How About Working Remotely As A Game Artists?


working remotely as a concept artists or game artists

Hello!

My name’s Matteo Lolli, I work as a comic book artist for Marvel.
I was alway a passionate game user and I was always intrigued by game art and character design in general.

Today I stumbled across your website, it is GREAT and I’m planning to spend a lot of time here! :)

I’d have a question about character and concept design for game and movie industries, maybe you already touched this topic but I couldn’t find it here, my apologies if I am wrong.

As a comic book artist I work from here (Italy) for the United States comic industry. I was wondering if the same happens in game and movie concept arts, because whenever I read about job opportunities in game industry it seems like it’s always required to move there to work in their studios.

Thank you and keep up the great job!
Matteo

Hey, Matteo,…

Thanks for the kind words. Glad to see you get something out of it.

To your question: Yes, it happens that people work with artists remotely. But it really depends on the company and what they are looking for.

In general when it comes to concept art in games or production design art in film, it’s popular to have the artists on site. The concept phase benefits from really short feedback loops – so working remotely drags down the conversation speed a lot. Also, since it’s about developing ideas, person to person communication, the ability to pitch your ideas along with your art in meetings is super helpful. Working remotely removes this pitch aspect of development almost completely, because files get sent around instead of people personally presenting their work.

This doesn’t mean remote concept art is not a thing. It’s just more complicated to do.

Where remote work is usually more popular than having artists on site, is when it comes to illustration and the production of actual game assets and promotional artwork. In this phase most creative decisions have already been made and it’s more about putting in the working hours to make stuff shine. Feedback loops are longer and artists take more time for their deliverables. Many companies then often prefer to work with artists/studios who have their own facilities and just send in the results on time. Otherwise the companies would need to provide working facilities for these artists, even though they just need to check up on them from time to time, not during the whole week – which is unnecessarily expensive.

So, if you position yourself as a game artists with a focus on illustration (box art, trading cards, character illustration etc.) or you also do animation, you are more likely to be able to find remote freelance job opportunities. If you make concept art your focus, it might be more likely that companies want to have you on site.

No rules and borders. Just likelihoods here.

Hope that helps, cheers.

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