How much does art skill in one area carry over into another one?

Say somebody is skilled at one area of art like say, character design. How much of that will carry over into other areas like prop design, weapon design, level/environment design etc. How much overlap of skill is there between different sub-genres of art creation?

It depends on the person, but generally speaking, quite a bit. I had a colleague (our art director), who used to say that all art is just having really good taste, the rest is just learning tools. While I feel that is a bit of glib assessment, generally it is true. If someone is a strong visual creator/artist that tends to specialize, they typically can operate in others with some learning involved with the tools and the general rules of the of specific domain. However generally speaking, it is sort top down in complexity. A character artist will be able translate to props, env and such fairly easily. Someone who knocked up a few weapons in blender only, isn’t going to translate into character creation any time soon. Basically if you general art skills at a good level (able to draw/paint/sculpt anything you can imagine well), the rest is just learning.

Overbroadly, you need to know what looks right, and looks good. From there is figuring out how to make your fingers the things to get there.

I think there is broader cross pollination as well. A buddy of mine was a phenomenal musician, guitar, bass, piano and some horn thingys. Could write and play whatever, just brilliant. He decided to take up graphic design/illustration and did so very, very quickly. sure there were of tools and knowledge, but he migrated to professional in under 2 years, and is quite good.

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If maximum bang for your buck time spent is your goal, I think the main focus should be learning how to learn. Once you start improving there, whole world of possibility opens up. (not suggesting anything about OP, just general statement)

For art, I think primary things is 1: how to see what is really there, and 2. how to influence others in a predictable way.

Character design has a big curve because with a human, especially a human face, anybody can tell if it’s off. So for convincing character work you got to be almost perfect.

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I’d agree with this. There are just so many aspects to art, you really just have to be willing to expose yourself to anything and everything, and soak it all up. Of course, you have to gravitate to what you naturally like as well, but exposing yourself to things outside of your comfort zone can only push you even further. Observation skills are important, and knowing how to get that from your senses, through your brain, and out from your hands takes a lot of practice. In the process of learning the technical parts of art, like tools, and core principles, you end up throwing in your own creative mix on things, and that’s where you put your stamp on the world.

I guess another way to look at it is, say, a character artist can even go deeper into that discipline and fine tune those skills, harnessing as much skill, technique and talent that he/she can muster to master that particular area. Or, they can spread it thin, into other areas like environment etc. You’ll still have a defined style, but perhaps not as refined as if you concentrated in a discipline. Nailing down emotional faces is quite different from capturing how light glistens off ocean waves. So, that’s why fine-tuning observation skills will go a much longer way than just studying particular disciplines.

Ugh, I feel like I’m rambling but I so love this topic.

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