Guest Speaker – Olivia Gregory
Background
University & Journey
In university, she didn’t do as well as she wanted to. So she decided to specialise in props and environment, and improved her technical skills. After university, she worked as a barista for a while before getting a big gig (an artist is a difficult job to acquire). She got a mentorship at Aardman Films and one with an ex-DreamWorks artist. Both mentorships were invaluable and helped her develop her skills greatly. Now she is purely an artist
Professional Work
Olivia flips between animation & games. She works in charity art at Chapel Arts Studios as a creative programs coordinator. She also works with Limitbreak Mentoring, which gives 6 mentees across the year, working on portfolios. She worked at West Pier as a slot games artist. She also worked as a researcher for Games Jobs Live. She made a board game about food safety called Simply Safer. She is currently taking a master’s degree in animation production at Bournemouth. She is also interested in disability representation and works on that aspect in games.
Advice
- Recommends art mentorships.
- Important to curate a portfolio.
- Game artist is too general, you should specialise.
- Character artist should think about all the angles and aspects of the character.
- Study real life to become a better artist.
- Texture callouts are important.
- Work from limited colour palettes.
- An efficient workflow is important.
- Show your process in your portfolio.
- Show work in pipeline (game jams, collaborative projects).
- Photoshop is useful to learn for artists.
- Confidence needs to be portrayed in your portfolio.
- Fan art/inspired art is not bad, but be careful not to plagiarise, also show off something
new with it, like in a different style or aesthetic (i.e. sci-fi souls). - NETWORK.
- AI is taking jobs, but human-made stuff will always exist.
Questions & Answers
Q: How important/useful is traditional art?
A: Anything you enjoy or prefer doing is good. Many games have been created using traditional styles. Digital stuff is industry standard, however.
Q: Do you think we can/should use AI in our processes? Like to make workflow more efficient?
A: AI never looks as good as human-made stuff. It can be useful in very specific situations and tasks, but generally not great.
Reflection
I found this talk interesting. It confirmed a few things I already knew, such as how difficult it is to become a full-time artist and that AI art is taking jobs. It also illuminated certain things about art that I didn’t know or think of, such as the importance of explaining your designs and your processes. While I find making art to be fun, this talk reinforced that it’s not really something I want to do full-time, especially if I hope to get employed fast. I appreciated the honesty that Olivia expressed, especially in regards to the difficulty of being an artist, and I was inspired by how much her skill grew as she worked.