I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the San Francisco Game Developer's Conference earlier this week for free – my bud Chris lent me his pass. I was able to show my concept art portfolio to a lot of recruiters from a lot of companies and some were more humbling than others. Some gave me contradictory opinions; the woman from Lucasarts wanted to see more vibrant colors, while another studio commented favorably towards my tendency to use earth tones. Nonetheless I came away with two important tips. One: show your work. This has been told to me before, but I still need a kick in the head sometimes. Include sketches that show how you arrived at your final piece. Some places want to see full front/back/profiles of characters too. Second: the key word is concept, not illustration. The Lucasarts lady liked to see work that was loose and fast but expressed a clear and striking concept. The work of Erik Tiemens and Ryan Church is a case in point; the way they can paint a stunning picture and yet never stray too far into details is incredible and really helps the composition. To this end I'm trying to beef up my portfolio again before more submissions.These can be seen better at my website www.nathanheigert.com in the concept art section.
