Throughout the 12 weeks, I have made a detailed plan on what i want to achieve once the course is finalized. Originally I did want to go down the route of self employment but with the detailed run-down of freelance work I covered in the prior posts, I believe not only would this be too stressful, finding enough work to even build experience could be next to impossible. The most logical choice would be to find a game company locally and contact them in regards to work experience and if possible, a paid placement for the future. Simply having a large AAA developer's name on my portfolio and CV as a past employer would work wonders in getting a permanent job later down the line but financially, I see myself only having two options;
Either, I spend the next sixth months minimum working at a part time job, building my portfolio on the side or attempt to find a full-time job for the same time period to pool some money together. With 6-12 months stocked up, I will have enough to cover very basic accommodation, travel and food for a moderate amount of time. With this, I can then contact a more distant game company such as Sumo Digital and apply for work experience. If I took the full time job route, my abilities would remain roughly the same and I would have a larger financial safety net but if I had decided to take the part time rough, the extra 6 to 12 months progress would leave me in a much more employable state with less financial security, greatly improving my chances of solidifying myself as part of the team and possibly allowing me to receive paid employment. Alongside this, it would give me the time to develop a small following on social media, increase my linked-in presence and join modding communities to receive professional feedback on my work/ make useful contacts.
Second option; After graduation, I can source a local game company such as "Eight Pixel Square" http://www.eightpixelssquare.com/games and ask them about possible work placements as they seem to be the best positioned game company to my home in Milford, making it possible to work there to gain experience for a minimum of 3 months without many personal outgoings. With only a three month period, I cannot see it causing many issues financially and it would provide me with much needed experience/ discipline.
Realistically, I see the best option for me would be to take a few points from both. Straight off the bat, I will be looking at vehicle artist jobs in the UK for junior artists whilst developing my portfolio. As my show-reel will be focusing on only three vehicles at a time alongside their scene, I will need to re-texture the M4 Sherman tank, create it's scene as discussed prior and entirely make a asset using the skills I learn't from this project as the RC car is in dire need of replacement. If I haven't had very much look after a 3 month period, I will move very swiftly on to contacting local game companies for short term work experience placements. If no permanent placement is possible from this, I will turn my eye towards either a part-time or fulltime job to build up funds whilst I develop my skills in areas such as "Substance" "Zbrush" and "Quixel" as these are all the new base-line standards of most environmental and vehicle modelling jobs in the UK.
With this premise, I should be left with a back-up plan, always giving me a way forward to increase my ability, bring up my financial safety net and should never be left at a stand-still. Overall, I'm very much looking forward to this process and in the mean time, will be trying to take part in as many game art contests I can find. As well as improving my ability to work to a deadline, this will force me to gain experience in game engines such as Unity and Source SDK, depending on what company is sponsoring the contest. Many students that take part in these contests are offered job placements and usually develop great game industry contacts along the way.
As a final point, I will be posting all complete work on Twitter as i have now done with the I-ray renders of the Mad Max vehicle to build up my contacts as this has worked extremely well for other students and to stay in the blog mindset, will be creating full run-downs of any independent project on Poly Count forum.
Website wise, as im just handing in the design, I will be re-evaluating it based on marking feedback before transitioning to Weebly as this has turned out to be a fantastic website not only for blogs but makes the construction of a portfolio incredibly easy. I did have a decent website hosted on SquareSpace although the monthly £6.50 is far too damaging to my bank account and i would like to find either a cheaper alternative or a one time payment service in early january.
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