If you’re looking at what kind of classes to take, basic drawing and design courses are critical. Drawdrawdraw. Take figure drawing, because that will likely be the best visual training you’ll ever get. If you draw the human body wrong, it’s very obvious, so it forces you to do two key things well: observe what is really in front of you (rather than your mental concept of what should be there), and make visual choices well for putting down the details of a drawing.

Drawing a live model is much better than drawing from a photograph because your eyes are feeding you two different images. Those images give you information about volume that you can’t get from a flat photo, and they force you to make deliberate choices about how you translate the 3D object to a 2D surface. In addition to figure drawing, take design courses that stress composition and color theory.

Drawing well necessarily includes presenting the image well and placing the elements in a coherent context. No other art classes will have as much effect on your ability to create competent work than figure drawing and design. The rest is gravy, and should never replace any of those classes. The next highest on the list, though, would be a professional course on graphic design that familiarized you with type, print processes, and how to develop an images through stages of sketching and revision. It’s a real reality check, and will save you much heartbreak when you go out for jobs. As for 3D, build your 3D skills on your 2D skills, not the other way around.

If these courses don’t sound like fun, it’s because they’re solid hard work. If they’re not difficult for you, find another professor.
Period. They should be some of the toughest work you’ve ever done. What you will get from them, though, is professional competence that will apply to everything you do afterwards (in and out of the art field), and you will gain a confidence that comes from accomplishing serious work and pushing the limits of your ability. And, yeah, it should also be fun. Art is fun.

Other courses? Find something you’re interested in and take a course in it, something outside of pop culture (if you want to do computer games, study historical battles, or chess, or literature, or logic, or anything that involves strategy and thought). Take a course in something you don’t know anything about, especially if you need a credit in it (for your math credit, you can usually take beginning logic instead. Cool, huh?).

And, finally, figure out where the good professors are and take classes from them, whatever they teach. Think I’m kidding? You’re an artist. Your academic classes will mean Jack when you get out. Use them to build up your breadth of knowledge and your character, not your resume. Odds are, unless you are going into a field that requires coursework in a specific subject, they’ll care more about your GPA and your interests. After your first job, they’ll only care about your experience.

As for getting a job, a solid portfolio is key. Have a good collection of drawings, renders, art files on a CD (Mac and PC!), and have them all printed out on 8 1/2″X11″ sheets in an organized binder of some kind. Never show more than 12 pieces at a time, or no less than 5 (if only 5, make sure they rock). Have much more work than you need to show at any one time, and never show crap (even if you like it). Don’t show your favorite high school drawings if you’ve done better since then. Call ahead or research the web to find out what the guy wants to see, then tailor your portfolio to the specific interview.

One final note: html coding is not an art skill. If you want to have a position as a website artist, then those skills may count, but, otherwise they’re irrelevant. Web work is a very specialized skill that you will likely never be called on to use, except in a small company that can’t afford a webmaster. If you want to be a web artist, build a portfolio that way, with examples of page layouts and actual code, but don’t forget the basic portfolio. Lots of people can code - very few can do a good, mind-blowing layout.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 12:54 am and is filed under Breaking In, RESOURCES. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.