XP-PEN Presents Jasmin Habezai-Fekri: How to Grow and Improve as an Artist
Recently, XP-PEN invited Jasmin Habezai-Fekri to share her story behind being an artist.
Jasmin Habezai-Fekri is a 3D Environment Artist from Cologne, Germany. She currently works at Airship Syndicate, while in the past has contributed to projects at Airborn Studios, Monomi Park and Square Enix. Jasmin loves creating colourful stylized 3D environments, anything that is cute and cosy is her jam.
Freelancing & University
My path to working professionally as a 3D Artist started in 2017, with me getting into a local university for Game Development. During university, I frequently freelanced and tried to build both my experience and confidence to work professionally. I feel fortunate that the clients I worked with were supportive and encouraged me, without having to sacrifice my studies.
But, how did I get to the point of freelancing while being relatively new to the industry? When I started with 3D, I didn’t have any connections. My only avenue for building my network was starting to engage in online communities and create a support system that organically grew over the past 4 years through Twitter and ArtStation. I frequently shared Work in Progress shots and breakdowns of my projects, which not only got more eyes on my work, but also lead me to form meaningful friendships with other artists, who are just as excited about Game Art as I am. This played a huge role in staying motivated and continuing to work on my craft; seeing how others succeeded at what I wanted to achieve at some point.
I made time for personal projects that I could work on, besides university, to build a solid portfolio. With each piece I created I tackled an area I was the least confident in, and learned the inside and outs of that. Once I realized that I became more comfortable with one area, I moved onto the next. A good example of that is my jump from doing hand-painted 3D models to introducing PBR into my workflow, and learning more about the current pipeline that is used across the majority of game studios.
While university can be pretty stressful in itself ranging from trying to keep up with deadlines or wanting to get good grades, I quickly adjusted my mindset to stop measuring my worth and skillset to grades. I focused on what I personally would like to get out of my studies and used the time I had to grow as an artist. A huge bonus I realized towards the end of my studies, was that I was ready to move to full-time employment right after finishing my education, due to putting in the work during those years at university.
To sum it up, here are 3 pieces of advice I can give to anyone who is looking to improve their art, especially if they are at the beginning of their journey.
- Create art that you truly enjoy making, people will recognize that!
- Consistently work on your craft and don’t rush things. Creating 3D Art takes a long time and patience is the key.
- Be active in online communities by sharing your work and progress!
Accessibility
My first step into the world of 3D was Blender, learning it entirely with free resources. To this day, I am a big advocate for accessible tools, which help artists get into 3D without compensating for the quality of the software or hardware. This also applies to XP-Pen. When I discovered the brand, I was amazed at how affordable and high-quality the screen tablets are, making my dream of using such a tablet come true at last! My current set-up is the XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro or Artist 22 2nd Gen, which gives me adequate screen space. This is especially useful while sculpting and being able to closely inspect the details you want to get into the model. Whenever it is not actively used, it also makes for a great secondary/third screen for references.
Add a powerful screen tablet to your workstation with XP-Pen. They’re celebrating their 16th-anniversary with great sales and the launch of the Artist Pro 16 , a brand new tablet powered by an X3 smart chip. The X3 Smart Chip is the first of its kind to be designed with a digital signal processing mechanism, resulting in the performance of the stylus being much better than most of the styluses on the market.
The tablet is extremely thin and light, making it easy to integrate into a workstation. If you purchase one now during the first batch release, you will have the chance to receive a Golden Ticket in your package which offers a full refund. Hurry up and get yours today!
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