Art Quest - The Journey of a Starving Games Artist

Pug Life - Random personal piece, I'll post a couple throughout the article. Not tied in to the story just to break it up a bit.

So how did I get here, begging for food in exchange for a little sketch... Well luckily I'm not... for the most part. My journey highlights a world of possibility, a new digital age where you can make it as an artist/designer, a world where getting paid to create is not such a farfetched idea. My name is Rokas and I'm a Digital Artist for a small games studio in London.

By starving I don't mean I am going hungry from a failed career choice, I mean I'm hungry to create, to consume knowledge and to grow as an artist. In this article I would like to share how I got to where I am at now and a few ways to make money online by creating artwork (no matter your skill level). These are at the bottom if you don't want to literally read my life story thus far.

Ever since I was young I drew, chances are like most of you. I was good, really good, or so I thought... Parents and teachers talked about me having talent so often, I started to believe it. I loved it, people's reactions were beautiful, in school I covered fellow students in full sleeve tattoos using a biro, I even sold Dragonball Z fan art to fellow students for like 20p( I didn't know how to value art back then, but it was probably worth less).

I was hooked, it was the only important thing to me, I knew that was what I wanted my career to be. I didn't know whether it would be painting, comic books, concept art, architecture, tattoos etc. This whole world was very alien to me still and all I knew was, I had to draw, that was my passion.

2017 Sketchbook, first page.

After school I didn't get into the college I wanted with the amazing art course. Ended up doing a BTEC in Multimedia. We built websites, learned to animate in Flash, to create in Photoshop, to edit video, photography and more. It was fun, but not the future I envisioned.

Then it came to university and again, I didn't have the portfolio to get into any of the art courses. I remember this like it was yesterday, being told my work was too stylized and they would have to break me down to build me up again as an artist. This broke my heart, I was ready to be broken down, to be reborn as one of these great artists they speak of, but reality was this. I was not good enough. By the time most students entered university art degrees, they had amazing portfolios, with life studies, understanding of fundamentals, lighting, color, composition, gesture etc. I was rubbish by comparison.

So the big break. I finally applied for something a little different, a games design degree. It was new, nobody knew these kinds of courses even existed here. I didn't even know... it was my wonderful mother who was worried about me and really wanted to find me something that would make me happy.

This might be a good time to add that I am crazy about video games. I grew up with a couple Polish guys that were older than me and loved gaming. They would go to the car boot sales and purchase old pong systems, commodores which they would write code for themselves and anything from that early era of gaming. But at the same time I had friends my age, playing Playstation 1, Snes, Gameboys etc. I was immersed in the gaming world, but was almost unaware how much so!

So back to this course, I went to the interview and the course director loved my stylized art, it worked for games and somehow without trying I seemed to already have an understanding of games. We had a great chat and one of the interview questions was just, "what would you want to make, if you could make any game right now, what would it be". I recall rambling on about a mmo fighting game where you can customize martial arts and be involved in an ever growing pvp environment (Absolver anyone? cough).

I got in. I felt like I dodged a bullet twice now, it was time to start taking things seriously, because the realizations flooded in. I was not an incredible artist, I was not even a good artist, I was scraping along with a pinch of luck.

The course was great, it touched on a lot of areas of games development, but also gave you freedom to research and develop the skills that are most important to you. For me this was concept art.

I graduated with a bachelors in Game Design. Then proceeded to be jobless or have the worse jobs imaginable, from working in the back of Uniqlo putting security tags in jeans, to a call center where I lasted only a day because I hated it that much. I was mostly jobless, trying to freelance as much as possible, earning 20-30 quid every so often for small projects. Rejected from any decent design job I applied for.

Then came an opportunity, so randomly. I got a call from a friend, she had a temp job, simply uploading stuff for a website, articles, sponsors, cropping images, etc. It was a 2 week contract and had no future. But here's where things got interesting, I was doing my normal job role as the CEO asks if anyone knows Flash, I put my hand up. We got chatting and suddenly I'm building flash animated adverts. Eventually I start working closely with the design team and am creating artwork for their publication, next thing I know I am designing their front covers.

The contract ends, they get rid of the two other temps (including the one who recommended me originally, awkward...) and I get to stay on. Doing my normal work with the website but also all these new design tasks and advertisement work. I'm grateful of the opportunity, but deep down I'm yearning for more. This isn't where I want to be, I'm overworked, underpaid and don't fit in.

So I do the only thing I know how, I draw and I keep drawing, any spare moment I have, I draw some more. I start looking at youtube, books and online courses. I join game design groups and meet up with developers, people looking to start projects together.

Still not a great artist at this point, but I make a good friend. He's passionate about games, very optimistic.

After a while working together on the side for free, he offers me the best job in the world. Freelance games artist/ designer. It paid next to nothing, but I got to work from home and all my focus was just drawing, designing and making games. Our little duo was perfect.

I learned a lot, working with some great people and meeting more incredible minds from the industry. However this ends abruptly as my partner starts having health problems with his hands. As a programmer this is a big issue, it affects his work and eventually he couldn't pay me or continue the company.

It was really very sad. But by this point I had a portfolio of some pretty average work looking back. But it was enough, I reached out to a few companies and eventually got a UI/UX job.

It was a small team, me and one other programmer again. But we expanded rapidly, now it has been 3 years since, we have merged with other teams and have broken off, to become our own games studio with 30+ strong staff. My new role is as a Games Artist, I do still work on UI/UX and I still work on personal work on the side, because that is where the magic happens. No matter what industry you are in, what your background is, never stop learning and don't be afraid to pick up new skills along the way!

Here's the thing, it doesn't matter how good you are now. Because if you try hard enough, or even for long enough, you will get back what you put in. If like me you want something more, something different. Then just do it, find the time, put an hour in here, put an hour in there and you will progress. The worse thing you can do is never start.

A few ways of making money online:

Uploading designs to Redbubble.com - they handle manufacturing and sales. Minimal work, all you need is a design you think might sell and you get a cut of every one that does. There are also websites like Society6 which follow the same principles.

Udemy - Not only a great place to learn, but also a great place you can teach, release a course on something you know.

Fiverr - Pick up freelance work or sell services online

Gumroad - "Gumroad helps creators take control of their creative careers. Over $100,000,000 has been made by over 29,645 bloggers, writers, and artists."

Thank you all so much for reading. I plan to post more articles sharing my sketchbooks and design processes, if this is something that interests you please stick around. I am also looking to start a web comic at some point. If there is anything else you would like to know, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Thank you again and have a wonderful day!