[Nocturnal]

dhabih, is there any way you could give me some pointers as to how i could go about getting some freelance work from game companies. Doing mostly what you've done, covers, concept art, etc. I'd really appreciate any pointers you can give so i could at least get my foot in the door or maybe close to it. Thanks so much !!!!


P.S. I'm really glad you put this board up. It has been a great resource for me as well as others.

[CyberArtist]

I'm pretty sure I know how it all happened. He got his art on Blue's News a couple years back. And he kept making more images. They started being shown off everywhere. The counter on his page is a true testiment of how popular his site has become, even with very little art on it. Even before this forum was up, he had thousands of hits.

Hell, I remember when I first saw his site, there were only 4 digits on the counter, and the first digit was 0. Now there's 6 digits, and they're all used.

Not just we community types saw these images, and undoubtably he was approched by other pages (like VRGN) to do stuff for them. From that came more fame... and more requests (hence the art for the gamer mags). As for the job at Valve, Dhabih had done an image of the Half-Life Alien Slave for himself and Gordon Freeman for PC Gamers World. Valve probably saw these images and asked Dhabih for the use of the Gordon image in the game (you'll notice it's used in the load screen). Now, whether Valve sent Dhabih an invitation to send them his resume, or if he found out about an open spot from somewhere else and applied for it himself I don't know.

I do know that my work doing random web work and Unreal/Unreal Tournament levels has gotten me many job offers from people like Human Head (working on Rune), The Collective (working on DS9 and some others), Legend (working on WoT, Unreal2, and some others) for level work, and even Netscape (well, you know what they're working on) for graphic design.

I've been told many times by people in the business. The way in is to A) know someone, B) make yourself well known (get your stuff up on sites), or C) Just apply to every damn job that comes up, send stuff to game magazines, and KEEP sending stuff. Eventually they'll get so fed up with you that they'll do it.


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-CyberA(rtist) aka Ben Golus

Cyber...

[Leo]

In addition to the Ben's words:
if you are unknown artist it will be hard to find good job (freelance included) <- Ha! How original. So as Ben said, make yourself well known - we've some discussion about selfpromotion in the beginning of this board - just jump to archives. And yes, KEEP DRAWING then sending your stuff.
/Leo



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IN ART WE TRUST

[StrangeFate]

Yes, either you work your ass off for some years trying to get known or you compensate that by submitting your work to every companie which is faster
What you simply should deliver is quality and quantity to show off a solid stable talent.

However, covers to concept art are 2 totally different things. For the second, you'll usually have to bring some years of experience in that field with you.
Creating chars and objects from scratch that fit a theme is something usually left for experienced people unless you find a new starting company still building up.
There you often get the chance to jump in in a good position.
New companies are cool to gain experience in any field you're good in.

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http://www.planetquake.com/strangefate
http://www.futurespace.ch/strangefate

[Sumaleth]

http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.4/uc/

Lots of info direct from Mr. Dhabih.

Row.

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Sumaleth
Fountainhead Entertainment|Impact|Loonygames