You Don’t Need Famous Credits to Build a Strong Art Career

An artist’s career rarely follows a clean or predictable path.

Before focusing on concept art, Aaron Austin worked across illustration, animation, motion graphics, mobile games, UI, marketing art, and production design. Some jobs produced strong portfolio pieces. Others were less visible but taught him how to work quickly, solve practical problems, and support a game’s production.

Over time, that experience helped him become a concept artist who creates environments, world-building concepts, production callouts, and designs that other artists can build from.

In this interview, Aaron shares how artists can find their direction, gain experience without famous credits, understand what indie teams need, and build a sustainable career in a changing market.

Main Topics:

• Concept Art Career
• Building an Art Portfolio
• Getting Your First Game Art Job
• Specialization vs Versatility
• 2D Art for Indie Games
• AI in Game Art

Interview

With Senior Concept Artist Aaron Austin

Q: Your career did not begin directly in concept art. How did your earlier work help you become the artist you are today?

You worked across animation, illustration, motion graphics, mobile games, UI, and other areas. Which skills and experiences from those years still help you now?

Working in small studio environments, having a wide variety of skills and the ability to help out in areas outside my specialty has been a major asset. I think most people picture character, environment, and prop design when they think of concept art, but as a concept artist I have also generated a lot of icon designs, UI layout ideas, and animated mock-ups for game mechanics. But having a good grasp of graphic design is also helpful for things like signage in an environment or decals on a character uniform, for example. 

Q: How can a young artist understand which area of 2D art suits them best?

Should they try environments, characters, illustration, UI, icons, key art, or something else? How can they explore different directions without spending years moving between them?

I tried to jump into my professional career too early; I started to become interested in concept art while I was still in art school for animation, but at the time I felt anxious to graduate and start earning a paycheck. In retrospect, I should have taken more time to do research on industry jobs and exploring interests before I even applied to an art school.

Once I had chosen to pursue concept art, it was some professional feedback that really helped me identify my strengths and choose a focus. At first, I really wanted to be designing everything: environments, characters, and props, and creating keyframes that showcased all of it at once. I had a pretty brutal portfolio review one year at GDC where I learned that I simply did not have the skills for all of that, but that my environments had potential. 

To boil it down my advice would be to explore more early on, and frontload the effort of really finding an area of focus that inspires you. Use that passion as fuel to keep you motivated through all the hard work and critique it will take to build a great portfolio. 

Q: Where can a new 2D artist realistically get their first professional experience today?

Are some markets, project types, or art tasks more accessible than others? What can someone do when they have no recognizable credits and are competing against hundreds of other artists?

This has always been a competitive field, and the job market these days feels tougher than ever. 

Having work in your portfolio that looks like it could fit directly into someone’s project is a good way to get their attention. The more closely your work aligns with the needs of a project, the more likely you are to get a call. There’s no way to make your portfolio accommodate every potential project, but I think it helps to keep an eye on what releases are out there, which ones interest you, and craft portfolio work that could be applicable to them.

Networking is also very important. Being in contact with other people in the industry can open doors and present opportunities, but I also find that the game dev community is broadly very friendly and supportive. You’ll get a lot out of interacting with other people interested in building games and making art, whether they’re currently students or seasoned professionals. Online through networks like LinkedIn or Discord communities, or if possible in-person at industry cons and events, I would encourage everyone to just get out there and try to make some friendly connections. 

Both of these elements had to align for me to land my first gigs. I got interested in someone’s game at GDC once and chatted with them about it, months later posted some personal work that felt relevant to them on LinkedIn, and wound up doing the key art for their Steam page. A shoutout from one of my previous online instructors on YouTube got me a bunch of exposure at one point, and some work I had done in his class turned out to be a great fit for KitBash3d. You never know where opportunities might come from.

↓ These pieces landed me my first jobs

Q: Sci-fi building concept art by Aaron Austin

When budgets are limited, what do developers usually hire artists for first: characters, environments, UI, icons, key art, marketing images, production concepts, or something else? What skills make an artist more valuable to a small game team?

This is heavily dependent on the needs of the project and what kind of game is being built. My experience has been that artists contributing directly to production assets needed within the game engine itself are prioritized for full-time positions. UI/UX is incredibly important to the game experience for example, whether the game itself is 2d or 3d. Concept art and marketing assets might not be essential for getting a game over the finish line, so those things might lose priority on a tight budget.

However, key art can be essential for getting a project off the ground and securing funding. A lot of my work has been used for pitches and getting the interest of investors- this stuff needs to straddle the line between concept art and marketing art. At the end of a development cycle, marketing art is also extremely important for promoting the game and getting people interested in playing it. So as a concept artist working with indies, the capability to do polished work has been important.

Q: Is it better to specialize or become more versatile when building a career without famous credits?

Do indie teams usually prefer a strong specialist or someone who can cover several types of 2D work?

How can an artist build a portfolio that shows clear value to both the game and the team?

As an inhouse dev on a small team, being able to wear multiple hats is definitely a plus. But I think it is important to have a specialty, and keep your portfolio focused and tight. For many years I made the mistake of trying to show too many things on my website, because I wanted to show my versatility. In the end this just created a confused, muddied portfolio that lacked identity. 

Having a wide range has come in handy for me, but potential clients and employers can see that in my resume after they have become interested by the work in my portfolio. I can show samples of other types of work if asked, but I try to be ruthless with my portfolio to keep it cohesive. Sometimes there’s work I wish I could display, but if I can’t find a place for it to fit it’s not worth the risk. A substandard or irrelevant piece of work can really damage your chances, even if it might represent a useful skill.  

Q: How is AI changing the opportunities available to 2D artists?

Are there areas where developers still clearly prefer human-made work?

Which parts of an artist’s job do you believe will remain most valuable as AI tools become more common?

I try to avoid hot-takes, but personally I do not find AI very useful, audiences seem turned off by it, and developers I’ve worked with seem to be pulling away from it. I’ve taken over projects where the client was unhappy with a previous artist leaning too heavily on it, and worked with devs who have forbidden its use altogether. I have seen some experienced artists fold it into their workflow in interesting ways, but it’s certainly no replacement for fundamental skills. If there’s an area where AI is going to have a big fundamental role, I haven’t seen it yet.

Q: What has helped you continue finding work without relying on famous studio names or major game credits?

Has it been the quality of your work, versatility, relationships, visibility, reliability, production knowledge, or a combination of several things?

I’ve developed good working relationships by delivering quality work on time. Making the people I work with happy has been the best way to ensure they return when the need arises, or give me a referral. Lots of great artists get buried by the algorithm and never get the visibility they deserve. We can’t control the algorithm, but we can control our commitment and enthusiasm, how well we tackle feedback and meet deadlines, and how we are to work with. I just focus on doing the best work I can.

For Indie Developers

If an indie team has a limited art budget, where should it invest in human-made 2D work first?

Which visual tasks have the greatest effect on the game and are the hardest to solve well with templates, asset packs, or AI-generated images?

In my experience, a lot of variety can be created with a relatively small asset library when assets are remixed or reskinned in new and interesting ways. A whole set of enemy types can be built from one character model with some thoughtful material and color design choices, or a fresh environment full of rich storytelling using some twists on 3d models you already have. Having a concept artist who can put together fresh new designs using available assets can free up 3d artists to focus on the unique setpieces that really need to be designed and built from scratch.

↓ Kitbashed vehicle designs, entirely using models from studio asset library

As devs I think we need to identify what makes our game a unique, fun experience and focus our energy on those pillars, and look for places to save effort around the edges of that central experience. Maybe the hallway between points A and B just needs to serve its purpose without calling too much attention to itself, and we can kitbash something serviceable for that. But points A and B themselves need to be interesting spaces where the player will spend some time, and so we spend some extra time designing and modeling a more unique experience for these areas. 

↓ Several concepts using a small kitbash set I built

For Young Artists

What would you say to an artist who feels behind because other people already have AAA games and famous studios in their portfolios?

What should they focus on during the next year instead of comparing their career with someone else’s?

We should all be supportive of one another, this is a tough business. We can celebrate each other’s wins while looking for our own opportunities for success. It’s worth keeping an eye on the portfolios of people who are getting the type of work you want, there’s a lot you can learn by looking at the work of people whose craft you respect. But it’s not worth your energy to spin out getting frustrated about the opportunities that haven’t come your way. This really is a labor of love at the end of the day, and when I get stressed out or frustrated, sometimes the best cure is to just put my head down on some personal work. Just do it for the love of it. And hour by hour, week by week, you’ll be building an even stronger portfolio that might just land you the dream job.