ART WAR 4 is now LIVE and we're excited to announce this year's lineup of sponsors is the best yet! 

Our friends from the Game Art Institute are contributing some awesome prizes this year so we sat down for an interview with their CEO (and ART WAR 4 honorary judge!) Ryan Kingslien to learn more about the artist himself and the art school he's leading.

Q. For the uninitiated; what is the Game Art Institute (GAI) all about? 

Game Art Institute's focus is to shorten the class to job pipeline. Our focus is on improving their chances of landing a job.  See, the biggest problem they face is that this industry does not have a labor shortage. It has a talent shortage.  You have to pass a certain threshold just to qualify for the job.

Our job at Game Art Institute is to take the mystery out of the "talent" part and give them a system to specifically focus on those things that will help them get jobs and ignore the things that won't.

Art by Ryan Kingslien

Q. Can you share a brief history of the company starting from your early days?  

My first online course was created in 2010 and focused on ZBrush.  No one else was doing anything like that online and it just exploded.  I was over the moon because I was basically jobless and my wife was pregnant with our first child.  I had no plan B.

That grew into ZBrushWorkshops and UArtsy.  Through both we trained over a thousand artists and ran over 100 courses but I wasn't really happy.  I struggled with my own art and with my purpose as a business man.  I knew how to market, how to sell courses but I saw student after student take class after class and not really grow.  At least not to the level that I wanted them to.

I took a look around and i realized that I hadn't actually grown to the level that I wanted to in my own art and so I decided to move to Laguna Beach to focus on my own art.

Art by Ryan Kingslien

It was here, also, that I met a group of guys, Wake Up Warrior, that helped me understand the problem: If the king doesn't rise, the kingdom dies.

I learned how much I was hiding from the world building a business around other artists and I decided that I was not going to follow that path anymore...

So I fired my partner and the artists who were training with me and I focused on trying to find the formula that grows artists. It was a super scary time for me and we blew through half of our savings just getting to the point where we had a system that worked and actually grew artists.

Today that system is our Game Artist Bootcamp and we've been able to help place over 100 artists in jobs and that number just keeps going up.  

Art by Ryan Kingslien

Q. How would you describe the ideal student for GAI?

The ideal student at GAI is someone with some basic 3d knowledge, at least 20 hours of available time a week, a love for creating art and an absolute willingness to suck.  Ego is the problem here and will only hurt our growth. I understand ego. I have an ego that thinks way too much of itself... but 95% of the time it's just in the way of the work that I need to do to get better and do the job I'm here to do.

So you have to be willing to work, to be unhappy with that work and keep doing more of that work. :)

Q. What's been the biggest lesson you've learned along the way and in which way (if at all) did it impact the services you offer?

The biggest lesson for me was that the only thing that matters is the work.  I know I'm belaboring this point but I experience this all the time with students.  They get into these "learning loops".  

Art by Ryan Kingslien

They start a project... see that there is some software that might help them... go learn that software...  realize that they don't know how to use the software well and need another class... meanwhile they have made zero progress on the one thing that has any chance of actually helping them: their project... their work.

They drift from one lesson to another lesson but the truth is that knowledge is not power.  Smart people do not rule the world.  I wish they did but they don't.  Knowledge is only potential power.  You have to build your capacity.  That is what they hire us for.  Our ability to get something done.

So, you can be out there learning, learning, learning or you can be out there creating work by hook or by crook and hacking your way to success.

 

Art by Lawrence Kameen (Old work - Left, Recent work - Right)

Now, I would normally say... learn... learn it well but we have one very big problem facing our industry: The Half Life Of A Skill.

This industry changes so fast... that if you spend four year learning software... well, at the end of those four years you're going to have to learn a whole bunch of new software.  You have to be comfortable not mastering your tools and instead focus on mastering yourself.

This is 100% responsible for way we run the school today.  Our focus is on the work and on helping you focus on that work.

Q. Placement is everything for art schools; what do you focus on the most to ensure your students success?

We focus on what we call "hiring triggers".  There are four main stages of a 3d models life: high polygon, low polygon, texture and then render.  

Each one of those stages has a series of triggers that people subconsciously have in their minds that help them determine if someone is a good fit for the job or not.

For example, when i look at characters I look at wrists, elbows and knees.  If those are not good I do not need to see anything else. I understand exactly where that person is.

 

Art by Julie Beliveau (Old work - Left, Recent work - Right)

Another example is texturing.  I look for gradients.  If they don't have it... I know they are in the very beginning.  Each of these stages has a series of these triggers and I've found that if students are able to hit 75% of those triggers then the chances they get a job improves exponentially.

Q. Where are some of your most successful students now?

Yeah, here are a few:

• Joseph Burgan is at Epic Games
• Adam Beardall is at Bioware
• Erih Pazanin, Jansen Turk and Andrew Giovanni are at CD Projekt Red on Cyberpunk 2077
• Matthew Gillmeister is at high-rez studios
• Daniel Gimenez is changing the fashion world at Couture-Labs
• Andre Pires is at Funcom

Q. We're excited GAI is sponsoring ART WAR 4 this year - As an honorary judge and professional artist/instructor yourself, what do you look for the most when picking a winning entry?

For me, it goes like this... first I make sure the "hiring triggers" are there.  They are showcasing the work at a certain level. Once that's done then I start looking at the story, the artistry of the work.  Does it convey mood?  Does it leave me with questions?

One of my students Travis O'Connor taught the importance of story to me recently.  His work was technically brilliant.  Everything was there but... it wasn't quite right.  We went back and forth about what could be wrong and couldn't put our finger on it until we realized that there was no real story... it was just an environment.

Art by Travis O'Connor (Old work - Top, Recent work - Bottom)

so, he did one thing that totally changed the work.  He added a light coming from the hallway.  you couldn't see the light but it set up this contrast and it made us ask, "What's back there?"  

Just that one thing changed it all and it just went from awesome to even better after that.

Q. What are some pitfalls 3D artists should be wary of for their ART WAR entry or a typical portfolio piece?

Remember the triggers.  Elbows, wrists, knees... gradients, color variation, value variations...

Don't get caught up on the latest software features and, instead, tell a story.  

Q. Best single advice for success as an artist?

Lavish time on your work.  Stop rushing it or quitting it. Just spend an obscene amount of time on things... Doing that changed my life.  It will change yours.

-The Cubebrush team