October AMA: Answers!

 Thank you to all of the $5+ Patrons that submitted questions! Please take all of this advice with a grain of salt as always.

If you'd like to submit questions next month, pledge just $5 a month (that's less than 2 Starbucks coffees!!) and you'll also get early access to digital art minitutorials!

~~~~~~~~~

youngizzik asks:  I recently had an,,, interesting, interaction with one of my professors about the TellTale layoffs, games unionizing and poor management in the games industry that's led to the current messy climate that promotes crunches and all of that. To say the least, he didn't agree with me nor I with him. However, the conversation led me to an interesting place, how needed would you say better producers or management is in the games industry currently? I know at the end of the day, devs and games don't (shouldn't) /need/ producers, but with the industry as it is, is it worthwhile to kind of drop my plans to be an artist and go for a producer position with a game art degree? Is that possible?

Startin' out heavy this week! We're gonna get kinda real for a second.

There are a slew of very intense, systematic issues with (specifically) upper management in game development at AAA companies. There are always exceptions, there are always unique situations, but things are a struggle right now. Let's cover some major categories out there as well as some statistics, so you can arm yourself with knowledge next time this topic comes up with that professor...

Mismanagement on major projects: workers are constantly being pressured into moving into major, expensive cities like LA or San Francisco (where rent for a small studio starts at $2400/month) and then are suddenly out of work, either due to companies shutting down or brief, unreliable contracts with no benefits ending. 

Game studios shut down. All companies eventually shut down. But when there is zero transparency from upper management on how a company is performing financially to the workers, people are entirely blindsided and shoved out onto the street with no warning. No severance. No plan. People lose access to necessary medications. They can't pay rent. They can't even afford to move- to get out of that situation. They're some of the most talented, experienced people in this field, but they literally don't know where their next meal with come from. This results in a hyper-toxic cycle, which spits people out of the industry with no way to justify getting back in. Poor upper management results in:

• A third of workers in games only being in the industry for 3-6 years before leaving it (and it very recently was closer to half)
• HEAVY crunch, which despite what anyone that "loves crunch" wants to tell you, is often avoidable. More than half of jobs in games have crunch. 37% of these work 50-59 hours/week during crunch. 29% work 60-69 hours/week. 14% work OVER 70 HOURS during crunch, which can last several weeks if not months. In other surveys, more than 90% of respondents expect to work overtime, this quote from that source specifically: "Looking closely at the two largest groups, 88.8% of developers are expected to work overtime but only 29% are paid for it. Meanwhile, a staggering 92.3% of people employed by publishers work beyond their contracted hours, but only 12.8% are paid overtime." 
• 60% of game workers expect to work at their current company for 3 years or less, or are uncertain how long they expect to work at that company
• Mass layoffs, which has been a big topic lately. The game industry laid off 1000 people in the last month, mostly from Telltale, Capcom Vancouver, Big Fish, Disney's Club Penguin branch, Wavedash, and more. That is a fuckton of layoffs in a very short period of time. At least a third of these were incredibly sudden, and devs were abruptly fired with no severance and less than a month of health insurance provided afterwards.

Toxic hiring practices: game development is a boys club. Denying this is frankly, willful ignorance. It has been this way for a long time, and there are a lot of systems in place (often there unintentionally, but there regardless) that reinforce this. Upper management in games is almost entirely male. It's hard to find statistics that clarify this, but there is a HUGE gap in hiring regarding gender. Women often apply less than men because they feel like they have to hit 100% of the requirements when men feel like they have to hit closer to 60%. (WOMEN AND QUEERFOLK: APPLY MORE. TAKE THE RISK. YOU DESERVE IT MORE OFTEN THAN YOU THINK AND MIGHT BE SURPRISED.) 

More importantly, a lot of job openings in games are made known internally to current employees so they can recommend people before the listing is even made public. That means, especially in more explicitly "boys club" work environments, the culture is organically reinforced because the company is more often hiring people that the current employees already know. This happens a LOT and makes it harder for teams to become more diverse. Like I mentioned earlier- this isn't a system that is inherently evil or was made to hurt people, but the impact of these systems are not entirely positive.

Zero worker representation: in case this isn't on your radar, calls for more worker representation are rapidly rising in games. This conversation happens in the industry every couple of years, but this time, it seems to be genuinely gaining long-term momentum. This could come in many forms: unions, grassroots movements, more consumer pressure on companies, etc. Workers in games have zero leverage. We're pressured into taking that lower salary, taking temporary contract work with no benefits, scammed with scummy contracts that leave us with zero safety nets, stigmatized against discussing wages with coworkers, and undereducated in our local labor rights. We're told to shut up or are threatened when harassed, stalked, or abused by coworkers. We're constantly told that we should be grateful for having cool jobs in offices with beer and pinball machines and get to wear jeans, and that it makes up for working 60-hour weeks for months on end. Workers having a collective voice is the only way game developers can actually have actionable power to force change, which is why Game Workers Unite came to be.

Wage issues/lack of benefits: game developers are paid significantly less than identical positions in other fields. This means that someone doing graphic design work in games is commonly paid (extremely rough number based on experience) 25-35%+ less than a graphic designer doing the exact same work in another field. (Plus the gender wage gap, which makes it even worse.) Devs are paid less due to the concept that "well, you're working your dream job! Isn't that enough?" and that doesn't cover rent. That money goes into upper management's wallets on a very frequent basis, specifically in the US. 

You can read more about how  the rich are getting richer and workers' wages are flatlining in a LOT of articles, including this one. This is a pattern across all industries in the US, but with the "dream job" logic, it's very easy to exploit workers and deepen the difference in wages. Many game developers are unnecessarily working with unlivable wages in hella expensive areas. It's awful.

Along with this, game development has high rates of workers lacking benefits. This includes retirement funds, health insurance, severance, paid sick leave, paid parental leave, pensions, protections from harassment towards queerfolk, women, and PoC, and more.

WHEW. I could go on and on, feel free to comment with questions or your own experiences.

Regarding the producer stuff: straight up, your degree does not determine your path. I don't know much about producer roles and don't want to pretend I do, but my suggestion is to take the direction that you love to do the most. If you love production, jump into it! If you love art, push for it! Trust your gut and do lots of research.

Kathryn asks:  Hi!!! Referring back to your Kirin WIP screenshot from Sept 24th I was very curious about your Photoshop setup and specifically the windows (and plugins?) you have open for picking colors in the bottom right. Thanks!! I love your tutorials and protips. You're a wonderful teacher! 

Thanks for the kind words, I'm so glad you find the content helpful! Here is what my Photoshop setup looks like 90% of the time:

A few adjustments to the default UI:

• I move the toolbar to the right side of the screen because I'm righthanded. This keeps me from having to reach over to the other side of the monitor, which is especially helpful when working on  a drawing monitor like a Cintiq. (I use an Intuos fulltime now due to personal preference but still find this more comfortable.)
• I always have the layers, paths, and my Coolorus windows open. I close everything else because it's obnoxious and takes up a bunch of the screen. I religiously simplify my life in every way possible and this is necessary for me.
• Coolorus is a very cool plugin that you can buy for Photoshop, and it indeed does have a free trial period. I heavily rely on this plugin for picking colors because you can adjust the active color with the HSV sliders at the bottom of the window. This gives you a LOT of control over your values and saturation when painting.

Also in case anyone is wondering, I actually do not use Photoshop CC because I've never gotten it to *not* be laggy for me. I'm a grumpy old grandpa that uses PS CS6 and probably always will. It runs super smoothly, is never updated so bugs don't catch me by surprise, and the selection -> path tool works much better in this older version.

Snowmew asks:  I'm struggling to find a community to post my art to. I remember years ago, posting to DeviantArt would get you comments and you could find and make friends. Now DA feels barren. And twitter and tumblr feel like I'm posting to a void. Any advice in posting art and finding folks to connect with? Is there some hashtag magic I haven't learned yet? Thanks for doing another Q&A! 

HMM. Good question. I'm finding large groups of folks are transitioning away from seeking friendships on old forums and are shifting into Discords. I love this very specifically because it reminds me of chatting with friends in AIM chatrooms growing up, LOL.

Polycount is a good place to develop some professional relationships. Twitter is good for surface-level friendships. Other forums can *kind of* build relationships, but the unique aspect of chat systems like Discord is that it's SO much more conversational. There are a ton of awesome art Discords around, it's just a matter of finding them.

I recommend trying out a few different communities, giving them some time and seeing if you click with some of the people, then connect with them and stay in touch. Internet friendships have been a HUGE part of my career and have done wonderful things for me. Invest time in them and ask those folks if they know of other good communities too.

The Discords that I'm in are mostly relatively private, but ~click here~ for a tweet in which I'm (hopefully) crowdsourcing some links to communities, and check out the replies. I hope you find what you're looking for!

kulbit asks: hi there Becca I was wondering if you have any exercises that can help me improve on drawing hands because that is something that I struggle with a lot. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to answer this. 

I have two primary pieces of advice for drawing hands: 

1. Use reference. Always. Can't find the perfect reference image online? Take a picture of your own hand! The more that I do this, the better my drawn hands are.

2. Simplify the forms. When people try to draw hands at first, they often get caught up in the wrinkles and surface details and tiny bits of information, and it gets overwhelming. 

When you're struggling, focus on these two tips. Are you working off of a specific image? Are you getting caught up in tiny details too early? Take a step back and self-reflect on how you're working.

Two major resources for drawing hands:

• "The Book of a Hundred Hands" 
• My anatomy pinterest board

Always feel like you can break away from the piece you're working on and can do studies if you're struggling with drawing the individual elements, too. Don't shy away from drawing hands- instead of trying to skirt around your weaknesses, tackle them head-on! Good luck :D

 ~~~~~~~~~ 

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone that submitted questions and were Patrons this month. You're all making my life so much more flexible and reducing my stress like crazy by being a part of this big adventure with me. Have an awesome October!