Seeking advice for landing that first job

Professional
#1

Just wanted to reach out to the community here and see if anyone has some advice for me.

I’m currently working on my portfolio rigs. I’m mostly doing bipeds with vanilla Maya, with limited use of plug-ins.

Should I be using more tools like mGear or AdvSkel. They make the process a lot quicker but I’m unsure if employers want to see that I can use those tools or if they’d rather see what I can do with out them.

Also any general portfolio tips or advice for how to make contact and have a fighting chance at getting an interview would be amazing.

Thank you all for any help you can provide!

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#2

For us it would be important that you can build your rigs with pyton. First version may take a week or more but the second does take only 5min.

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#3

First of all thank you for responding! Would I want to include examples of custom tools I’ve built in my reel or more in my resume?

#4

In general when we hire we prefer people can do the vanilla stuff because if they can do vanilla then they can certainly use a plugin that makes it easier.

Definitely put any tools you have on your portfolio with a little walkthrough and screenshots of what they do.

There are a lot of places looking for tech animators right now, mostly they’re looking for senior from what I’ve seen but if you wait long enough a lot of times those senior positions will start turning into intermediate and assoc level.

If something says senior though and you’re not a senior then don’t apply, those can be annoying for employers to weed through.

Python is a pretty clutch skill in more than just writing tools. If you know python you can automate pretty much everything and that’s incredibly valuable. Don’t discount those little things you’ve done or written.

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#5

Awesome of you to share the advice/insight, this is super helpful! thank you!

#6

When I interview a “green” tech artist I consider 4 aspects.

  1. Is this person excited and eager to learn?
  2. Do the exhibit ability to learn difficult/abstract concepts?
  3. Is this person exhibiting any signs of being an a-hole? aka personality fit. (This one may be difficult to gauge)
  4. Will they be ok with doing some work that may be considered menial?

Hope this helps and Good luck with getting your first gig! :slight_smile:

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#7

Big time! Whenever I get my first interview, tips like these are what I’ll reference to prep. Thanks!

#8

One important one I forgot to include is:

  1. How does the candidate react to criticism? Are they able to process and accept criticism/suggestions.
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#9

This one is incredibly helpful for insight. When I’m lucky enough to interview, I’ll be sure to keep an open mind to feedback!

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#10

Hey everyone, just wanted to say thank you all again for the advice. I finished up my first demo reel recently and was wondering if anyone would care to give some feedback!

Cheers!

#11

Hi Ben Boy,
I’d recommend you list out, on each scene, exactly what you are demonstrating.

It’s not hard to follow of course, but at first I could have been looking at rigging, lighting, shaders, or some other aspect of work you may have contributed to.
Also, having clear labels like that demonstrates your ability to communicate in a team environment where you may have to give people information via training video, documentation, or example scenes.

It’s a nice reel - good job! I like the music choice!

Kind Regards,
Alex

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#12

@ObsidianPC Thank you for taking the time to look at the demo reel! I really appreciate the thoughtful feedback as well. This will definitely help me format things to help the viewer know what’s being demonstrated.

much appreciated all around!