How to Become a Character Artist for Film & Games

[@alytlebird]

I'd recommend everyone to learn Marvelous Designer, honestly. Even if you're not a Character Artist but an Environment Artist, it's still hugely helpful. I'm working on a scene right now with bedsheets and a hammock and pillows, and Marvelous has been essential to making them look right. Even Technical Artists would do well to learn Marvelous, as it has Alembic support.

[@GeniusArts]

No, i dont support companies, who force you to a subscription modell. Not everyone needs the absolut newest version and also, the updates get starting rudimentary in an only subsciption-model. Same principle with Adobe Photoshop. Who needs the neewest version? You can even work with a Photoshop perfect from a version 2017. I hope, that in future other cloth software will arise.

[@d.sanchez7687]

I'm an Environment Artist and still it helps me a loot to! it does wonders for our Environmental art, makes it easier and more beliable, I really appreciate any improvement on the final result like the Marvelous do for us

[@shamanik1320]

Good advice, but it would be nice to watch a sculpting video while listening to sculpting advice instead of a random photoshop project.

[@khokh699]

Fun fact: for most companies the first week of making a character is finding good reference, you should always look at reference all the time

[@Blacksheep3DLabs]

I was really confused about my personal projects , like what to focus on and what not, you guys have solved that for me in this video, thanks a lot.

[@EriscapE]

I really enjoy listening to your talk while working on my character

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you! That's awesome to hear :D

[@aaronpettigrew9674]

Even though I'm a real amateur because I only get to play around once in a while, I have tried several others. Zbrush is by far the most natural feeling for sculpting.

[@EvilGreenHat]

How you can say that Zbrush is terribly designed? The last year they even added an actual usefull gizmo, You know, the one that every 3D program already had since the stone age, such improvement. I am obviously sarcastic but my english skills are so low that I have to specify.

[@philmehrart]

Agreed, it's said to have a steep learning curve but I found it pretty easy to pick up. I think people look at it like it has a lot of complexity because it has a very different UI to Max, Maya, etc.

[@kandysman86]

Phil Mehr I'm 35 and new to 3d, and havnt used a PC besides my phone since 2010, and zbrush was very easy for me to learn. But like I said, other than blender, which I've started learning this past month, I've never used a 3d tool. I've looked at it like Blender is a 3d program, and zbrush is an add on tech specifically for sculpting. That has helped me a lot actually.

[@cristiancarranza6303]

I hope to live to see the day they add multiple cameras

[@BoELoot]

Zbrush is awesome but it's the least intuitive, most difficult program I've ever learned BECAUSE of how badly designed the interface is.

[@LuisSantanderArt]

Zbrush is designed as if it was the first ever application tasked with 3d navigation and manipulation of models, like no industry standards existed already. That's why it feels so alien.

[@Demigodish4o3]

Instructions unclear. Watched anime all day. :(

[@joeysnow9586]

Thank you both, if I could hug guys I would. Zbrush is super temperamental with me and I cannot thank you enough for making a tutorial!

[@Gessela]

Marvelous is most intuitive program I've come across.

[@literallybotticelli32]

The icon has been staring at me for two weeks now. Aching to kick it open and dig into the tutorials, just not at that stage of the project yet. Cheated a bit today though, watched part of the FNs Marvelous video with the real time cloth physics at work... Mistake. It was a mistake. “I mean, it’s only a little bit of crack. What’s the worst that can happen?” 😀😁😂😳😵💀

[@nana-sj6wu]

I'm from a sanctioned country. I like your videos. I'm new to this industry . I'm learning character designing and i really like it . But I sometimes fear that even i if learn it well, I can't find a job

[@elpidakyriakou1722]

Very useful video just as expected from FlippedNormals! Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge

[@FlippedNormals]

Youre the best, thanks Elpida! /H

[@chaztrammell123]

Thank you gentlemen, this was a much needed resource

[@Fullmetalseagul]

Great video guys, I agree with the substance painter part. I just got into 3D about two years ago so I never knew what life was like for texture artists before substance. I do have a tendency to just throw smart materials on my meshes and tweak them a bit. I wish I knew more about proper texturing.

[@jayjayjaythebrand]

Where can I download Flender and Flinema Floor D?

[@edwinter4816]

Yay! Friday video. Thanks guys

[@FlippedNormals]

(It's Thursday today :D ) You're welcome!

[@edwinter4816]

Yaay real Friday video! That Flender is such a nice tool btw ;) just saying

[@eXecutex]

Good job on making these videos guys. I hope other fellas that are new in the industry will learn from this. Because back in the days there wasn't anyone to tell us and show us what's good and bad. It was exhausting. Watching these kind of hits me in the head and thinking there should be more and more like these. Have you ever considered making a discord server for anyone to join and share their work and such ? Or slack. Would be a great addition to the community.

[@FlippedNormals]

Hey, thanks a lot! We really appreciate it :) We actually have a discord server. Feel free to join! discord.gg/uXtDUqs

[@jahindraws]

very informative video. loved it. looking forward to more

[@FlippedNormals]

Cheers! Appreciate it.

[@roboboy772]

Great video, having Trouble liking the video more than once

[@mdrafiqurahman1634]

Thanks boy's! Keep up good work.

[@shivangipriya4153]

I need to know the above is backround for film ok , how we will put the character how we make the character like cartoon ?? any video or link please ?

[@MrChristopher2413]

Is it weird that your podcasts work better than coffee? btw FLENDER NUMBA WAN

[@MichallisPashidis]

Thank you for the great information on the production flow. This helps a lot in pointing out how to work from A to Z. I have a question, when your model is made in order for it to be printed in a specific pose at the end. Posing will be done on the low/retopo model in Maya or Max. To have all the details back (in order to print) do I need a displacement kind of step in my flow (based on the displacement map exported from Zbrush) ? Or is this done differently in a professional workflow?

[@jkleo203]

It would be really helpful for a lot of people if you guys make a video solely about how a ZBrush artist can get into the gaming/film industry and what all additional softwares they need to learn. What else they need to learn other than sculpting, like re-topology etc. How to have a proper workflow that won't cause a problem for people who they are working with and lots of other stuff. We ZBrush cowboys really need some guidance to become better artists.

[@helios4753]

People in my class only ever talk about how great blender is and how good substance painter is. But they are completely missing the point of what our lecturer is trying to show us. We arent using blender because studios don't, but I also dont get what the big debate is, all the software takes you to the same place and like you said with substance all they do is drop and drag smart materials. It's annoying. Then our lecturer says it's a clip art tool and they again miss the point. The point being people just drag and drop instead of putting in the time.

[@wojt3d415]

thanks! great one!

[@minhaj_khan]

It's very easy to listen to you guys even though these talks are so long :O Thanks for doing these, and gorgeous environment painting!!

[@freccialata]

Very useful, particularly the part about getting reference from nature (also mentioned in other of your videos). There is a design process called biomimicry that has a quote I really like: the earth has existed for more than 3 billion years, and that's a lot of time for research and developement.

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks! That's a really great quote. You cant beat nature :)

[@shunnie8482]

Can you make a video about actually how to practice? Most of the time I open Zbrush and blankly sculpt something I already know.

[@Veritanky]

Get out of comfort zone. Open other artists works and see hard parts. Study those parts, or sculpt yourself. If you dont know how- look for tutorials. Dont stay in comfort zone

[@Fullmetalseagul]

Go on pinterest and scroll through thousands of concept art sketches and just pick something simple, then work your way up to more complicated stuff .

[@Radicalshikami]

I will try this guy practice style, one sculpt per day www.artstation.com/artwork/X52L3

[@markkuykendall1751]

I'm a game guy and I don't even care that you two bloody vikings are not. You absolutely rock!

[@FlippedNormals]

Haha! Thanks a ton, Mark.

[@Strubey]

Great video! Would loooove to hear you guys go more in depth with texturing and lookdev as well!

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks! We'll definitely do this in the future. We'd love to talk about it :D

[@deeplearningdeeplearning4504]

How about Zbrush 2021 cloth vs marvelous design?

[@bigtime9597]

Interestingly enough, even though I love Substance Painter for what I do, I've found it so difficult for me to rely on Smart Materials along because I've quickly realized that they're hardly ever going to yield the results that I'm looking for, so I've started to go in and add details in myself whenever it's called for.

[@FlippedNormals]

Exactly, what's what we're talking about. It's a bad habit to rely on smart materials.

[@makentoarts986]

Awesome!

[@Gabriel-kl6bt]

I am a newbie to the 3D world and there are so many things to learn I get lost, but I am starting on the modeling poly by poly to learn the proper topology and the flow. Is that alright to start with? After that or in parallel with it I will get into ZBrush to learn and become accustomed to sculpting. I've purchased a course at Udemy of human anatomy by Victory3D.

[@artistrymindsstudios2531]

It's been a year since you're comment, how's your journey going?

[@talesdarocha]

Hey guys, I really love your work with this channel, and most of the time I listen it as a podcast. I'm wondering if you guys plan to bring your awesome channel to Spotify? Cheers

[@FlippedNormals]

We are actually working on this as we speak! :) We'll have an announcement out soon.

[@m4r_art]

hey 3dcoat is a pretty solid middleground for polypainting/smart materials... also concepting/ scraping hard surface forms is really nice in it too. it's more of a shadowbox dimension than a reductive brushes approach from primitives. ofc topo isnt intuitive but retopo is faster than maya

[@FlippedNormals]

3D coat is fantastic :) It's a really useful tool in anyones toolbag.

[@sasho3d]

thanks! have you guys considered having these as podcasts like for spotify? would love to listen to your material on my train to work :D

[@birruexdi2354]

Could you do an interview with an enviroment artist?

[@FlippedNormals]

We're trying to plan one with a very talented env artist :)

[@emanuelperono1562]

Flender XD good one guysXD Awesome vid and topic! Keep it up!

[@FlippedNormals]

F L E N D E R! Thanks a ton :D

[@poseidon689]

A question, a bit out of theme, but you might be able to shine some light on me. Ive been researching and want to do a Master in Baden-Wurtemberg, in order to do it, well i need a place to work in to pay for my expenses, the question in hand come in, ¿hows the animation industry in germany? Is there a city in special thats known for 3d?

[@mdrafiqurahman1634]

If you are not a netive German don't have enough money to support your study maybe this not the best idea, there is much of a work opportunity out there in Germany for international students, where are you originally from?

[@poseidon689]

Im Mexican, but i got the german nationality from my mother, so from what ive been told, i would be treated just like a native one

[@mdrafiqurahman1634]

Leo DMH you should be fine then, good luck on that 👍

[@ourochroma]

Is that a scene painting from Klaus?!?! Fuck Yes!!

[@WeThePuppets]

Hey guys, I really love listening to your videos and all the knowledge you drop, but I have to admit that I feel like I'm starting to hear the same info over and over. I hope that in future vids we get more specific case examples. Because if I took a shot everytime I heard "Don't be a zbrush cowboy" I would (definitely) be an alcoholic. (Don't worry, I don't think I heard that phrase in this video). Love the content, cheers.

[@FlippedNormals]

Hey! Thanks a lot. It's pretty tricky to avoid not overlapping with other videos, as so many topics are similar, but they require different videos. For instance, we have other videos where we talk about being a modeller, but we dont specifically talk about how to become a character artist. Thanks for the comment though - Will keep this in mind! /ZBrush Cowbow Henning

[@WeThePuppets]

No worries, I mean I'll still listen ;). Like in the case where you guys talked about ONLY doing creature design/modeling, it might have been interesting to hear your own personal story of what you practiced, what you referenced, and how you got that specific job in the first place. Plus, some techniques you picked up along the way, even if these sorts of videos are more general. Sure, it wouldn't be a blanket way for everyone to get in the industry, but it worked for you (apparently). I know you both are complete badasses, so your personal zero to hero journey might be an interesting vid to cover in the future. I'm more of a zbrush cow than a cowboy, because I suck at it (for now). Keep making the sweet, sweet vids!

[@Stillenacht3D]

People I've worked with for years tell me the same thing about Zbrush having a problematic interface but I've never had issues with it myself. Maybe it's because as I was teaching myself Maya I was teaching myself Zbrush at the same time so it never felt weird to me. I do agree that Zbrush can be impractical in a production pipeline. Here where I work we actually use Mudbox for the actual map extraction as it's more reliable.

[@macilvoy]

BLENDEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@FlippedNormals]

FLEEEENDER

[@shamanik1320]

Yeah, Blender is great especially being free, and having sculpting and if you want to indie dev just use Blender. Zbrush is better but that giant pricetag keeps me from using it and I don't want a less than full featured product. Someday I'll get it. But when it comes to modeling, I don't see any reason to use Maya or 3dsmax over Blender besides if a studio were to require you to. I'm working on being a indie dev but did find a local game company around me (I live in BFE NE Ohio so that surprised me) but they were fine with me modeling with Blender but there aren't open positions yet. Autodesk really pisses me off, as does Nvidia. Someone made a hairworks Physx exporter for Blender and it wasnt illegal but Nvidia threatened him to stop work and take it down. Luckily it's still accessible, someone mirrored it (and if anyone wants to know where to get the addon, let me know but a simple 5 minutes should find the mirror, unfortunately it was only version .1) but it's funny how threatened of Blender Autodesk is. It's obvious to me (I am assuming though) but I imagine Autodesk pays Nvidia to only support their products to keep them relevant. I am going to purchase Substance painter, then Marvelous Designer (but I do have the purchased cloth weaver addon for Blender till then), then Zbrush.

[@Stephen-T-Clark]

So, I don't want to be that guy who is blender or bust, but I am not a student, and I KNOW blender. I know I could with a bit of time learn Maya, but for the sake of being a character artist, do I need to make the switch to even be hire-able? I am not working in the industry, but I want to work in characters for stylized animation such as Dreamworks, Disney, etc... Is it going to sink my chances if I am using what I know? Looking for an honest answer. I don't need/want to be placated.

[@FlippedNormals]

Hey! You technically don't have to know Maya, but it will help you a lot. Imagine you have two candidates who are equal in every way, except that one needs to spend 3 months in order to learn Maya, while the other guy you can throw into production right away. I've seen it before where people get hired without knowing Maya, but if you're applying for a character art position, you already have the odds stacked against you, and you should do everything you can to make it easier to hire you.

[@Stephen-T-Clark]

FlippedNormals Okay. So a working knowledge of Maya keeps it a level playing field, but I don't need to be an expert in it, just knowledgeable enough to be dangerous. Am I understanding that correctly?

[@FlippedNormals]

Yes! :)

[@TragickHipHop]

Hello, thanks for this video! I have a few questions Isn't a character artist and 3D artist 2 different job positions? Can you be a 2D character artist only or do you have to be a 3D character artist to work in the industry? Thanks in advance, coming from someone who specializes in 2D art and is interested in being a character artist for games & movies

[@Movman82]

If you're already full into 2D, you'd want to go for concept artist. If you want to be even more hire-able, you'd want to be amazing at 2d concepts, then start learning basic 3d.

[@danicajovanovic2409]

Zbrush is the best sculpting software, but with a nightmare of an UI when you're first starting to learn it.

[@FlippedNormals]

We totally agree. It's also really hard to teach

[@danicajovanovic2409]

@@FlippedNormals I know, I've just gone through an online course, turns out when you don't practise it for 7 days, you're back at least a thousand steps. But never the less, your channel is such big help, keep it up!

[@IvanStavreski]

Good stuff

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you Ivan!

[@justVontadeh]

Flender lmao

[@DJolympusMons]

Great convo

[@OmegaF77]

But FlippedNormals, what about *[REDACTED]* ?

[@Haroon3D]

mari and Substance are alternative of each others?? Mari can do everything that substance can do ??? or Mari is just a Painting Soft?

[@FlippedNormals]

They have overlapping areas, but where each has a main specialty: Mari: Hard core texturing with crazy performance Painter: Super fast, but cant handle as much data as Mari.

[@Haroon3D]

please do a compression video b/w them :) Appreciated

[@crimsonBen]

if you mean "comparison" than: yes, that would be so good!

[@mahaburkazi6591]

Can I take character artist as my career?

[@FlippedNormals]

You can, there's a lot of competition. But it is possible :)

[@Blacksheep3DLabs]

Is zbrush ok for texturing ?

[@bronietroll]

kulbir kaur use mari

[@Blacksheep3DLabs]

okk thanks, I have to learn it first , before this i used to do it in maya .

[@FlippedNormals]

ZBrush is OK to get a base down, but we recommend Mari or Substance Painter for the main texturing.

[@Blacksheep3DLabs]

THank you :)

[@TheDudefrom1987-b1i]

I think that Zbrush UI is bad when just start, but if you start getting the layout of zbrush I think it perfect and it feels like your flowing through the UI.

[@josh-ed7je]

l I love the power of Mari but they really should learn from Substance and add the material workflow into Mari. Its not like they have to rewrite the whole software over to add it in since its already possible to do in Mari, its just a huge chore and hassle for the consumers to do every project. At this rate Substance will overtake Mari even in the film business. Its 1.) Cheaper 2.) Easy to learn, which also means more resources online for learning and 3.) Updates frequently with updates that continually improve the quality of life for artist.

[@BoELoot]

Why are you editing an illustration of a house in Photoshop for a video about how to get a job as a character artist?

[@FlippedNormals]

Needed something in the background :)

[@fael097]

C brush!

[@scott_3336]

I love the stuff you are doing, except that you guys dislike Flender

[@ventanalila8185]

"For SurE"

[@theunraveler]

*angry Blender noise!*

[@rixhhh2392]

I heard Flender is free

[@squary101]

B. Lender MEMES

[@VicVegaTW]

Flinema flour d hahaha

[@owenrichards1418]

Flender? Wait, reference is cheating???? WUUUUUUUUUT?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@fractalelement857]

Highly disagree with this "zbrush interface is terrible designed".

[@joey9569]

So, character tips, with environment background painting.... NOPE! ridiculous sorry .

[@FlippedNormals]

Hey, we had to put something there. Consider it a bonus.

[@wmmatthew83]

I can't stand z brush over priced I can do everything in blender or nomad app that I could do in z brush

[@dmitryhuskov]

The video is outdated in terms of blender. It's become way more powerful since 2018, so as far as I know some people do use it as their main 3D software instead of Maya/3dsMAX, nevertheless they prefer zbrush as a main sculpting tool. However even sculpting in blender has improved drastically.