organise it so I still do my work.

I may make another post in a year or so, just to see how I’m doing.

http://www.valvesoftware.com/jobs/job_postings.html