Covering Letter

My Covering Letter

Will Roberts

Halvana,

Altarnun,

Launceston,

Cornwall,

Pl15 7SA

Colin Head/ Stas Krakiewicz

2D Concept Artist

Sledge Shark Interactive

Dear Mr Krakiewicz

With great interest, I am sending my job application for the position of 2D Concept Artist in your organization Sledge Shark Interactive. I learned about the advertisement through my college, Plymouth College of Art. This is exactly the job I have been looking for and is a great opportunity for me to use my creative abilities and to get myself out there in the industry.

The role of a concept artist is to create visual concepts and illustrations that help the production designers to realise their vision for games or films. I feel my creative ideas and love for art to convey visual images is what you are looking for. I have 4 years experience in digital painting and would like to further have a career to hold position within the company.

I would appreciate if we can discuss on this further in an interview that is convenient for you.

You can call me at 07432500578 and email me at prosurf@hotmail.co.uk.

Thank you so much for your valuable time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Will Roberts

CV

My CV

William Roberts

Contact Details: Halvana, Altarnun, Launceston, Cornwall PL157sa

01566 880051, 07432500578, prosurf@hotmail.co.uk

PROFILE

In 2006 I started Launceston College and completed my GCSEs. In 2011 I left Launceston College with 2 AS level qualifications in Art, and Photography. I have always been talented in art which is why I did not proceed with my A2s as I was offered a place at Plymouth College of Art. Here I studied Interactive Media in Game Arts and achieved 2 Distinctions and 1 Merit. In September I will be starting a Degree in Game Design.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

• I was offered my place at Plymouth College of Art without interview as they were impressed with my previous projects and thought my talents were wasted on A levels and could be further developed at their college
• In May 2011 I started working for myself doing commissions for clients on the side of my college work as a way to earn some extra money and experience.
• Through recommendation I was invited to be part of a short film project producing artwork for their film sets.
• I currently have 40,000 hits on YouTube for my time-lapse art pieces which I have been doing for 2 years.
• I hold a full, clean UK driving licence.
• I have never been academic but in my opinion I have worked very hard over the last 3 years and never thought I would be a candidate for University. For me this is a very big achievement.

EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE And References

Employer: Andy Mason – 01566 86636

Job Title: Waiter and Bar attendant.

Work Place: Rising Sun Inn

Start Date: August 2012

Finish Date: August 2013

Employer: Kevin Bath

Job Title: Artist working on Ipad App

Start Date: July 2013

Finish Date: Current

Employer: 8 Pound Studios

Job Title: Landscape Concept Artist

Start Date: October 2013

Finish Date: Current

I've also produced several portrait commissions

EDUCATION & TRAINING

• AS Art grade C
• AS Photography grade B
• GCSE Art and Design grade A
• Extended Diploma in Interactive Media and Game Arts: Distinction, Distinction, Merit

CORE SKILLS

• Proficient with digital painting in Photoshop
• Able to work on a multitude of different subjects to various levels of completion
• Traditional pencil drawing skills
• I am responsible, reliable and trustworthy.
• I am capable of working in a team and I have good social skills from in the hospitality industry for 1 year.
• I also have very good ICT skills.

Reflection on Mock Interview

Reflection on Mock Interview

For something that I have never had to do before, I thought it went really well. I thought that I spoke about what I wanted to do in the future really well and where I could see myself, I feel really strongly about what I want to do. I also think that I have a decent portfolio and is presented well, I would like to include some different styles of images on there including some more matte paintings and some shorter 10 - 15 minute sketches. I think that is good because it will show how quick I can generate different ideas. I should also know my portfolio better and know what kind of art styles are on it, so when I get asked a question regarding something about the job and my artwork I can jump straight to it and be able to talk about it, rather than trying to find something  and talking about it on the spot. There are also some pieces that I want to remove from my portfolio because I feel that they are not that great. Also I think I really need to organise the images in order of how good they are instead of the order they were uploaded, I want to have all my best work nearer the top.

I think researching the kind of questions that I would've been asked in the interview would of helped me out a little, or in general just practising for my interview, especially as it was my first one. Also I wish I paid more attention the job application and read it properly because I had no artwork in my portfolio which represented the style of the job offer, this would've of benefited in the interview not just for the artwork, but being able to answer questions more easily and maybe allow me to ask more/ better questions. I want to get better at writing CV and cover letters because I feel I don't write about myself or sell myself as well as I should.

Overall though I am still really pleased with how it went and wish I didn't work myself up so much over it. This has also given me an in site to the kind of questions that come up in interviews and things I will need to work on to improve.

Presentation Report

I don't think my presentation went very well as I did no pre planning and didn't put an awful lot together. I am a shy person and don't manage presentations to well, but I would like to get a lot better at doing them so doing the mock interview I think will help me out a little. Interviews is something I will need to get a lot better at in the future since I'll be doing more and more of them.

The theme I chose for my presentation and the theme I will be using for my interview is concept art, more specifically Landscape Concept Art. I'm picking this because I want to be a concept artist in either the Game or Film industry as they both really inspire me and don't have much between them in terms of the concept art. In the future I would like to be a freelance artist so that I could work on both and not be so restricted in the things I'm creating. But if I was to work for a company it would have to be either Blizzard or Ubisoft for the games and Weta Digital for film. I'm also really keen to get into matte painting and have done several mattes now in my free time, its mostly used in film and Weta uses it a lot in there work but the techniques used to create mattes is used to create the concept art for games because, using photo's speeds up your workflow.

Researching into job opportunities I found out that Weta has an option to create an account on there website where you can upload lots of information about yourself including a portfolio, CV and covering letter, you can also apply from jobs from there as well. I think this is a great idea and I have actually set up a profile for myself now, but it also said that Weta checks over these profiles which I think is great also. Regarding freelance, this is actually something I could be doing right now and I have actually done a few jobs so far, but most have been un paid and just for experience purposes, but I'm still happy with that because I think just having experience alone is really important. Mostly I've done portrait commissions which I have been paid for, although I can do portraits really well I don't find them as fun as doing concept art, I think I like the end result of the portrait the most because you can get them super photo realistic. I am working on some concept art for an MMO rpg at the moment which I am finding so much fun to because its the kind of things I enjoy painting, which is great, although it is still free work. Reading over the internet, other concept artists said that you will end up doing a lot of free work while your starting out and not to go for intern-ships because you would end up being the cake trolley boy. Most of them said to just keep doing free work, and work on perfecting your portfolio.

Development Plan

Doing the presentation and the mock interview has given me an insight on things I did quite well and given me a better insight on what I want to do with my future, but its also shown me some things I need to work on.

I feel I need to really improve on my presentations as I think this could let me down a bit. Over the next few years we have more and more presentations to do, so for these ones I am going to try and practice them a little more and be more prepared. I want to improve my CV and covering letter as well I feel that I'm not very good at talking about myself and making myself stand out, which is stupid because everyone is always saying that my artwork is amazing and yet I find it hard to make myself sound amazing. I also want to improve the content that is on my portfolio, I want to create more tabs with different artwork on it, maybe some 3d and Zbrush stuff. I also want different art styles on it so it shows that I can produce a variety of styles instead of just sticking to my comfort zone.