Game Art digital portfolio guidance

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Your portfolio plays a key role in determining your suitability to study Game Art BA (Hons) at De Montfort University. It should reflect on the breadth of your capabilities and provide an insight into your skills as an artist.

Game Art BA (Hons) is practice-based and professionally accredited by ScreenSkills. We have been awarded Unreal Engine Academic Partner status in recognition of the teaching excellence on the course, the content’s relevance to industry standards and the high quality of student work.

Your portfolio should indicate that you have the skills to meet the demands of the course as well as provide a visual journey that demonstrates the logical progression of your ideas and creative ability. It should also showcase an understanding of composition, planning and perspective. The development stage of a project is just as important as the final idea, so we'd like to see examples of you exploring ideas and developing designs.

This guidance outlines specific aspects for you to consider whilst preparing your portfolio, as well as specific requirements that we hope to see in your digital portfolio when applying to study Game Art BA (Hons) at DMU.

What are we looking for?

Hear from Subject Group Leader Dan Morley and our other creative design academics as they share their top tips for what to include in your portfolio.

We believe that the quality of work in a portfolio is more important than the quantity, so we are most keen to see the work that demonstrates your full potential as an artist.

It must include a full range of personal artwork, coursework and sketchbooks, enabling us to fully assess your capabilities. Do not miss out other personal creative activities you have developed that might be important to support your application.

Essential

Observational drawing skills, demonstrate a range of traditional art techniques such as drawing from life, the human form, rural or urban landscape and still life.
Current coursework at A Level / BTEC level showing development though to the final artwork. It should be illustrative and distinctive.
Sketchbook showing original thinking and idea generation.

Desirable

Use of digital software such as Photoshop, Illustrator and any other creative app.
Preproduction, concept design of characters and/or props.
Evidence of spatial awareness and an ability to think three dimensionally.

We are also looking for evidence of good and original visual communication skills and an inquisitive mind. We encourage you not to have work that is purely a copy of fan art, photographs, film stills and other artist’s work. We would like to see your own artwork - the use of AI-generated concepts and/or digitally manipulated images of other artist's work are not acceptable.

Traditional Drawing

Your portfolio must include examples of human figures observed from life, and both rural and urban landscapes drawn on the spot - do not copy from photographs or comics. We would also like you to include colour studies using different mediums.

This shows us your ability to absorb visual information, and communicate physical form in 2D, a vital skill for a game artist.

Paris La Bouchardiere traditional drawing

Digital work

If you have used 2D or 3D software, please include screenshots of examples of your work. We would encourage you to show work based on character and environment design. Work should investigate an interest in line, tone and colour.

We are looking for enthusiastic artists, so we would recommend that you include examples of work done in your own time, in addition to school or college projects, to give us an idea of your motivation and passion. It is recommended that you allow us to see your full capabilities as a game artist.

Sketchbooks

We would like to see sketchbooks that show personal idea generation. They should be produced with controlled, clear, informative pen and pencil work. These sketchbooks can support coursework, and also demonstrate a self-directed creative output. The sketchbook should be the place and time to explore your own ideas and be playful.

Your application

Once you have made an application for the programme, you will be required to submit an online portfolio of high-quality, scanned work.

The contents of your digital portfolio should reflect your strongest work and contain a full range of personal artwork, and coursework and include sketchbook.
Make sure the work is clear and easy to see with a clear background.
Take high-quality pictures of your work and when inserting them into your presentation make sure that are JPEGS and not larger than 72dpi.
Ensure all work is included within this single file, rather than directing us to your website or Instagram account.
If you are including moving images such as animation or video please use .mp4, .MOV or .AVI format.
Compress or zip your file so that it does not exceed 1GB in size.
The name of your file should be your name, student reference number and the title of the course you have applied for.
We would like to see your own artwork - the use of AI-generated concepts and/or digitally manipulated images of other artist's work are not acceptable.
Submit your file via www.mailbigfile.com/dmuac

Your digital portfolio will then be reviewed by our experienced programme academics, who may contact you for further work if necessary. Upon review of your digital portfolio, a decision will be made about whether you will be accepted onto the course; which could result in a reduced offer.

Questions?

If you have any questions about your digital portfolio, please contact our Applicant Events Team who will be happy to help you.

E: applicantevents@dmu.ac.uk

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