Beginning a career path can be a little daunting. Self-doubt creeps in when scrolling through incredible work on Instagram, and you start to question “How will I ever be as good?” I love the saying; “Aim for the moon and you’ll reach the stars” because, although it’s cheesy, it’s so true; the higher your goals, the further you’ll reach.

We’re going to take a look at what fundamental skills you need to get under your belt first, then we’ll run through what you could be doing, other than learning new skills, to help you progress further. To finish we’ll be talking about possible career paths the industry offers.

We’ll cover the following topics.

1. Skill set for a beginner generalist
2. How to successfully achieve your goals
3. The power of feedback
4. Meet people in the industry
5. The career paths you can take

1. Skill set for a beginner generalist

Learning new skills is very important and thanks to all of the tutorials out there, you no longer have to pay a fortune to acquire them. However, investing in your learning is still a good idea, so don’t be afraid to purchase tutorials and if you can afford it, sign up for courses (recommendations below).

When learning CGI I believe that technical and creative skills are both equally important. If you’re great at Houdini, modelling or animating but the final render on your portfolio doesn’t look attractive, then the chances people will scroll through your profile are slimmer.

In the beginning, you’re aiming to be a good generalist; someone a studio can easily integrate into their pipeline of work and who can complete various parts of a project from start to finish. Here’s a quick list of beginner generalist skills:

1. Composition: Books such as “Design for Motion”, take you through some great projects and explain their composition, colour, visual storytelling, etc. There’s a lot to learn from photographers and cinematographers who focus on achieving great compositions. I used to watch tutorials on youtube from The Tomorrow Filmmakers and The Cinema Cartography that take you through examples from cinematography or photography that work well and explain in detail the tricks behind them. 
2. Lighting: Improve your studio lighting, don’t just pop an HDRI in there and be done. Use the HDRI as a starting point to help you with directional shadows, then consider additional quad lights and play around with their size, position, colour/temperature and spread values. It’s also good to learn how lighting is treated in photography so that you can implement similar techniques in CGI. For example, I sometimes try to mimic similar materials that photographers use to bounce the light.
3. Texturing: Get comfortable making your own materials, not just applying ready-made ones. Experiment with abstract materials as well as creating materials like wood that look as realistic as possible (always using a photo as a reference point).
4. Animating (objects & cameras): I recommend taking a course for this as you need to learn about animation principles, which isn’t easy. Personally, I learned how to animate in 3D with a Masters Degree run by Kutuko Studio and later on I took a course that helped me learn more about timing and understanding how motion can support the message of a video. The course was in 2D, but by forgetting about three-dimensionality for a bit I was able to focus more on motion.
5. Compositing: Many studios look for someone who can edit their renders for a better result. Learn how to use cryptomattes and AOVs to isolate certain areas of the image and the edit colour/contrast etc.
6. Train your eye. That sounds weird, I know, but being aware of the best projects around you and using a critical eye will help you understand what you could be doing to improve your own work. So when you see works you admire, don’t simply double tap and scroll on down… take a close look at the details. Why is it such a good piece? Is it the texture? The composition? The lighting? If so, then what is it about the lighting that makes it so special? What are the shadows like? 

Also, remember your renders don’t have to look like a professional designer’s work yet; your aim should be to get as good as you can, with the work you admire as reference points. 

2. How to successfully achieve your goals

I finished my Master’s Degree during lockdown back in 2020, so you can imagine just how daunting it felt to be looking for a job at that time. It took me a good six months. During those tough few months, I paired up with a friend who was in the same situation as me, and we began doing Mastermind Sessions (It was a lifesaver). In these sessions, we would create long and short-term goals, and break them up into weekly targets. So we were both whizzing through personal projects, tutorials, and online courses, and had each other for constant moral support. It made the experience so much easier and not only did I get the job that I wanted but I also ended up with a life-long friend after it, so I fully recommend finding an accountability partner to work through your goals with. 

Knowing how to set goals is crucial. It makes the difference between achieving what you want and just popping the same goals into next year’s list. Here’s an awesome video from Motion Hatch that could help you out with this.

3. How feedback can take you to the next level

During the learning process, I found feedback to be so important – especially if you’re self-taught. What’s the point of creating personal projects to learn if they’re not being corrected? During my first year working in CGI, every personal project I did I used as an opportunity to learn and to get better, so after finishing each piece, I would show it to my work colleagues and ex-teachers to get as much feedback as I could. I learned so much and my skills skyrocketed during that period.

4. Meet people in the industry

Meeting people in the industry can be fun and it’s very common for word of mouth to be the way you get your first, second and third job. A way to meet people in the industry is to sign up to as many events as you can. I signed up to an online portfolio review with Found and through that I was offered a position with them. 

Other than connecting with people online, it’s also great if you can go to as many in-person events as you can, such as the Nicer Tuesdays talks or design festivals like OFFF and Forward Festival. Instagram Is the modern-day business card: when you meet people who work in the CGI and animation industry, it takes about a second for someone to whip out their phone and ask for your work account. So start uploading your work! I used to worry a lot about consistency when uploading but the most important thing is to have a portfolio of work to show.

5. Which career paths can you take?

The first path you can take is working for companies, agencies or studios. If you don’t get your dream position, try to gain some experience working in 3D first. Continue to work on those personal projects while reaching out to studios and people in the industry.  

However, if you’ve been training and learning for about a year and sending your portfolio to studios you might decide to go straight into the freelance world. Since I haven’t freelanced myself, I asked some friends how they got started; they’ve never worked full-time at a studio but are now freelancing for some globally renowned studios. 

“At the start, even though it seemed very intimidating, I used to take on as many jobs as I could, even if I wasn’t sure if I could tackle them. It wasn’t the end of the world when they didn’t go too well because I was charging quite a low day rate to start. My clients mainly came from Instagram or Slack posts of people looking for help on projects”

“I think knowing people is very important; before I started freelancing I was already in contact with people from the industry. It’s very common to recommend freelancer friends when you’re busy with another project.”

After nailing down the basics for the first year or two you can consider more specialist careers paths like concepting, idea generation, storyboarding, compositing, lighting, modelling or rigging. Some people specialise to become Art Directors whilst others go into more technical roles such as Lead Designer or Houdini Artists. There’s no right or wrong way to get started. The beginning of every career has a steep learning curve, so simply continue learning and sharing your work.

We hope this article is helpful to those of you who are starting out in the industry. Don’t hesitate to reach out to Andrea at
andrea@found-studio.com if you have any questions.

All imagery by Andrea Marshall.