Choosing my first Art Test

Today we were given the choices for what style of Art Test we were going to do for the next three weeks, These were the options. I will write how I feel concerning the subject and what strengths/weaknesses I have with them underneath each one.

3D Environment Artist - I really like the idea of this one, I enjoyed making a 3D environment in the last project and I found that using Maya really helped me understand how I can use my knowledge to just about make everything I needed, however my main weakness here would be the texturing, for my third project I had such a bad time with the texturing because there is still so much I don't know about it, I think I am stopping myself from going back there because it put me in a bad place. However one possible career I was thinking for myself would be some kind of 3D environment artist, so at some point this will be something I will have to overcome, we do get to choose two so I think if this option comes up again this will be my second art test. Another weakness for this is that I have never played any Half-Life games (shock and horror, I know!) and I've only played a few Valve games, so I would have to do a LOT of research into the company and the games made in this style.

3D Character Artist - This option was another thing I was thinking about, like the 3D environment artist is all goes down to my weakness with texturing and as this was said to be the more difficult one I will give this a pass, I know I wouldn't have the skill level for this and I don't think of this as being in a career I would want to do. Looks interesting but cause me more harm than good, at some point I will have a go at this as we can do these in our spare time, but for marked work, its not for me, I've never played (or heard) of this game so that would be another thing to look at.

Character Concept Artist - This was another maybe, I really liked the look of the Speed ball art already and could think of so many ideas, I would say my main strength is my imagination, my weakness with 2D work is my lack of knowledge with colour usage in Photoshop which is why I would like to do a 2D art test as I want to push myself from what I learned during the Summer Project, I would really like to push my ability to do skin colour properly, however this test doesn't jump out at me as much.

Environment Concept Artist - Again this was a maybe but more-so than the character concept art, I like the idea of creating an image of something 30 years on, it gives a lot of ideas on what you could create, my weakness with this is again not knowing anything about Half Life, creating the two asset sheets would be fun though!

Concept Pre-Visualisation - This project is screaming the most out to me, I done a lot of research into Fable games for my last Project and I really love the artwork that comes out of Lionhead Studios (being one of the companies I would LOVE to work for in the future as well as Blizzard) I would love another chance to have a look at Fable, not just the game but the company as well. This plays to my strengths too, being able to create what is asked for here, creating 4 factions and a place for them to be would be amazing. My big weakness here is my ability to draw and understand composition with environments and keeping my mind clear, as I've looked at this art style before I had to keep my brain steered away from everything I've already done. I find it very difficult to steer away from things already in my head. It would also give me a chance to do a test similar to what we done for our very first project, looking back I done so many things wrong and I would love to see what I have learnt since then!

UI Designer - UI really holds no appeal to me, if I had to do something like this I do like the idea of making a game layout look nice and be useable, but I know nothing about UI creation, I know nothing about how to go around it ... this is a no from me. There are too many weaknesses here for me to make something good out of it.

Games Designer - And this one is a no as well, being wordy is not my strength at all, also this having no specific company or project related to the test would make this a big vague for my liking, plus I would have to think of 20 games .... and I have the worst memory!

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So overall my choices so far seem to be Concept Pre-Visualisation, 3D Environment Artist and Environment Concept Artist. I am more drawn to the concept pre-visualisation than the others as I feel I can do more with this.