red lez

Awhile ago (as in, 5 or so years ago) I got this really basic small Wacom Intuos tablet and used it for awhile to do some digital doodles, until I just... stopped, but not before it started becoming unresponsive in large lines cutting across the drawing area. Before that, I was fairly decent at pencil-and-paper art, but I never really pursued it deeply, and I've gotten rusty.

I'm considering getting back into art to round out my skills a bit more and have another good way to express myself. And to be honest, I've been chronically burnt out on programming as a gamedev and I'm looking for something to get me out of the rut I'm in. I want to learn 3D modeling, texturing and 2D art, and music composition so that when my brain is screaming for something other than code, I can swap to it.

Do any digital artists here have advice on where to get started after getting rusty? e.g. recommendations for cheap hardware for someone who's not doing art professionally and was recently laid off, exercises to get back up to speed, etc.? For both 2D art and 3D modelling and texturing.

Unity blew all their good will into atoms, and now Epic is trying to make The Metaverse™ their main thing, and Godot is apparently not taking criticism well and not really accepting pull requests, so what's left? Are we going back to doing everything in-house or something? Should I do deep dives on engine programming, is that going to be a solid career move?

Most of my games industry friends are unemployed/underemployed, and I'm included. It's been months of constant layoffs. Are we... good? It kinda feels like the entire industry is dissolving or something, and with the lack of actually-low-seniority positions available it seems like the door got slammed on a lot of us as we got kicked out.

I keep seeing new postings, and keep applying, but man it is demoralizing. Even people with a decade more experience than I have aren't able to find work right now.

When companies expect applicants to be fans of and intimately familiar with their games. We saw with Riot not that long ago that having that expectation can create a hostile, cliquey environment. It's often used as a way to exploit people's excitement to get them to accept worse terms of employment. It makes it harder to actually find work if companies treat it like a make-or-break requirement. And it just ends up making bland, same-y games after long enough. It really doesn't sit right with me that it's so common for companies to expect it of their applicants.

I get why companies do it, it's to filter for applicants who are at least somewhat aligned with where the company is taking their game(s), but I feel like there has to be a better way to achieve the same goals.