[MutSnot]

I will be graduating soon and start looking for a career in 3d modeling and animation in Southern California (LA, Orange County or SD). Can someone suggest a site for salary info or offer advice? I am hoping to get into gaming or interactive multimedia. Any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated!!

[TheMilkMan]

Mut snot..I would not expect anything over 25 G's/year since you are a starting artist. Unless you are going to work in the Bay area you are not going to get much more. Also I would look outside of california like Austin or other places that are not swamped with spring chickens.

[Jason Manley]

well...I dont agree with the 25g salary suggestion.

if you are really talented then 35-50 is not unreasonable depending on the packages you know and how much traditional animation/drawing/art knowledge you have amassed. if you have not developed your skills in school and partied instead...well then maybe the 25g suggestion is valid.

If you get the opportunity to go on as in intern...take it. that way you can prove yourself.

if you arent ready to make stuff on a professional level then you will hear about it.


jason

[MonsterX]

Jason knows what he is talking about. In Silicon Valley the start should be 35k at the bare ass minimum. And that is really low in relationship to the cost of living. A lot of fellows try to get in through the test department (QandA, quality control, or whatever they call it). From what I've seen that is a fairly terrible way to do it. If you can't get in as an artist and you can afford to, you should stay out of work and get your skills up to par over a few months of practice. If your art is really good and you can make games then I would think more in the range of 50k. Once you get a few years of experience that number goes up quite a bit.

[MonsterX]

sorry posted twice on accident.

[This message has been edited by MonsterX (edited November 15, 2000).]

[phreaknasty]

30-35 seems about right for the san francisco bay area. as far as the best way to get a foot in the door i might skip the tester thing, it works sometimes but theres often a pretty big bureaucratic divide between test and development in most companies. my best suggestion would be to pin point a couple of companies that are in the midst of growth and/or have massive turnover rates and target them. for instance, in the bay area 3DO is constantly trying to grow/fill vacated spots. if you approach them with evidence of a familiarity with photoshop and maybe a working knowledge of debabelizer and max and you'd have a pretty decent chance of snagging an artist 1/texture wrangler job. i sure there are companies like 3DO elsewhere. try www.gamejobs.com.

grunt artist are often in high demand since nobody on the inside wants to do the lowend repetitive stuff... i.e. palletizing hundreds of images, color correcting textures, creating minor variations of existing work, creating buttons, converting images form one format to another. for this a working knowledge of photoshop's action palette and debableizer (you can download a lite version at [url=http://www.equilibrium.com)]www.equilibrium.com[/url] is invaluable. throw in the knowledge of creating a mask using ps's alpha channel and you'll be groovy. good luck.

MonsterX - i'm guessing from your email that you work for light speed games. seems like you guys are pretty new. if you don't mind me asking, what are you guys working on. just curious cause i also work in the bay area game industry and hadn't heard or you guys yet. oops i just read the "we can�t reveal any details at this time" part. oh well hmmm... xbox, ps2 or ngc? monsterx, i wonder?

[This message has been edited by phreaknasty (edited November 16, 2000).]

[Redbeard]

Ok, I'm NOT going to put the post-search URL here since it's like 6 lines long, after I start the search, but...

I went to geekfinder.com, searched for "game graphics art", all key words, in California. There were some, that were DOE (depends on experience), or open, and a 1 year experience position for 40-50K in San Diego. Naturally, you can customize your search to get better results (most of the hits were programmer related despite the key words).

I then searched for "3d model animator", and found a few of the same ones, and a web designer/animator/modeler for $80K, 3D games Artists/Animators for $45-$80K, 3D games artist for $45-$65K, and more of the same. One for 110000 (I didn't check details, but chances are they're looking for some experience there!) There was a Lead Animator for $90K+stock options.

Just play with Geekfinder for a bit, and you'll get a good idea what people want, and what they're expecting to pay.