Hi I am a 33 year old artist and have been doing 3d modeling and animation for about 15 years now. I already have an associates degree in visual communication with a focus on graphic design and I am wanting to pursue a bachelors of science in the video game field. I would absolutely love to be a character or environmental artist and I am in great need of some advice from people that know what they are talking about. I pursued a visual communications degree because that was all that was available at the nearby college and was hoping to get into a field that focused more on the modeling end of things. So recently I went back to my college and they informed me that it may be more lucrative for me to pursue a field in video games because I live in Maryland and there is a decent amount of video game companies in my area. I would love to work for bethesda studios as a character artist and I am quite capable of creating very nice low poly models for a company such as them. Also I have had a few meetings with the president of breakaway games at a local starbucks (he is friends with my brother-in-law) I showed him my portfolio and he thought it was wonderful. I only met with him for advice and networking purposes but I got a great response to my portfolio.

I am currently having two problems though. One I have little to no applicable experience in creating models for video games and my portfolio has more of a cg focus. So I figured it may be best to not rely on my portfolio to land me a job and go back for my bachelors if not only to create more relevant material for my portfolio. Two I would have to attend an online university and I cannot decide which one would be the best for me to attend. I have been looking at devry, brown, academy of art and even full sail. But I don't want to make the wrong decision. Any advice on here would be great, because I don't tend to run into people who are involved in the video games industry everyday lol! Thank you all very much in advance

Nick

At your age, you don't "need" a degree. What you need now is a portfolio.

So build a portfolio that shows why you're the most awesome candidate for the job you want.

That's it. That's all.