SFAS 2020 – Where are they now?
Search for a Star 2021 is well underway with over 1200 students registered to take part in Europe’s leading student-only GameDev challenge. As we eagerly await the first glimpses of this years’ projects this mini-series will explore the winners and finalists from 2020, take a look back at why they won and see what they do now.
This week we spoke with Beccy Collins, SFAS 2020 Character Art finalist, creator of Jetpack Cat and now Junior Character Artist at Sumo Digital in Leamington Spa.
“Search for a Star was overall a really fun experience! I had a great time making Jetpack Cat and I learned a lot throughout the project. My favourite part was all the amazing feedback at the end from the industry members. They did a really good job at explaining what was good and how I could improve.”
Studying Computer Games Design at Staffordshire University, Beccy’s Jetpack Cat was a big favourite amongst the assessors scoring top marks in the presentation and documentation criteria and placing 1st overall in the initial assessments. Her feedback included a ton of constructive comments from our assessment team of experienced artists in addition to some great positive feedback;
“Amazing piece of work. It immediately stands out as something of studio quality, and looks like it would fit in an Overwatch game.”
“This is an excellent piece of work. Its just lovely! The way you have added only slight sculpted fur placements, and the rest in the texture as strands, works very well, and is a hard thing to get right.”
“Good luck in your first role, I’m sure you wont have trouble cracking it if all your work is of this standard. Was a pleasure to view and mark.”
“Making it to the finals for SFAS, I noticed that it got my work seen by a lot more people, which is very valuable when you are looking to get into the industry. And as a result of doing well, I even got a job interview out of it!”
As a direct result of being a finalist in Search for a Star Beccy’s work got seen by the team at Sumo Digital (a Grads in Games partner studio). After successfully interviewing she is now working as a Junior Character Artist in their Leamington Spa studio.
With 2021’s cohort now working on their projects, what advice do you have?
“My main advice for anyone taking part would be make something you know you will enjoy making, and don’t over-scope your project! Doing something more simple but being able to finish it and polish the end product will really show off your best potential, and then you will also have another good piece of work to put on your portfolio.”
