Looking for Work, or how to stay frustrated.

Yanno ..I useda think an artist was all I needed to be.
All the rest ..software, brushes, canvas, posterboard
.. those are all tools an artist uses.
Frustrating to read job apps that require a degree and/or knowledge of a tool
.. it seems artists need not apply.

You must be 18, have 20 years of experience, a degree, know and be expert in every software tool on the planet, and oh by the way, do you speak Swahili or any of a dozen other languages? .. and get me a cup of coffee.

When I interviewed artists for hiring, I wanted to see what they had done.
I wasn't interested in the tools they used .. they had to be able to create a vision of an idea .. you know .. that whole 'art' thing.

Anyone with the passion to create can learn a tool to do so.

I want to thank Mr. Cameron for saying it was the artists at their workstations that made Avatar come alive .. it's nice to hear someone acknowledge the passion.
I had an ignorant art director tell me years ago 'well, it's CG, it's always right'
..and another 'there are no hero's here'

Every single member of a team that brings a vision to life from an idea is a hero, .. from the guy who makes sure the web is up, the guy on the phones with customers, Lead Artists, Lead Programmers, even the CEO.

I got 'under the hood' of 3d Studio in the DOS days, along with Photoshop.
It was convergent tech at it's best ..I had been doing oil-canvas, acrylic-posterboard, ink sketches ..built models growing up of just about everything,
..mostly planes and cars tho.

3d Studio/Photoshop was magic. I could build models, paint 'em, animate, blow up, smash, or setup scenes a camera never would catch. I could create worlds and everything in them. And did. For years.

Am I an environment artist? An animator? A UI guy? -shakes head in disgust-
..the fact is I do what I need to do to create the vision .. I am an artist.

I have spent months doing UI screens, more months just animating/rigging characters,
..the years added up as I created 3d shapes for world environments, even laying out entire worlds, ..painting texture maps, exploring cool/different tools ..always learning.

But .. do I know Flash? LOL, no.
Guess a set of images rendered into any format that Max supports or deBabelizer can convert to isn't good enough?
I would bet I could learn enough in a couple weeks about Flash to be considered an 'advanced user' if not 'expert' .. it's just a tool.

Do I know Maya? -sigh- ..another tool.
I did an eval of Maya long ago when the suit-dweebs were all agog about it ..it cost more than Max so it must be way better right?
Well. A summer spent in my spare time, mostly after everyone had gone home.
Polygon is still a polygon.
Takes an artist to create art, the tool is not what does it.
At the end of my eval I recommended against it
.. 3dmax allowed us to do all we needed to for real time game environments, screen shots, UI's, etc.

IMHO, Maya is a great tool. More geared to high poly modeling, some nice features, better have a decent workstation with networked rendering farm.
A Pentium 90 wouldn't cut it.. while Max was happy on a P-90 ..more or less.
(altho it did take awhile to render some of our screen shots back in the day :)

But do I know Maya? .. -sigh- I'd have to say no.
Could I use it .. learn it .. be proficient with it?
You bet.

I am an artist.
It is just a tool.
One of many.

-Frank P. 'Gray Eagle' Williamson
-lead artist on Air Warrior, Kesmai, 1995-2000
-3d artist on NASCAR 2002/2003, Papyrus, 2000-2001
-lead artist on Falcon V.0, G2 Interactive, 2001
..and lately 3d artist on SnoCross for the iPhone, 2XL Games, 2009-2010