At GameCity Squared, we caught up with Bizarre Creations’ communications manager, Ben Ward, to talk art clinics, essential tips for aspiring artists and how he got his start in the games industry.
What is it that Bizarre Creations enjoys about coming to GameCity?
Ben Ward: We’ve been coming to GameCity for four years now. I think it’s a really good festival. It brings developers, students and the public together, all in the right place. And it’s a really laid-back, casual atmosphere. It’s probably one of the best chances for aspiring arts and coders to meet developers face-to-face, [and ask,] “so what do I need to do to get into the industry?”
It’s different when you’re not at festivals, because you submit CVs. You might get pushed back, you don’t know why. You might not get the advice that you need or the help that you need to improve your work. So, that’s why we’re here. If we can see maybe 200 people in a day, then that’s 200 CVs that we don’t need to send back and say the same thing to all the time.
This is an art clinic we’re running today. So, I think it will be good for concept artists, environment artists, car designers, all these budding creatives to just get an idea of how to submit their portfolio. How to submit three-quarter length shots instead of side-on shots and things like that. Things that we take for granted, but the rest of the world don’t really know about. So it’s just sort of sharing some of the basic knowledge that helps people get into the industry and helps them start their career.
Who’s here running the art clinic with you?
BW: We have two of our senior artists down here, Beverley Bright and Dominic Giles – they run one of our unannounced projects at the moment [and] they’re both team leads [managing] a team of artists. They’re responsible for reviewing CVs [and] looking through portfolios. They’ve both been doing the job for a very, very long time [at] multi studios, so they’re very qualified to know exactly what to look for. And they’ve gone through it themselves multiple times, anyway.
So, they know how to submit work, how to make your models just right, so that they’ll be looked at favourably by potential employers. It’s stuff that if we take a day and we spend that time working with these guys, then hopefully that might inspire 100 people to get into the industry, and help the UK games industry do better, which is something that everyone needs at the [moment].
Did you have difficulty choosing your career when you were a student?
BW: Me personally, not at all. I was always into game development. That was always what I was going to do. It was just a question of when, rather than if.
How did you get your start in the industry?
BW: I was in QA – so, testing first of all. Then I went to university, then I did a bit more testing, then I actually got my break as a web developer. So, I submitted a demo, it was pushed back. But Bizarre at the time, instead of just saying, “no, this is not good enough,” they said, “this isn’t good enough, because…” So, I stayed up all night, redid the whole demo, sent it back in the morning and said, “there you go. What do you think of that?” [They thought it was much better] and invited me for an interview. So, it was that extra effort that Bizarre Creations went to that got me the job really.
Giving students advice they can act on…
BW: Yeah, it’s essential. You know, you can only learn so much through academic work really. You can learn the basics, but all the little things [come from experience]. A good one that I keep being told about is a lot of [upcoming] character modellers submit animated movies of a camera orbiting around [their] models. You’d think that would be a good way to submit, right, because you can see all the angles.
But our guys actually need to see, maybe eight shots from different angles – really high quality, high detail shots, with no compression, no art effects – to see exactly what [they’ve] done with the model, to see exactly how things fit together. A movie is no good for us. So, it is simple things like that. Simple, obvious advice that we can just get across and it will save everyone’s time and it will make everyone’s portfolio much more impressive when they do apply.
Why should students make the effort to come down to the next Bizarre Creations’ art clinic?
BW: If you’re interested in art at all and you want to get into the games industry, or any other creative technology industry, I think the advice that we can give is really, really important. It will help you break in. Once you’ve got your foot in the door, then you’ll learn so much, so quickly, that you’ll wish you had known this forever.
Check out Bizarre Creations for more the studio’s upcoming racer, Blur.
Aaron Lee
Tags: art, ben ward, bizarre creations, gamecity
