[In this reprinted #altdevblogaday-opinion piece, Turbine Games' technical art director Chad Moore breaks down why art and design students need to get over their hesitancy to share their work for critique.]
Are you an art or design student who is reluctant to show your work? Maybe "it's not finished", and you're "just a student", perhaps the "class wasn't long enough".
Those are excuses, we know you're just starting out. Go online and post your work to places where creative professionals are willing to give you feedback for free. They're will be a list of them at the end of this article.
You don't do this because you're afraid of what people will say about your work. That's natural, but it's also something you have to just get over; the sooner the better.
When you have a job in the business, you'll most likely be executing someone else's vision. At least until you become the art ead or director. The AD will be looking at what you are creating and giving you feedback; guiding you to make what they want.
As a manager we want to see growth. How someone reacts to criticism is something we look at and monitor. Getting critiques from your team builds the team through trust and mutual respect. Everyone pushes each other to do better.
Every day, sometimes two to three times a day, in informal and formal settings you'll be showing your work to the people on your team, the art director, maybe even an exec or two.
Get used to it now. Signing up and posting to free forums and web sites gives you a taste of all the above at an early age and starts you on building your network.
A good intro post should go something like this …
"Hi, I'm yourNameHere. I'm in school and wanted to get used to receiving and giving feedback. Please take a look at my work and let me know what you think. Thanks!"
Each of the forums below have unique feels to them. Go to the forums below that match your interests and feel right to you, sign up, post your work, give and receive feedback:
[This piece was reprinted from #AltDevBlogADay, a shared blog initiative started by @mike_acton devoted to giving game developers of all disciplines a place to motivate each other to write regularly about their personal game development passions.]
