Wes Wheeler: Passionate about pursuing a creative career

What’s Wes doing today?
As a concept artist, Wes designs and creates the art that a modeling team references to create areas of a video game. To do this, Wes starts with a thumbnail, then blows it up and inks it, creating a full color painting of one of the points of interest in the environment. From this painting, he pulls various objects out and re-draws them. The objects he draws include lamp posts, archways, plants, and houses. This is done in conjunction with a project lead and several co-workers. Wes states that his favorite part of the job is painting, when he gets to “make it look as awesome as possible.”

Creative inspiration
Wes had an interest in art before beginning his studies, and chose to pursue a creative career because he knew it was something he was passionate about. He wanted a job where he could take his creativity to a new level — while getting paid for it.  He states, “I’m still trying to teach myself every day and I feel that aspect of my education is one thing that makes me happy that I picked The Art Institute of California — San Diego.”

Getting out there
While taking a portfolio class, Wes toured Sony Online Entertainment. He met several people working in the studio, and left his portfolio with one of them. A few days later he followed up with an email to thank them for the tour, “so they’d remember me and look at my portfolio.” The morning after he sent the email, he received a response stating that Sony Online Entertainment was impressed by his portfolio and was offering him an interview. He was hired as a temp, which eventually turned into a full-time concept artist position.

Wes offers three pieces of advice to students interested in breaking into the industry: “Set big goals and follow through with them to the end, then make more; make sure when you graduate that your portfolio is as awesome as you can make it; and don’t underestimate yourself if your artistic goal seems far away. If there’s a will there’s a way.”