Strengths
Concept Art (mostly landscapes, set layouts, Digital Art, Photoshop, Image Manipulation, Drawing, Bodyboarding
If someone asked a friend what my strengths are they would immediately say drawing. I post all the drawings I do on my facebook and the amount of likes and comments I've received from my friends is crazy. They all give me great feedback and comments which is nice to see. I've always been into/ good at drawing since I was young and continued persueing it all through my life doing art GCSE, A Level, Interactive media in game arts and now im on a game design degree. Bodyboarding is more of a hobbie, I've been doing it for about 11 - 12 years now and truelly love it. I consider myself to be pretty good at it however I wish I knew how to do more tricks.
Weaknesses
Concept art only being able to draw landscapes and set layouts. Cant do characters very well or vehicles, SCI-FI, I cant do these things to a stantard that represents my landscapes or portrait paintings. I think this is really pushing me back because I think I would look a lot better if I was able to do concept for everything like characters, landscapes, weapons, props, vehicles etc. Although I am self taught and still learning this sort of puts me down sometimes. I am trying to work on this a bit, I get ImagineFX magazine every month which has free tutorials and loads of information from really great artists in the industry. There is also DVD tutorials I can buy on websites like the Gnomon Workshop, or there are workshops I can join from artists in the industry. I have also just completed a module doing life drawing in college, and while doing this I have noticed an improvement in my character drawings. Its also made me want to do some more traditional drawings and to explore different materials instead of sticking to digital.
I Don't have a paid Job or part time, however have 2 jobs going at the moment doing artwork. But I do need a paid job as paying for car tax, insurance and petrol is starting to become really hard.
Spend a lot of hours in front of a computer screen. I spend more time playing games than I do drawing, I find it hard to sit down and draw for long periods of time. The longest I could draw for is probably about 2 - 3 hours. I think its because I start to loose interest or my mind starts going off the topic and starts to think about other things. I might be able to over come this by having breaks in between drawing sessions, maybe like an hour or so and then go back to drawing. I do try to draw everyday at some point though. I think my lifestlye is starting to become unhealthly. Especially now that winter is on the way and im not spending as much time in the sea surfing which is currently my only means of fitness. I don't get to see a lot of my mates anymore, I see the odd 3 and speak to them frequently over skype while playing games. A lot of my mates have moved off to uni and I dont get to see them any more, also I live quite far from college so I don't get to see them really appart from in college. Not a massive fan of going out to nightclubs, I don't like the idea of wasting me money on alcohol, I would rather stay in and draw. However if a drum and bass event popped up I would get straight on it and try to organise something.
Opportunities
2 jobs at the moment drawing concept art, one for a sci-fi short film, my role is to refine the original concepts to a life like resemblance for pitching. 2nd im drawing landscape concept art for a game. Even though these a free jobs at the moment I have been told that they may be able to pay me later on. I still think that its just as valuable doing this un paid as its really good experience for me. Everywhere I read on the internet from other artists say that you will end up doing a lot of free work to get into the industry. Doing enough free work will provide me a lot of experience and make me a more valuable person to higher than someone that doesnt have any experience.
Threats
I think the biggest threat I face at the moment is not being able to do character concept art, or things like vehicles and sci-fi. I think if I dont do something about this now it could really effect me when I try getting a job.
