Find Alex: https://beddowsdesign.carrd.co/
Learn Environment Art: https://www.cgspectrum.com/career-pathways/environment-artist
Justin interviews Alex Beddows, a Senior Environment Artist at Respawn Entertainment, about how to get ahead in the industry and his pragmatic perspective on career advancement. Alex shares how personal projects like his podcast 'Game Dev Discussion' helped him to network and land jobs, and how his background in sports (rugby) has been a pivotal asset for building leadership in the studio. He shares practical tips about how to research for a position you want and determining the scope of a project, and answers listener questions about inspiration, mental bandwidth, and preferred software for environment art.
Alex is an environment artist with nearly 10 years of experience in varying sectors of the game industry, from mobile to AAA, on titles including Returnal, Scavengers, and Godfall. He also worked at ArtStation as a consultant. Alex currently resides at Respawn Entertainment as a Senior Environment Artist. As well as being an artist, Alex hosts the ‘Game Dev Discussion’ podcast dedicated to the games industry, where he speaks with people from all aspects of games with a strong focus on environment art.
🔗 Episode notes: https://www.cgspectrum.com/podcast/environment-art-repawn-entertainment-alex-beddows
00:00 Intro
01:12 Alex’s Background from rugby to game art
03:25 Starting the GDD podcast
06:29 How sports helped Alex in the games industry
09:15 Communication and delivering bad news in a positive way
11:54 Progressing with soft skills rather than hard skills
16:28 Doing the research
19:35 Alex’s pragmatic approach to his career
23:45 How knowing what you don’t want to do helps you figure out what you do want to do
26:30 How far is far enough?
32:39 Scoping your project and maintaining momentum
36:23 The easy way to make a checklist for your portfolio
38:30 Getting inspired through photography
43:30 Making steps toward Art Direction
48:00 Listener questions: inspiration, mental bandwidth, preferred softwares for environment art
57:45 Where to find Alex
Connect on:
📍 https://www.instagram.com/cgspectrum
📍 https://www.linkedin.com/cgspectrum
📍 http://www.facebook.com/CGSpectrum.Film.and.Game.School
📍 https://www.twitter.com/cgspectrum
Alex:
📍 https://beddowsdesign.carrd.co/
📍 https://www.artstation.com/alexbeddows
📍 https://www.dinustyempire.com/podcast
📍 https://www.instagram.com/beddows.design/
📍 https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-beddows-2a827585/
📍 https://twitter.com/BeddowsDesign