As a character artist.
To put it simply, I put two of my greatest passions together- gaming and art- and have been putting some serious thought into it. I thought my mind was set, but here, on the edge of high school and going into college I'm having some doubts.
Now, whether or not I'll make it in is something that I'm trying not to think about right now, as right now pay is on my mind.
First off, a school... ok it was Full Sail gave all applicants a warning "do not enter the entertainment industry if you expect to live an easy life style". This I was expecting. What I was not expecting was for the Ai of Pittsburgh to hand me a packet stating that I should expect to earn 26k/year to start. That scared both me and my parents. And so it gets worse.
Looking on the internet gave my a breath of releif, as most sites stated that I should look for a 45k/year out of college. The only problem with that is with the location of many of the industry jobs, living on 45k/year is difficult (Washington, NY, Tx, CA).
So, here I am flood, refusing to talk to my parents(as they would take the chance to stick me in a school for a mechanical engineering degree) wondering if anyone can help cool my nerves, and perhaps someone in the industry could help give me some advice regarding how they got though being the new guy in the industry (along with the 100k other new guys in the industry)
[Edited on 10.09.2012 4:24 PM PDT]
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[url=http://extra-credits.net/episodes/on-game-schools/]This might help you on the subject of schools.[/url] Anyway, my advice? You might want to break into more than just the gaming industry. As an artist, you might find it handy to do projects for various forms of media, unless you get hired by a studio full time.