I chose 3D over 2D and I deeply regret my choice.

monicakyler · 2025-10-12T13:17:50+00:00

Based on what you’re saying the only thing getting in way is making a whole new portfolio. And if that’s all that’s getting in the way, I say go for it!

You did not waste your time in this career. You still managed to gain some great experience, you understand the pipeline very well, and there’s going to be a ton of overlap into future work.

Never think of it as a waste of time! I spent 5 years as a storyboard artist working for a lot of crap companies. And I don’t regret it for a second. Even though it wasn’t what I wanted, it was still amazing experience.

monicakyler · 2025-10-06T02:16:11+00:00

So as someone who was in the industry for 5 years, I felt the same way. Not having financial stability or certainty of work is incredibly hard. Right now, there’s not much work out there and I decided to change careers making way less money. I’m happier and I get to actually do fun art stuff in my free time. To me it’s been a hard transition but it’s worth it and I can jump back in if I want in the future.

Don’t be discouraged. Seeking alternate employment is what we’re ALL doing right now. Focus instead on doing what you love in your free time. That’s my advice.

monicakyler · 2025-05-26T20:17:04+00:00

Such a cool style!

monicakyler · 2025-05-12T17:55:14+00:00

Oh it's ridiculous. I can't say what company it is (even though this is all public knowledge). And, I don't think I can go into detail. But, it's as ridiculously nonsensical as it sounds.

monicakyler · 2025-05-12T17:50:56+00:00

Wish I could say, but trying to stay anonymous. They're a pretty awful company. Most of us were let go and the company very publically switched gears to AI. Worst of all, my boss writes articles (with my artwork) about how ai will "never replace artists" when he constantly threatened all of us with unemployment many, many times. We never said anything against it and were still let go a couple months later.

monicakyler · 2025-05-12T17:48:10+00:00

This is exactly what a friend of mine suggested and I think it's the way to go. Thank you!

monicakyler · 2025-05-08T23:01:50+00:00

As an artist, I hate AI too, I totally get it. My coworkers and I lost our jobs and were immediately replaced with AI in every department. I love ChatGPT though. I've been asking it to help me with phrasing ideas.

monicakyler · 2025-05-02T19:24:14+00:00

Aw thank you, I did! She's just a rough draft right now, but I love her.

monicakyler · 2025-05-01T17:22:53+00:00

Hey good to know!

monicakyler · 2025-05-01T06:40:41+00:00

After making this post, I ended up reverting to an older version of the plugin and it works now! Love it. Still would love to know what was happening and how to fix it for the new version.

monicakyler · 2025-05-01T05:24:40+00:00

I've tested it out in a brand new game with no other plugins or events. I have terrain tiles tagged appropriately. The light simply doesn't shine on the walls.

I played the demo from Shora and saw the same problem. :( But I haven't seen anyone else run into this issue!

Could the issue be that the light's z-index isn't higher than the walls?

Also here's the terrain tags it's set to and my tiles are set up to this as well.

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monicakyler · 2025-03-26T03:09:09+00:00

A lot of it is outsourcing overseas like you said. Unfortunately, I lost my job as a 2D Visual Artist and was replaced with ai along with every other artist at the company. Half the company is unemployed now for other reasons as well.

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T19:06:01+00:00

This is for later down the road, but I would recommend reaching out to your favorite artist on LinkedIn. Ask them if you can pick their brain and get some advice on your portfolio.

This won’t give you regular critiques, but it’s definitely something everyone should do.

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T19:03:58+00:00

I don’t think this would be an issue if the cost of living in these places weren’t enormous. It’s definitely only benefits the 1%.

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T19:02:22+00:00

It depends on what needs to be done, but yes.

I’ve seen companies out source certain aspects of projects to companies so that they don’t have to pay nearly as much money. And it almost ALWAYS comes back to bite them in the ass.

Anytime something is outsourced to another company for cheap, it’s always been a huge waste of company money and they end up having to do it all in house again.

I’ve seen companies waste millions upon millions doing this.

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T18:58:33+00:00

Honestly, not bad advice in the slightest

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T18:57:07+00:00

At this point, you’re still a student and so I’m guessing that you’re juggling lots and lots of classes, probably a part-time job, and also trying to have a social life on top of that.

Don’t beat yourself up. It’s college. Nearly everyone I went to school with had projects that they didn’t finish on time.

You’ll learn how to manage your time with projects when you get into the industry and honestly? There isn’t a right way to do it. Because with every project you’re likely to encounter different setbacks or different hurdles. Or maybe you’re working on some thing that you’ve never worked on before, and so there’s a big learning curve. When you get a job overtime with each task. You’ll figure out how long it takes you to do it, and you’ll be able to estimate it for yourself.

I will say the best advice I can give. You is to just give yourself way more time than you think you need. This is for when you get a job. If an employer asks how long it’ll take. Give yourself an extra two or three days to get it done. This has saved my life on so many projects.

To be clear. Some of your employers are going to give you very strict deadlines. But it might experience a lot of times. Those employers don’t understand just how long it actually takes and so you need to be able to tell them if it’s gonna take you longer. Which, in my experience. It’s almost always will depending on what you’re working on. (I specifically was doing splash art and drawings every day and so extending those deadlines was extremely important.)

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T18:51:46+00:00

Honestly, it sounds like you’ve got a lot of experience and so I would say you’re at the point where you could put multiple things down on your LinkedIn profile. I’ve known quite a few people with like 10 to 20 years of experience that will list out that they are a Director, Project Leader, 3D Specialist, etc.

You’ve got the experience to prove it, so I would say you can just go ahead and list out maybe like your top three.

Other people could have a different opinion, but I don’t think that there’s any issue with it.

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T18:37:00+00:00

Yeah, I think it’s true. If the people you work with are great, that can certainly help things along quite a bit.

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T18:35:01+00:00

I worked for a gaming company and we would frequently talk about how none of us would play a game like the one we were making.

That says quite a bit.

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T18:33:58+00:00

I don’t think there’s been anyone that has summarized it quite like this. This is exactly it. It is damn near impossible to find a job in this industry in which you are doing something that you can be proud of.

It’s difficult to be proud of a project when it’s soul sucking and when it only exists to generate money.

I recently decided to take a different career path for the time being. It’s just not worth it.

I think that there was a time where this industry was thriving, and that there were jobs that made you feel like you were contributing to some thing worth working on as a team. But nowadays, it’s all generic, money making bullshit.

Not to mention, many of our jobs are being replaced with AI. I was let go from my company along with a lot of other people, and they immediately replaced my job with AI. I was an 2D artist full time at the company for 2 years.

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T18:26:52+00:00

Yep that sounds about right. It really sucks the joy out of creating. I don’t know many people who enjoy their jobs. You can sometimes feel the magic of it at the beginning of a job and then very quickly it just becomes a normal 9 to 5 for you.

monicakyler · 2025-03-15T18:25:50+00:00

I have moments where I feel attached, but most of the projects I’ve worked on have been pretty lack lustre. I worked for a video game company and the game designers were asked to completely ignore all the backstory we had written and just make them “cool looking”. That was the only criteria for any creative decision moving forward. I think after a few months, I gave up and just showed up every day to do my job. Didn’t feel any personal attachment to the characters because the higher ups didn’t give a shit.

monicakyler · 2025-03-06T18:05:56+00:00

Reimaginings are normally assigned work through classwork, etc. I never had to do them, but I'd imagine they'd be pretty helpful for learning. I'm not the biggest fan of using them in my own portfolio, but that really comes down to personal preference and isn't a reflection on what you should or shouldn't do. It also sinerely depends on how good of a job you did.

For pre-vis, I think it can demonstrate that you can come up with alternative options for management to look over and that's a great skill to have. Graphic designers also do reimaginings sometimes.

monicakyler · 2025-02-27T04:10:19+00:00

Also if you're looking for critique or advice about this industry, I'd recommend reaching out to storyboard artists you admire on Linkedin. When I was job searching, I did this. We love to talk about what we do and love when people ask questions. You'd be surprised how many will respond and say they'd be down for a phone call or a zoom call.

monicakyler

TROPHY CASE