Posted on: 7 Jun 22

Story Juice's Environment Artist Max shares his 5 tips to kickstart your career in games

Max is a 3D environment artist at Story Juice working on our three current games and able to switch between vastly different art styles with ease. He's been 3D modelling for 13 years, has a BA and MA from Escape Studios in The Art of Videogames, art directs our projects and keeps us entertained with his dry wit and brevity.

Here he shares his 5 tips to kickstart your career in games:

1. Meet and make friends with people in the industry

Talk to people at events and meet ups that are centred around game development or message and connect to developers on LinkedIn.

2. Attend game jams

A game jam is an event where you work in a team to create a game from scratch, typically under a narrow deadline. It acts as a good challenge for any game developer/artist and is a perfect alternative to the studio experience recruiters are looking for.

Some examples of Max's 3D models in our AR game, The Glass Ceiling Games

3. Build up a strong portfolio

Give yourself a few months to research and work on a few personal projects. With just a click of a button, there are an abundance of online resources and people who can help you with anything. With platforms like YouTube, Twitch and Discord, you can always get help with any problem directly from the community. Thanks to free software like Blender and Unreal Engine, you can create a strong portfolio without spending a dime on the tools needed to make it happen.

4. Join a games course

A game art course will teach all the essentials and connect you with like-minded people.

An example of Max's environment art skills

5. Play and research games

Find a game that inspires you and look into how they made it. You'd be surprised by how much you can learn just by having a closer look at the environment or mechanics while playing a game.

Max's Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/max...

You can support our Kickstarter for The Glass Ceiling Games here!

Read another advice blog on breaking into the games industry from 3D artist Nethi here!

Enter our competition to win £50 and see your art featured in the game here!

And go behind-the-scenes of our art process on Glass Ceiling Games here!