Game Art Portfolio Anxiety

Hey guys!! I'm really interested in doing a Game Art Design course (hopefully either at DMU but Falmouth and Hertfordshire look cool too) after my foundation course (so I'll be going for 2019/2020 entry). BASICALLY I'm super panicked about the portfolio. The whole IDEA of the portfolio is terrifying me because I don't think my art is going to be good enough to get in! I've been looking at some portfolios from previous students and my art is nothing like theirs. I have so many pieces from life drawing and I have my sketchbook and Art A Level work (which is currently made up of 2 oil paintings of fish), but otherwise all of my digital work doesn't seem big enough or in the right format to go into a portfolio.

Any tips on what to include in your portfolio?? Is there a recommended size that I should make my digital pieces?? (I have the tendency to draw on a small canvas (smaller than a4))

Any tips would be amazing and wonderful thank you ;_;

Hey! I'm also having a bit of trouble putting together a good portfolio for De Montfort, but I do have a bit of experience coming off an Art foundation and a bunch of portfolio advice sessions and emails to tutors. From what I gather 20 pieces is the ideal amount, though you can have multiple pieces on each page so don't worry if you think you can't show enough in one piece or have a set of work relating to each other. So your gonna want life drawing I would aim for 5 pieces of life drawing, with each showing different times/levels of detail (so you could have one thats your 30 second studies and another that a 5 minute sketch for example). Your then gonna want some work from school/uni/college to show what you do academical and how you think in that environment; ideally you'll want to show a project that relates to Games Art, but at the same time anything relating to design/art should be fine as long as it shows good development and skill. And then you'll want 5 pieces of environment/prop/vehicle designs and sketches; this is fairly open so you can have models, sketches, paintings anything of these things; University's know that this is the section of work that people need work on usually (as most students have skill in character drawing rather than environmental) so just try and put it your best work. The last 5 can be digital work from models to digital paintings to just sketches, mainly your personal work; what you like to draw and how you do it in your own time. So to summarize: 5 life drawings, 5 school/uni/college projects, 5 environments/props and 5 personal works/digital. Of course this is just a rough outline and should not be taken too literally, for example if you have lots of good life drawing but not as many sketches of buildings or whatever, then feel free to go over 5. This is just a rough outline that I'm working with that has helped me before when looking at courses. Some general tips: A1 drawings is recommended by a lot of A-level teachers and is fine for getting into foundation or Fine Art, but you don't have to worry about it too much for Games art, so when putting your portfolio together don't worry about have some pieces that are smaller, as its about the content. For digital work you will be sending it to the school in a PDF or showing it to them in an interview on screen; so keep that In mind when deciding on how big your digital stuff should be- If your drawing digitally I would aim for a canvas of 2000 by 2000 pixels with 200/300 dpi, this is a large canvas that can be scaled down if needed, its always safer to go big then scale down rather than just working small. And final tip is: Sketchbooks are also important, when going for interview and even when sending work online to them, they will want to see your sketchbook to see how you study, research and think- its important; so if you think your sketchbook(s) is lacking then get to working on them. I'm gonna attend a portfolio advice session for De Montfort next week, so if I get any information that seems useful I'll post it here. Good luck guys!

oh hey, an equally terrified person! Is it bad i'm so glad i'm not the only person completely freaking out about portfolios?
From what I've heard from course leaders on open days, they really like seeing progression in your work, from initial sketches to final ideas. As far as game art is concerned, while knowledge of 3D digital sculpting is a bonus you can certainly get in without it, they're looking for your core art skills the most so having lots of life drawing is a really good thing! I think you will be fine, but honestly I'm in the same situation as you are I just sound calmer online.
Mostly what I wanted to say was about digital canvas sizes, you should really work on at least A3 size at 300 pixels per inch, that way if you ever need to print out your work it will remain a good quality. If you drew on an A5 canvas but then wanted to print it out for interview it would become pixelated, so at least A3 size is the best, but honestly go bigger if you can, I'd draw on a digital A2 canvas but it lags my laptop out. If you just like the feeling of having a smaller canvas on screen then zoom out!

Hi @jaebird,

It's great you're hoping to do a Game Art Design course! Try not to worry too much about putting together your portfolio. I didn't study an art course myself, but I can imagine that everyone's art is so different it's very difficult to compare. We've made the video below about putting together your portfolio specifically for 3D Games Art and Design which may help.

[video]https://vimeo.com/album/4284984/video/193920102[/video]

If you'd like me to put you in contact with the course leader or a current student just let me know.

Otherwise, if you have any questions about our course at Herts, feel free to ask away!

Best of luck with your application

Hope that helps.
Heather

Hi!! Thank you so much for the reply!! That's really helpful! I think maybe I should make a checklist for all of that to make it a bit easier for myself when sorting my work out. Are you going to the Open Day at DMU next weekend? If so, I'm going to be there as well! I'll probably be attending the talks for Game Art and Animation, see if I can scrounge any more info up from there. Thanks again!!

Thank you for your reply!! The video helped a bit, I think hearing someone explain it rather than reading it myself put me at ease a bit ahah. I'll be going to the Open Day at Herts in a couple weeks so I think I'll ask there if I have any questions. Thank you so much though!!