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

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