First Time GDC

Post date: Mar 28, 2014 4:16:9 PM

So it was a fun experience heading to GDC I ended talking to a lot of people but I guess ill tell you some highlights of what happen. Talk to everyone even at places not in GDC you never know who you will sit next to or eat with and some of them might just like you enough to ask for a card.

Day 1 Wednesday 19th

Well my experience at gdc may have been a little different than those who got the main conference pass. I did learn a lot just from getting my portfolio reviewed by people in the industry and talking to other artists in line. Also talking to the various booths that were set up around the expo floor and career center was another opportunity to try to find an internship.

It was nerve wracking at first to go up to people and ask for a portfolio review but never the less I started my day asking Arayark Games to review my portfolio, and I got a decent response that they liked my work. After which we talked about their game there were building and if they did internships, they do but they are based in Taiwan. Who knows I would go to Taiwan to work on mechs. My thoughts of the studio were great but for a portfolio review it wasn’t that great. On to the second company I visited that day was insomniac now the line was long for this company but it allowed me to talk to fellow artists and exchange contact information to learn some tips from each other. After waiting in line for a while I ended up talking to one of the employees and they reviewed my portfolio piece by piece they liked 50% of the portfolio but the other 50 was another matter they went in and told me what I had to do to fix each piece and one even showed me some tips on how to add grudge and dirt onto materials.

Going to the polycount party or bar was great because of two things you get to meet people out of just having fun and or drinking but I ended up meeting some of the original 8 people who started Torn Banner and ended up talking to them for a good hour and half about work, and potential internship in Canada. I since then have emailed him and am contact about the internship.

The second guy was a lead artist in Chicago who just liked my personality and ended up giving me his card and told me to contact him after gdc to get a portfolio reviewed and to see if he could offer me any work. 

Day 2 Thursday 20th

By far the worst day for me at gdc some sort of virus hit me this day and I was sick for most of they day I did drag myself out bed and did a delirious walk to gdc. I didn't talk to many people today and instead decided to look around the area. (For fear of puking on anyone I didn't get to close to potential internships and interviews I learnt some tips and tricks about Ddo and Ndo2 from walking around and listening on the changes they were doing as well as spit painting. However I didn't do much this day because of the virus :(

Day 3 Friday 21st

After recovering from the plague virus I headed to the convention and got in line to get reviewed by obsidian and that went over well. I talked to Layla who told me that I wasn’t ready for a senior position but I should continue to check their website for an internship when one opens to apply after I do a couple of changes to portfolio work. She even went on that I should email her every couple weeks or so on updates to pieces for critiques.

Afterwards I headed to WB and got a portfolio review from them and I got the same notes I got while I was at gdc and that was I like adding too much grudge in certain areas and not enough in other areas.

At this point in time I went around the convention again and talked to all the small booths and found some potential freelance work for an IOS game.

But I ended the day with another review from Sony, which just showed me what I was missing for them and the same notes as before.