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Teamwork — you either love or you hate it. I’m fairly extroverted, so I like working together with a group of like-minded individuals to create a finished work of art. My brother’s a bit more on the introverted side, so he likes to shut himself off from the world and work on a project all by his lonesome. Whether you love or hate teamwork, the fact of the matter is that most 3D artists will need to collaborate with other artists on group projects. That’s pretty much the status quo for most design studios — the bigger the project, the more people you’ll have working together on the same project.
The trick is figuring out how to work with others towards a common goal. Let’s suppose that you and I both have the job of designing a robot. The robot that I imagine is undoubtedly different from the robot that you imagine, and if we work together to make a robot then our finished product will probably be something new entirely. That’s just the nature of teamwork: people have to sacrifice their personal artistic vision in favor of what the group decides.
Image source: Blogs.exploratorium.edu
It’s absolutely critical that you develop good teamwork skills as a 3D artist. I don’t care how good of an artist you are — if you trample over other artists’ suggestions and you refuse to play well with others, then your employers will probably give you the boot in favor of somebody with better people skills. These tips will help you become a better team player.
1. Be Humble
Don’t let pride or stubbornness get in the way. If your teammates reject your idea, try not to take it personally. They’re not rejecting you, they’re just overlooking your idea in favor of something else. I mean, you don’t get disappointed with yourself when you brainstorm and come up with 20 bad ideas before coming up with a good idea, do you? Don’t let negative feedback from your colleagues put you down, either. Rejecting ideas is all part of collaborate art design.
2. Sometimes, Compromise is a Terrible Idea
Every once in a while, two people will come up with dramatically different ideas. Let’s go back to the robot example. If I come up with a robot design that’s childlike and cartoonish, and you come up with a robot design that’s dark and scary, then we’ve obviously hit an impasse. That doesn’t mean that you and I should compromise and come up with a robot that’s a combination of the two: a brooding cartoony character like something out of Invader Zim or The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s entirely possible that the best solution is to ditch both of our ideas and come up with something else entirely.
Image source: Stewardshipreport.com
3. Identify Strengths and Weaknesses
One of the biggest advantage of working in a team is that team members can take advantage of each other’s strengths. For example, let’s say that you’re an incredible texture artist but you’re kind of sucky at animation. In that case, you can volunteer to work on texture art while one of your peers focuses on 3D animation. Being able to quickly identify strengths and weaknesses in others will result in better projects overall.