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[Yshaana]

[DISCLAIMER: Please take this with a grain of comedy, I am not attempting to show some kind of elite managerial skills, nor am I making fun of all the different people that are the source of this post, we all make mistakes. I just hope that these particular mistakes will help others correct some errors and help them find the job they deserve.]

Recently we have been looking for a new concept artist (which we have found, and he is amazing, we will be showcasing new stuff very soon) and a couple of interns for 2D elements and 3D modeling, and all the while we were looking, we received tons of submissions from all across the globe. In these portfolios, we received some that were good, some that were ok, and some that were… Let’s just say some left us speechless.



I therefore had the idea of writing this post, that can both entertain and shed some light on what a design team is looking for when looking at an art portfolio, and more importantly, what NOT to put on your resume.

1 – Don’t paste your face all over your resume

One of our candidates thought it would be a good idea to take 10 photographs of his face at different angles, making different mimics, and put it in every 3 lines of text. Unless you are the hottest chick on earth trying to get a job as some kind of face model, it looks just like it sounds… creepy.

Tip: if you really want to show your face, just put a thumbnail in the right or left corner, it’s way enough. We are interested in your art skills, not what you look like.

2 – Don’t write a punch line joke under every sentence

 We don’t need a punch line for every sentence you write. I know that most of you wouldn’t even think of doing such a thing, but I have seen it. One person thought it would be really funny to write a crappy joke under each entry on their resume. For example, under their name he wrote “I know it’s kinda crappy, but I was born that way”, under his phone number “don’t play them in the lottery, 81 doesn’t come out that often”, and for his address, he gave us latitude and longitude coordinates. And that’s just a few of the jokes all over his CV.

Tip: So you’re a funny guy? Showcase this in your art! Make a amusing animation, drawing, comic or anything else that can amuse and wow at the same time. Just use this great character trait to showcase your talent.

3 – Don’t send a blank email…

This might sound stupid, but you’d be surprised at the number of blank emails I received with the correct object, but no message.

Tip: Guess.

4 - … and then brag about being sure of getting the job position on Twitter

I receive a blank email with a name. So I did a quick Google check to see if the guy had a portfolio, cause you never know, forgetting to post your resume can happen. And all I find is a twitter account on which the guy is sure he will get the Internship easy and would earn lots of money… Oh how wrong was he?

Tip: Don’t.

5 – Don’t have a portfolio ONLY composed of huge breasted naked chicks

One of our candidates made a living mostly by selling erotic comics. Why not…  But if you are looking for a job as a concept artist, please, oh please, change your screen name… Don’t call yourself “Megaboobs” (name has been changed so as not to harass the poor guy, but it is similar in style…), and give us other types of drawings, not just HUUUUUUUUGE breasted women who are xxxed in all the wrong places…

Tip: A bit of diversity, in style and techniques goes a long way. Try to vary, from realistic to comics through scifi, fantasy and other genres, such as log and interface designs. Show that you are capable of adapting to what the production will ask of you. And try not to showcase your porn artbook...

6 – Turn on spell checking in your Word processor

Seriously, one or two mistakes are fine, but 1 mistake per word is just silly! If a red squiggly line underlines everything, then you are doing it wrong! So you claim to be dyslexic and can’t write properly? Then ask your grandma or a friend to spell check what you wrote! All this tells me is that you are either an anti-social that has no friends or acquaintances, or that you are just too lazy to left click on a word and change the spelling. In either case, it is not very positive. And if your screenname is "megaboobs", I tend to think the former and cower in fear of meeting you.

Tip: Have someone read your text, at least once, they will often spot mistakes you would not have seen. It is not really important per se (your art is much more important), but when you get 30 cvs a day, a nicely written one, with correct grammar and sentences just stands out.

7 – Send your portfolio

Some people just send you a CV and a cover letter. No portfolio… Why would we consider interviewing somebody without even seeing his or her art style? I always took the time to signal this error to the different people, but in other big companies, the application would go straight to the trash basket. Hell, some people don't even do any art AT ALL! They just want to work in the games industry because "I like playing games".

Tip: Double check that everything is attached to your email. Don’t forget that your artwork is what is most important, not your school. Create an online portfolio, easily entered in both your cover letter and CV, and put everything you can on there.

8 – Don’t send your resume as an image

It is unusable to us. It is heavy, clutters a mail box and serves no purpose in showcasing your art.

Tip: Just send a link to your portfolio within the mail, we will go check it out, no need to put a 1280*800 jpg to show what you can do. Its just annoying. Keep your mail or PDF design clean and fresh, maybe add a cool and simple background graphic, showcasing your vector art skills.

9 – Have a useable website

Some artists think it’s a good idea to make a fancy, hyper complex website, with a lot of flash between images, cool slider effects and other crap. It isn’t.

Tip: A simple gallery, with thumbnails. Order each gallery by artstyle if you want. But make it so the recruiter has an easy time going through all your art. If its tough, then he will most likely leave before seeing all there is to see and you will lose an opportunity.



I have nothing against 90% of the cvs we received, and some were actually incredible, but strangely, its the worst ones that stick in the back of my mind.

Well, there you have it, I hope this has been useful in anyway, or at least made you laugh. If you disagree or care to add something, please go wild !

[Inane]

I think this stuff is mostly too obvious to be useful as a guide for anybody but the mentally deranged, but it's pretty damn hilarious people send you this stuff.
If you had some more specific stuff, really common errors or general improvements to resumes people could use, this thread'd gain a case of cooliosis.

[psy_wombats]

Ha, I was expecting a "horrible art" thread but this is fairly useful. "What to do to ensure that your art is why you were rejected."

[jay]

I think this stuff is mostly too obvious to be useful as a guide for anybody but the mentally deranged

RE: The big boobs/lack of variety: Well, there's a lot of that around, it's something that being online tends to do to a certain breed of artist.

Well, maybe not actual madness, but certainly there's a lot of artists/creatives on niche boards or communities who are used to being the big noise in their own particular small pond, but lacking even the most rudimentary of the basics. Like they can draw wonderful looking pics, but closer inspection shows they can only really do one face and one pose in one style(often almost wholly appropriated from some more famous artist), and have no grasp of anatomy (especially common with a certain class of manga-derived artist who clearly use other drawings for reference instead of models/live reference). Not having any real world exposure/feedback/actual critique on their work, they won't even know any better. AKA me about ten years ago, before finally realising "christ on a bike, I could really stand to work a whole lot harder on my massive shortcomings here."

[Trevor Dunbar]

I'm going to put giant tits on my toucan 

[jay]

So, Toucan play at that game.

I'm really sorry

[Zaratustra]

Some more tips:

- Do not make misspellings in your resumé or your portfolio.

You'd think this would be obvious, but a recurring joke at work is that artists are mentally incapable of spelling correctly. (The other two is that they're incapable of counting or measuring.)

- Have different types of art in your portfolio.

Concept art, scenery, characters, full-screen animation, interface, tile art, 2d bitmap, 2d vector, 2d character animation, 3d, 3d animation - the more of these you know and can demonstrate you know, the greater your odds of filling a position.

EDIT: Just read bento_smile below.

- Learn to use common art tools.

Photoshop, Corel, Flash, 3D Studio, Maya (Blender too, if you're insane) are most often used. This is not simply "know where the pencil tool is", unless you want to spend your days assembling texture atlases. You should at least know what they're capable of and where the help file is.

[bento_smile]

I have a tip (more of a 'do' than a 'do not'):

- If you can, tailor your portfolio to the job you're applying for.

Well, not everyone has a huge range of artwork... But if you're applying for pixel art, send mostly pixel art, if you're applying for 3D, send mostly 3D. Range is always good, but not if it's diluting your portfolio too much. (I tend to send mostly what I know the place is interested in, and then a little of the other stuff just to show I can do a bunch of things/styles/whatever.)

[pen]

Some more tips:
- Have different types of art in your portfolio.

Concept art, scenery, characters, full-screen animation, interface, tile art, 2d bitmap, 2d vector, 2d character animation, 3d, 3d animation - the more of these you know and can demonstrate you know, the greater your odds of filling a position.

I'd like to politely object to this - depending on what kind of company you're applying to, this could hurt you. I know the thread is about video games, but if you apply this piece of advice to the commercials industry people will think of you as a generalist.

This might seem like a good thing, but if they want to fill a very niche position they're looking for someone who've focused on that very specific thing. I've heard of people who've been really skilled but whose pay-check is smaller than their co-workers' simply because they're defined as 'generalists'.

Again, this probably isn't relevant if you're applying for a position in a smaller company, but if you're doing commercials or are applying to bigger studios it COULD be. If a studio is looking for a concept artist they're looking for a concept artist first and foremost.

Edit: bento_smile said it much better than I did. Well done good sir 

[FrankieSmileShow]

I read a lot of advice for illustrators and graphic designers that went on the complete opposite of the advice to diversify. Further than just tailoring the portfolio you send to the company you send it to, I read advice from illustrators that said you basically should find your one style and stick to it as closely as possible, and have a portfolio showcasing exclusively this style, nothing else.

The rationale behind this was that art directors and companies often arn't looking for an artist who can create, but more a specific art style- they want to hire someone who draws exactly in a certain way. An example I remember is someone saying that if you want to do illustrations for children's books, do that and only that and never showcase anything else on your portfolio, become creepily obsessed in children book illustration.
Personally this sorta surprised me, I always thought showing at least some diversity is important. Im guessing it depends on the scope of the company, smaller companies wanting polyvalent artists who can do anything and bigger companies wanting specialists from whom they know exactly what they will get. Any thoughts on that idea?

[Guert]

One thing I can say about diversity in your portfolio is that it depends on the company. Smaller ones, as a general rule, tend to want people who can do alot. Why? Because they have little budget and a lot to do. They want an artist who can do some textures, models and some illustration too when needed. As for style, it also depends on the company; a small studio that has to make 2-3 games a year might have different targets for each. For example, in a small i-phone dev studio, you could be doing a puzzle game, an rpg-like and a brawler within the same year, each with its own style.

Bigger studios have bigger budget and usually aim at having the best one of type working on one thing. They want the best pixel artist they can find working with the best concept artist working with the best illustrator etc... The bigger the studio, the more focused the job description becomes.

I must say that as of now, I’ve only experienced working in small studios and searched artists with a wide range of skills. I have not worked yet for a big one but that’s what I learned from the people I talk to who take care of this kind of thing.

[El Moppo]

I thought that I would benefit from this thread. And. While I found it entertaining, I then realised that I think enough avoid these problems.

To be fair, they're probably also able to be applied to most other CVs, too, though.

[Zaratustra]

Do you? Then let's add one more:

- Raise your flag up high.

Let's see, do you have a link to your website in your signature - nope. Profile - nope either. Did you at least draw your own avatar NO IT'S SOME POKEMON (and it's a starter god's sake)

If you're a good artist, a good programmer, or a good anything, let everyone that sees you know it, because anyone might be needing it.

[Simon Andersson]

... And if someone want's something killed with fire...

[bento_smile]

- DON'T use Deviantart.

Seriously.

[John Nesky]

- DON'T use Deviantart.

As in don't use it as your portfolio or don't use it at all?

[Inane]

As your portfolio. Though they do now have a portfolio sub-site which is customizable and doesn't bear any resemblance to the main site.

[ChevyRay]

Want to know how pathetic I am? I had to look up what CV meant.

Anyways, awesome post, some pretty good advice in this thread all around you guys. Perhaps not for me, since I'm not an artist, but I think you only have to change a few words and some of this advice works for job hunters of any trade.

[El Moppo]

Do you? Then let's add one more:

- Raise your flag up high.

Let's see, do you have a link to your website in your signature - nope. Profile - nope either. Did you at least draw your own avatar NO IT'S SOME POKEMON (and it's a starter god's sake)

If you're a good artist, a good programmer, or a good anything, let everyone that sees you know it, because anyone might be needing it.

A fair point. I've been practising more than I've been advertising, and my lack of involvment with what I want to do is probably one of my biggest mistakes.

As for the avatar, it was originally another image, drawn by me. However, as it was directly linked to my DeviantArt avatar, it changed when I changed it on that site. I use the forums on here rarely, so I never changed it.