Redefining Your Portfolio: Tips and Tools to Pursue Your Dream Job!

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm April Borchelt and I'm an artist working in games, animation and finer illustration. My background training began with finer, but after I began to pursue professional career in art, I realized that I needed much more than what I had in order to make my dreams reality. I really wanted to work for animation and I came to find that the art that I had in college wasn't relevant to the field anymore. My portfolio was great for a fine artist. But as far as me trying to get an animation career, my fine art just wasn't going to get me there. This is where I began to discover the tips I'm going to share with you class. The steps include breaking down with the exact job I wanted was like, reaching out to professionals in the field for feedback and completely reconstructing my portfolio. After I use the steps I'm going to share with you in this class, I was able to not only achieve my career goals in animation, but I was able to build my art career and expanded into multiple art industries. With just my fine art training, I've been able to work for the award-winning SpongeBob SquarePants show as a freelance background painter, as well as work in-house at Hi-Rez Studios on politics and smite. Run my own company as a freelance artist for board games and illustrations, but also keep up with my fine art roots and continue to paint. We'll be going through worksheets that I curate for each video to make it as simple as following a treasure map. By the end, you'll have broken down the steps it takes to pursue your dream job effectively, by being specific and curating portfolio that helps achieve those goals. The best part is that you can use these tools again and again and again. This course is for the artist who wants to pursue an artistic career, but just doesn't know how to get there or where to start. My course will help you do that, it's going to help you refine your portfolio to really hone in on that job that you're looking for as well as learning tips and tricks on how to really effectively pursue that job that you're looking for. I recommend starting this course with a portfolio but if you don't, that's totally fine because knowing these tips and tricks are going to be wonderful things to know and have in your back pocket when you're ready to pursue that dream job. I can't wait to bring this class to you and I hope this brings you to the next level to reach your dreams. 2. Class Project: First, welcome to my class I am so excited to have you join me on this journey together. I know going after an artistic career can be really daunting, but my hope is that by the end of this class, it will just be a little bit easier for you. When going after my dream job, it took me quite a while to figure out what I needed to do in order to make that dream a reality. I took so many notes, I filled books full of interviews, mentorships, conventions, portfolio reviews, all in these notebooks. And now I've taken all the information that I found the most useful and helpful to me into the worksheets that will be going through together. I found writing down goals and information helps things fill just a little more tangible and that you're just going to get that much closer to your goal. If you haven't already go ahead and go to the resource tab of our class, download and then print the worksheets that will be going through together. By the end of the workbook, my hope is that you'll find your treasure. I created this last page for you to use as a reminder of what you're going after and as inspiration. My hope is that you guys will be able to print these off or even colored them digitally, and then share them with your classmates. The only other materials you'll need for this class is your portfolio if you have it, and a pen and pencil. Grab your treasure map and get those pens, pencils, highlighters, and let's dive in. 3. Let's Get Specific!: In my experience, to get the specific job you're looking for, whether it be a long term career or a freelance gig, it helps to get specific. When I was first starting out, all I really knew of art careers was that you could either be an art teacher or you could be a really well known fine artist. By my senior year in art school, I realized I didn't want to follow either of those paths. I was like, "Okay, I'm going to go after my passion, which was animation." Sadly, with just a Fine Art degree, I didn't really know how to pursue that dream. I had to start from scratch. I thought I wanted to be a storyboard artist but the further I did research and looking into it, I realized that wasn't what I actually really wanted to do or what I was even skilled at. When I showed people in the animation field my work and I was like, "I want to work for animation, " the next question that they asked me was, "Well, what do you want to do in animation?" I know a lot of you watching probably already know the answer to that question but for me at the time, I didn't even know that there was multiple levels in animation. The first thing I did was answer that question and figure out exactly what I wanted to do. This kind of helped me begin the process of curating my portfolio towards the goal I was looking for. For me I started out by looking into animation careers and just the different levels within that, that also fit the skills I already had. I knew that I really enjoyed doing full art, full color illustrations, as well as me being strong in color and light. My weakness, I would say would be concepting and line work, which is ironic because that's pretty much what storyboarding is and that's what I thought I wanted to do. After I did some research, I found that visual development for movie production and then background painting for TV animation really fit me the best and also use the skills I already had. The first lesson we'll be filling out as less than one within our worksheets, which is a little bit longer than the other ones but don't worry, it's worth it. Here we're going to be diving into figuring out your specific career goal that goes along with your strengths. In that first part, you'll be filling out what your artistic strengths are as well as what you enjoy. Then you'll be doing the opposite. But don't worry, this is going to help you eliminate what might not be a good fit for you. Then using the resource section of our class, go ahead and start checking out the links that I provided to do a deep dive on the different careers out there. If you don't see what you're looking for, try using the search words, 'Jobs that require (x),' to expand more on the passion that you're looking for. For me, it was amazing and encouraging to find that there was so many art careers out there. I just had to find the one that fit me. I hope that this will help you narrow down what you're looking for too. Now let's get specific. 4. Who's Hiring?: Now that you've narrowed down what you're going after, let's start finding specific companies or projects that you want to be working for. I found this incredibly helpful when pursuing my career, because every company is so different. When I was pursuing background painting as a career, I found very quickly that even though I could paint really realistic landscapes, textures, that didn't mean that my style would fit every style of a company. For instance, SpongeBob SquarePants uses a very painterly style with actual acrylic paint whereas Steven Universe is very geometric and digital. When I applied for the SpongeBob career, I knew that I already had the skills with paint and I had examples in my portfolio that fit their style already. Same with video game companies, where I knew that I cannot work for a horror game company because not only would it scare me to come into the office, but none of my art showed that I could do horror game stuff. It already leaned towards more of the happy side of things, and so I started looking into video game companies that fit my style as well as their style as what I already knew how to do. Another thing to keep in mind when you're looking for a company or project is whether or not you'd like to work inside of a studio, or be an independent artist, or a freelancer, because all those will come into play on what you end up pursuing. For an office space, you're working well with people, and thriving off of a group environment, and probably willing to do whatever it takes to be a part of the team. For freelancer, you work well at being your own boss, but have the ability to communicate well with others. You're prompt, and on time on projects, and can work remotely. For an individual artist, you're great at working for yourself with no clients at all. You sell directly to the individuals. You're your own marketing agent as well. This particular one is a lot tougher to achieve, but it's definitely worth it in the end, it just might be a much longer road to get there. In this next section of the worksheet, we'll be looking into two companies that you see yourself working for. This will help you narrow down the genre and style that the company or the project might be looking for and the career that you're pursuing. Use the links provided in the resource section of the class to help you find companies and projects in your field. I'm sure all of these companies would be more than happy to have you on their team. Let's see, who's hiring? 5. Finding Artistic Reference: As an artist, something that was really important from the beginning was the portfolio. When I was pursuing my career in animation, I looked at a lot of portfolios of other people's stuff, especially professionals that already had the job that I wanted. By looking at these professionals portfolios, I was able to start to mold my portfolio to emulate what they had used to get their job. Someone once told me that in order to get the job in the industry, you need to match with the people who already have the job do, but do it better. I know it sounds intimidating, but it is well worth it because by the end, you'll be showing that you have the chops it takes in order to do what the company is already asking for, especially having artwork that's already to the level. Or at least very close to what people are already doing in house, means that you have a much higher chance of getting hired because the company already knows what they're going to expect from you. In this next section we'll be narrowing down our search even further by using the two companies you just found, in finding professionals within those companies and write down observations of their portfolio. Try to answer these questions like, what kind of work do they show? What other companies have they worked for? Or do they have anything similar to what you already have? Though I wouldn't recommend copying those portfolios by any means, definitely use a mass-spring boards just to understand what these companies are looking for or what it took to get there. If you are looking for more of a freelance project based kind of thing like illustrations for book covers, I would recommend looking for projects that you really enjoy. Then finding artists or people who have already done those projects and looking at their work. Finding this artistic reference, will help you apply all this knowledge to your own portfolio to help you get even closer to your dream job. 6. Portfolio Treasure Hunt: Now that you've checked out what other professionals have done with their portfolio, it's time to get your portfolio to reflect that same kind of professionalism. When I was showing my portfolio to other professionals right out of college, I felt like I had to show everything. Then I had to show all of the skills that I had learned in order to get the job. But that wasn't necessarily the case. I learned very quickly that I actually need to narrow down exactly what I wanted to show them so that way they knew exactly what they were getting. My first portfolio, as you can see, is printed. Which isn't a bad thing, but I've run the preference of wanting to go digital. My new portfolio is on an iPad or in an e-mail, then they have a link to my website. This portfolio is what I showed people back in college. My first portfolio was printed large and had over 20 plus images and I'm pretty sure maybe it was closer to 30. When I went to a convention to show people my work, they barely made it halfway before they'd say, "Oh this is good. But it's irrelevant." Here's my old portfolio. I'm not going to go through the whole thing because I promise you, you'll get bored. But just as an example, this is what I was showing animation companies when I first got out of college. I had a lot of fine art paintings that had absolutely nothing to do with animation. I'm like," I want to be a storyboard artist," and they're flipping through this being," Okay. Well she can paint really goodwill paintings, but I see nothing that has to do with animation," until you get to these kind of pages. I was getting closer, but my skills just weren't there. I knew I had to go back to the drawing board and make some new work. What I'm going to help you do is get your portfolio to be a little more focused and easier to navigate. Since I've been through multiple artistic industries, I've seen a lot of hiring managers just fly through portfolio reviews. Your portfolio needs to reflect exactly what they want to see when they're looking to hire someone on the job. Thankfully, you learn that in that last lesson on what specifically you should be going after and giving them a quick impression of who you are as an artist. To start narrow down your artwork to about 10 to 12 pieces max. The reason why 10 to 12 is really important is because you don't want to lose the audience on the endless scroll. Again, I learned the hard way because if you come into a portfolio review with 30 plus images, they're probably not going to make it to page 30. You really want to narrow it down and make it your best work. That way, every single piece you're super confident in and they know exactly what you're going to give them. Questions you can ask yourself when narrowing down your portfolio are; what pieces reflect what is required of the job? If any, what pieces are similar to the professionals portfolio pieces? What pieces reflect my strengths and what I'm passionate about? What are my weakest pieces that I'm least confident in? What do I need to add or learn to enhance my portfolio? Don't worry, these questions are also included in the workbook. If you don't have a portfolio, no worries. Just start soaking up the information on how to build your portfolio in the next couple of videos. Start making a list of things that you might want to make after taking notes on the professionals you already looked into. For instance, if you want to be a concept artists, you might want to start making turnarounds or concepts of different clothing and texture call-outs, things like that. You can start making a list of what you want your future portfolio to be. This next section in the workbook is going to help you uncover those hidden gems within your portfolio. It's also going to help you change your mindset to have a discussion with yourself and really analyze why you have every single piece that you have in your portfolio. This is going to help you put your best foot forward. I'm so excited to have you go through these steps. 7. Portfolio Etiquette: Before we get feedback on our portfolios, I wanted to share some portfolio etiquette that I learned over the years. The first thing I learned with portfolio etiquette is that you want to make sure that your portfolio is easy to navigate. Whether it's your iPad, your phone, physically printed or on your computer. If you're sharing with the phone, make sure that all your work is in a folder and not jumbled up with a bunch of other photos of your dog or your most recent house project. We want to make sure that the professionals have full attention on your work and aren't distracted by other things no matter how cute your dog may be. You want the person looking at your portfolio to see that you're presenting your art professionally right from the start. Same with iPads and computers, make it easy like making sure it's turned on, on the page website and ready to scroll. You don't want someone waiting around while you're trying to fumble around with your portfolio to get it ready. You want it to just be ready to go and be like, "Here you go, here is my art." Physically, you'll also want to make sure it's easy to hold and flip through and not a bunch of different orientations. For instance, in my old portfolio, I did have some horizontal and vertical images. So when I printed it, I made sure that all of them were facing the same way so that when the person was going through my portfolio, they weren't having to constantly turn the book to look at the pictures the right way. For number two, you want to make sure that your portfolio is clutter-free and not full of a bunch of text. Your art should speak for itself but that's not to say that you can't have titles or small descriptions of where your art is from. For instance, for my SpongeBob work, I've included a logo and a small description of what it is. Now, what not to do is write a whole paragraph on describing a series that you're making. Here I wrote a paragraph that pretty much every person that I showed this to skipped over as well as both of these pages are a little too crowded. Here I probably would have taken out my progression pictures as well as the reference and maybe put those on their own page so that way my finished piece could have more of the focus. The number three is don't say anything. Now, I know that sounds funny, but you really want the person you're sharing the portfolio with to speak first. When you share someone your portfolio, you don't want the first thing that you say is, "Oh, I don't like that piece." Or, "Oh, I'm working on that one or this one I think could be better." The worst thing that you can do is unsell your work when you're trying to get a job. So this is the opportunity for you to really show your best self and have the person give their untainted opinions to you. You can also be excited and just ready to receive it. Number four is go into a portfolio review with an open mind and be ready to learn. Portfolio reviews can be really tough, especially if you're not ready for the feedback that you might be getting. But this is a great opportunity for you to grow because the person that you're sharing it with is most likely a professional and they could uncover those hidden gems that you really need in order to go after your dream job or what you need to do specifically to change your work and make it even better. So instead of trying to go in with a defensive thought, come in it with an open mind and ready for change because that's when you can really grow and use the knowledge that you've just gained to make your work even better and that's a positive thing. Number five is thank the portfolio reviewer for their time, whether it's online or in person, this shows that you really respect the portfolio reviewer's time and professional input. It's a really good thing to do and will also show that you mean business when it comes to portfolio reviews. Number six is follow up. When you're ready and its appropriate, ask for a review of your new changes. When you're done with the portfolio review, you can ask a professional for their contact information to see if you can follow up with any future changes you might do to your portfolio. Not only will this be awesome for you to get feedback in the future, but you're also making a contact that will potentially last. This is also a huge step ahead of other people because you'll be talking to someone directly in that industry, instead of [inaudible] the websites with no follow up or feedback. In the worksheet, I outline these practices, so you can reference it anytime when getting a portfolio review. Keeping all these ideas in mind, will get you that much closer to getting your dream job. 8. Finding Feedback: Something that helped me move ahead of a lot of artists that had already spent years before me in a field was that I was not afraid to get feedback. I wanted to know exactly what I needed to do in order to improve myself and to get the job that I was looking for. When I first started out, I showed as many professionals as I could. Whether it was on a convention floor or I tried to find professionals online. When I connected with them, I would share my portfolio. This helped me understand exactly what I needed to change and what I needed to improve in order for me to really go after what I was looking for. Here, I want to challenge you to get feedback from the two professionals that you found earlier. Now, first you have to find their contact information whether it's social media or their web site, I would recommend you trying to find an email though, because then you'll have a higher chance of them responding. Now, I know this is a scary step, but it's really important because this is where you can really start to understand where you are and how much you need to do in order to improve your work and get that much closer to your goal. I also attached an email template in case you aren't really sure how you should word it or what to say when you're reaching out. Check that out in the resource tab or also in your worksheet. I also want you to reach out to two peers that are roughly in the same vein as you artistically, as well as two friends. Getting multiple reviews from a diverse audience will help you really gauge reactions and which pieces really work for you. In the next video, I'll be explaining how you can take that feedback that you'll be getting and applying it to your portfolio as efficiently as possible. I recommend watching the next one. Pretty soon after you get the feedback, just that way, it's all fresh in your mind. I'll see you in the next video soon. 9. Ultimate List: Now that you've gotten feedback, here's where my secret weapon comes into play. Over the years, I found that taking notes is King. I've literally taken books worth of notes. I tend to bring a notebook with me to either a class or convention I go to, and I fill it to the brim with all the information and connections and critiques I gather throughout the time. Near the end of most of these notebooks, I ended up taking all the information that I got from the feedback and critiques during those sessions, and then I broke down my portfolio piece by piece. This is where I started asking myself questions like, where there any that stood out that people liked or pointed out that was positive or negative? What did they like or not like about a piece? Should this be included my next portfolio update? Or was there anything they wanted to see more of? Now I went to head and scan my most recent portfolio breakdown for you, and I have it within the resource tab for you to reference. I apologize ahead of time if it is a little hard to read or if the words are spelled wrong in some areas, but my hope is that it can be helpful to you. In the worksheet, I went ahead and designed something very similar that you'll be doing for your own portfolio. You'll be having your own discussion of your portfolio in taking your feedback and breaking it down as well. This is where you're going to be taking each piece of your portfolio in order and going through and answering those questions. Breaking down feedback like this will help apply to actionables. This way you know what your next portfolio should look like, as well as what was weak or strong about your last one and how you can make it even stronger. What's great about this is that you can use this technique again and again, and you can use it on your next portfolio and your next one to make it even better. Let's go ahead and have a discussion with our portfolio and make the ultimate list. 10. Leveling Up: When I got to this stage, I knew I had to do a lot of leveling up. After getting feedback from multiple sources and dissecting my portfolio, I knew that I had a lot of leveling up to do. My final Art degree was a great base for me to have and to jump off, but I had a lot to learn still in order for me to get to the same level of other artists vying for the same job. I ended up taking more courses, yes, after college in order for me to level up my skills. You're already ahead of the game because you're doing that right now. There is a turn of great resources out there, including Skillshare, that will help you get those tools that you need in order to get the dream job. Even though it feels like you have a lot more to do or learn, be encouraged that you know you need to do and you know what you need to learn. Because means you're nearing down that path and you're getting even closer to what you want to do as a career. As an artist, you never really stop learning, but that's what's beautiful about having a creative career, is that your work will constantly be growing and evolving with you. It's the coolest thing to look back on your old work and be like, I came from that, but then looking at all that you've learned up till then. Then at the same time, looking ahead and being like, these are all the things that I can still learn and I can still grow. It's not the end. It isn't the end, so get excited because your work is going to change and grow to much more than what you could think possible. Once you gain those skills and add new things to your portfolio, you can use a practices you learned in this class. Apply them, and then go after your dream job. You can apply for those jobs, you can use those connections you've made and get that much closer, if not getting there and that's super exciting. Now, all that's to say that let's say you reach your dream and it's not all that you thought. Don't worry, because that means that there's something even better around the corner, and then it may be something that you weren't even expecting. But know that all that work was not for nothing. You have a beautiful life ahead of you and when you've got the drive and the willingness to learn and to grow and to pursue your passion. You can achieve anything. Just take it one step at a time and you'll get there. 11. Closing Thoughts: Thank you so much for taking this course with me. I am so happy I got to share the knowledge that I've gathered over the years with you to help you find your own treasure. By this time in the class, you should have reached the last page of your workbook. I'd love for you to post your dream job with the other classmates so you guys can discuss what you've learned within this course. My hope for you is that you're able to get that dream job and your portfolio is as strong as it's ever been before and that hopefully you can share this knowledge with your friends to help them get closer to their dream job too. If you'd love to stay in contact, you can find my information on my profile page. Until then, I hope you reach your goals, you find your dream and you uncover that hidden treasure.