Hi everyone, I got a lot of people asking me to share my Painted Wood Planks Substance Material. So I went ahead and put together a comprehensive tutorial video going over the graph and talking about the workflow. I hope you'll get a chance to check it out and I appreciate the support! Check it out and read more about it below. Thanks!
- Jacob

As we have all witnessed, Substance Designer is taking the game industry by storm. Almost anyones portfolio now working on textures and materials in games has a library of Substance materials they have worked on. There are so many different techniques and ways to create exactly what you want and even multiple ways to achieve the exact same thing. The more tools and tips we are aware of though, the greater the possiblities for us to solve those tough shapes or ideas that we want to create. Checkout a few of the ways Shray Khanna approaches texture creation in Substance Designer.

Also checkout more of his work here. 
https://www.artstation.com/shray

Enjoy making a ton of bolts and thank you Sergey for sharing!
​- Jacob

As the Unreal Engine continues to release new updates, the potential for creating beautiful lit interior and exteriors is always advancing. There are many new features that can be easy to miss with each new update and we may be stuck in our old ways lighting our level without realizing that we are missing the incredible new ways to capture that realistic lighting we are going for. Recently, Epic Games Lead Artist Jerome Platteaux provided us all with some excellent tips and tricks for UE4.

Enjoy!
​- Jacob

     Ben Mauro has always been extremely helpful to those thinking of pursuing a freelance career. He's back again talking a bit about the pro's and cons of Freelance vs. working In-House at studios. These are some great guidelines to follow when quoting freelance work to studios. Many people don't consider all of the extra costs that come with working freelance. Many of these costs are usually taken care of by the studios when you work In-House, so we don't immediately consider them when we work from home. 
     Too many people aren't getting paid what they should for Freelancing. So definitely don't forget about all of this when you're quoting work for a contract!
     - Jacob

Ben Mauro -
https://www.facebook.com/ben.mauro.3
http://www.benmaurodesign.com/

RATES FOR CONCEPT ARTISTS/DESIGNERS
     Was planning on doing more of this over the year but as with the contracts/negotiations one, seems to pop up around New Years when i have more down time. Some of these topics are what i discuss during my workshops/talks and just some general advice as we push forward into 2014.
     This is obviously the tip of the iceberg on the pro's and con's of working in both environments, we can obviously get much deeper into all of this at another time. Feel free to discuss things further in comments, would be nice to hear others experiences as well. :)

Edit: Thom Tennery brought up a good point about the different taxes for both:
     "It's worth mentioning the dramatically different tax ramifications of the two scenarios. Freelancers always pay their own payroll taxes (in house artists only pay half of the payroll tax in the US). There are common situations where a freelancer's tax rate is 25% higher than an in-house artist. In addition, several US states collect a state tax over and above the federal tax that everyone pays. It's extremely bizarre to me that this is often ignored when artist's incomes/rates are being discussed. Losing 15-30% of your income in taxes is a significant line item to say the least."
​
Steve Wang on taxes in Canada for artists:
     "As a fulltime in-house artist making $200 USD per day, you'll have to pay 27-30% income tax. It goes to somewhere around the 40% range once your income is over 6 figures.
As a freelancer, you only have to pay the self-employment tax of 14%, and that is if you make over 6 figures. This also gives you the freedom to write off expenses."

Thanks so much for sharing Ben! And I hope you all enjoy taking a look at his substance file and article.
Cheers,
​- Jacob Norris

Senior Character Artist at Ubisoft Toronto

I've been friends with Elliot ever since we worked together at Insomniac. He is an incredible artist and a great guy with a ton of knowledge to share. A few years ago he took up traditional sculpting with clay and has just started some online tutorials for it. Check out this youtube video on sculpting a hand and feel free to see more of his artwork or get his tutorials on Gumroad.
Gumroad - https://gumroad.com/claymaker
Artstation - ​https://www.artstation.com/artist/mall_one

Environment Artist

Brooke put together a Viking Village scene with an awesome set of materials, textures, models and great lighting inside of the Unreal Engine. Checkout her talk about the scene at 80.lv and see the scene on her artstation.
​Arstation - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/APkkq
80.lv breakdown - https://80.lv/articles/brooke-olson-northern-architecture-for-gamedev/

Creative Director - www.qt-ent.com
Peter actually put together quite a few awesome substance designer breakdowns up on his artstation. Here is just a small sampling of what is available. Be sure to see his full artstation for everything!
Artstation - https://www.artstation.com/artist/qtheory

Tree Bark - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/AgJ1V
Wicker Basket - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/DObYE

Of course you all know there are a ton of great artists out there as I mentioned before. I'd love to post up some more work here and breakdowns as they come along. So be on the lookout, because it's fun to share these great artists with all of you. If I didn't mention some of you this time, there will definitely be a next time.

Cheers everyone and take care!
​- Jacob

Click "Read More" to see the article with tips and tricks from Leonard Teo...

ArtStation has turned into quite a large and comprehensive platform. We are constantly adding new features! Because of this, we thought it would be a good idea to compile a list of tips for you to get the most out of your ArtStation account. Follow these tips to make yourself stand out and be more successful.

For the full article be sure to checkout arstation magazine up on the site!
http://magazine.artstation.com/2016/12/artstation-account/

Hi everyone,  
The first two Photopacks in the PurePolygons photopack series have released!
​Check them out in the store by clicking the links below.