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Articles by Alex
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Should I Go Freelance or Get a Studio Job?
Should I Go Freelance or Get a Studio Job?
If you're an animator, CG or VFX artist, chances are you've asked yourself this question. Maybe you've already dipped…
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Why You’re Not Getting Promoted (Even If You’re Talented)
Why You’re Not Getting Promoted (Even If You’re Talented)
The mindset shift from 3D artist to true 3D professional You’ve spent years building your skills; your work is clean;…
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Alex Kong posted thisYou love everything about 3D production. So you learned everything. And now nobody knows what to do with you. This is the generalist trap. And it is not your fault. Nobody explains how top studios actually think about this. Here is the truth. ILM, Framestore, WETA do hire 3D generalists. But look at the actual job descriptions. They are not looking for someone who dabbles in everything. They are looking for someone with a strong primary discipline and a deep second skill that creates a specific workflow advantage on production. Creature FX artist who also understands the rigging that drives the simulation. Lookdev artist who can light a shot from scratch. FX TD who knows comp well enough to make calls that save the downstream team hours. These are the generalist profiles that get hired. The overlap is the value. Not the range. Two things separate the hired from the ignored: The skills tell one story. Not random. Together they describe a specific type of problem you solve on a production. The reel proves the combo. Not two separate sections sitting side by side. Shots that show both skills working together in context. The artists getting lost are collecting unrelated skills and calling it versatility. The ones getting hired went deep on two things that connect, and built everything around that. Go read a real 3D Generalist JD at ILM or WETA. Then go look at your profile. If they do not match, that is your gap. If you want to know exactly where your positioning is breaking down, take the free diagnostic. It finds your real bottleneck in 5 minutes: https://bit.ly/4qpVrPE
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Alex Kong posted thisApplying to 40 studios is not a strategy. It is a way to stay busy while avoiding the harder work. Here is how to actually narrow your list: Discipline fit. What do you do specifically? Not "3D artist." Character modeler, creature TD, lighting artist, FX specialist. You are looking for studios known for work in that discipline. Cross off anything that does not fit before you start. The work. Go watch what is coming out of the studios on your list. - Do you actually want to make that kind of work? - Does your reel connect to it in any way? If you do not genuinely care about the work they make, it shows. In your reel, in your cover letter, in the conversation. Studios can tell. Pipeline signals. - Are they posting about new projects? - Hiring across multiple departments? - Showing up at festivals or in press? Studios in active production are the ones most likely to be hiring. Studios that have gone quiet are often in a different phase. Real conversations. Before you apply anywhere, find one person at that studio who can tell you what it is actually like to work there. Not the careers page. A real conversation. Three or four studios you know well will get you further than forty you researched for five minutes each. I put the full targeting system in this free guide: https://lnkd.in/gF-Pmigu
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Alex Kong shared thisMost people are stuck in panel 1 wondering why nothing is working. Panels: 1. Applying to 40 studios with the same reel 2. Applying to 20 studios with a better reel 3. Applying to 5 studios with a tailored reel 4. Applying to 3 studios after building real relationships with people inside
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Alex Kong posted thisReal-time skills are not a bonus anymore. Studios are listing Unreal Engine as a requirement, not a nice-to-have. This has been building for a few years. What changed recently is how explicit it has become. Job postings that used to say "real-time experience a plus" now say "experience with real-time pipelines required." The distinction matters. The VFX and animation industries borrowed heavily from games pipelines during the streaming boom. That borrowing is now permanent. Virtual production stages, in-camera VFX, interactive previsualization. These are not experimental anymore. They are production reality at mid-to-large studios. The artists who are not keeping up with this are not disqualified from every job. But they are narrowing their options without necessarily realising it. You do not have to become a real-time specialist. But if your reel has nothing that demonstrates any familiarity with these pipelines, you are invisible to a growing number of roles. The artists getting hired right now understand which direction things are moving. And they are positioning themselves ahead of it, not catching up to it. If you want to know where your search is actually breaking down, take the free diagnostic. It finds your real bottleneck in 5 minutes: https://bit.ly/4qpVrPE
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Alex Kong posted this"The market is hard" is an explanation, not a strategy. Every artist I talk to knows the market is tough. The numbers back it up. Re-employment in games now takes nearly 5 months on average. Studios are doing more with fewer people. Competition for each role is higher than it has been in years. Most artists respond to this by waiting. Waiting for the market to turn. Waiting until their reel is better. Waiting for the right opportunity to appear. The artists getting callbacks right now are not waiting. They changed how they approach the search. Not because they are more talented. Not because they got lucky. Because they stopped treating "the market is hard" as a complete thought and started treating it as a problem to solve. A hard market is not an excuse to apply the same way and expect different results. It is a signal to get more precise. About which studios you are targeting. About what your reel is built to show. About whether your positioning actually communicates what you do or whether it says everything and therefore says nothing. The market being difficult is not the variable you can control. How you respond to it is. If you want to know exactly where your search is breaking down, take the free diagnostic. It finds your real bottleneck in 5 minutes: https://bit.ly/4qpVrPE
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Alex Kong posted thisI worked with an artist last year who had a genuinely strong reel. Clean work, solid fundamentals. The kind of portfolio that should be getting responses. He had applied to over 150 jobs across six months. Zero callbacks. When I looked at what he was doing, the problem was not the reel. It was everything around it. His headline said something like "3D Artist | Animation | Modeling | Rigging | Available for Work." He was applying to anything remotely relevant. His cover letters were variations of the same three paragraphs. It looked like the profile of someone who would take anything. Studios are not looking for someone who will take anything. They are looking for the person who does the specific thing they need. Fixing it was not a quick tweak. It took weeks of uncomfortable work. Deciding on one direction and letting go of the others. Rebuilding how he presented himself from scratch. Researching the specific studios he was targeting well enough to actually say something useful to them. It was slow. There were points where he was not sure it was working. He got his first callback about two months in. Same reel. Completely different positioning. The work was never the real problem. But the work alone was never going to be enough either. If this resonates and you want to talk through where you're stuck, send me a message.
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Alex Kong posted thisThe artists I see getting traction in this market are not applying more. They are applying less, but with a lot more precision. I call it the Sniper approach. Here is how it works: 1. Pick your target. One discipline. One type of studio. Get specific enough that you can name three or four places you actually want to work. Not "major studios", actual names. 2. Study the bar. What does strong work look like at your target studios? Watch their films. Follow their artists. Get a clear picture of the standard you are aiming at. 3. Close the gap. Compare your current work to that bar honestly. What is missing? Not everything, just the most important gap. Focus there. 4. Build your shot list. Every piece in your reel should exist for a reason. Each shot should show something specific that your target studios are looking for. If it does not serve that purpose, cut it. 5. Get warm before you apply. Before you submit anything, start building real connections at those studios. Comment on their work. Reach out with a genuine question. The application should not be the first time they have seen your name. That is the full system. Spray-and-pray is not a strategy. This is. I put the full 5-step system into a free guide. You can grab it here: https://lnkd.in/gF-Pmigu
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Alex Kong posted thisA lot of artists read job postings wrong. They scan the requirements list, count how many boxes they tick, and decide whether to apply. That is not how to read a job posting. Here is what actually matters: The language. Supervisors write postings. The words they choose reveal what they are actually worried about. - "Fast-paced environment" = the pipeline is chaotic - "Strong communicator" = the last person did not flag problems early enough - "Experience with real-time pipelines" = they are actively shifting away from linear What is missing. Every posting leaves something out. - A lighting role with no mention of look dev? They have separated those functions. - They mention speed a few times or communication, that's likely where their current issues are happening. What is absent tells you as much as what is present. The real problem they are trying to solve. Every open role exists because something is not working. A team is understaffed. A specialist left. A new project needs a specific skill set. Figure out the actual problem and your cover letter stops being a reel summary. It becomes a direct answer to their situation. Job postings are not checklists. They are briefs. Read them like one.
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Alex Kong posted thisRe-employment in games now takes 4.7 months on average. That number should change how you job hunt. In 2024, it was closer to 2.5 months. That is not a blip. That is a structural shift. The market got harder. Most artists acknowledge that. But here is what most artists have not done: changed their approach to match it. The strategy the majority are using right now was built for a different market. Post your reel. Apply to everything that looks relevant. Wait. Repeat. That worked when studios were expanding. It does not work when they are not. The artists who are getting hired right now are not luckier. They are not more talented. They are approaching the search differently. They are not casting a wide net and hoping something sticks. They are picking specific targets, studying what those studios actually need, building a case that speaks directly to that need, and getting in front of the right people before the application goes live. The market changed. The playbook most artists are using did not. That is the gap. And that is fixable.
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Super coooooollll que genial Álvaro!
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This is crazy cool, this is EXACTLY what Reallusion was needing, so now you have a powerful base 3D package that has EVERYTHING you need that is super user friendly and a way to flesh it out to final render consistenly, you guys are gonna hit it out of the park IN SANELY!
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Alex Kong liked thisAlex Kong liked this🎮#HIRINGNOW!🎮 NEW POSITION ADDED! - SENIOR #VFX #ARTIST ✨👉 https://lnkd.in/dFyrzGqv And still hiring: - SENIOR LEVEL DESIGNER 👉 https://lnkd.in/dh6eQwh7 - SENIOR COMBAT GAME DESIGNER 👉 https://lnkd.in/dznYRrbz - SENIOR TECHNICAL DESIGNER 👉 https://lnkd.in/dSaYpXMX - SENIOR 3C GAME DESIGNER 👉 https://lnkd.in/dYS_tsjK
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Alex Kong liked thisAlex Kong liked this🎮#HIRINGNOW!🎮 NEW POSITION ADDED! - SENIOR #RIGGER 🤖🦴 👉 https://lnkd.in/dGUPEZzw And still hiring: - SENIOR VFX ARTIST ✨👉 https://lnkd.in/dFyrzGqv - SENIOR COMBAT GAME DESIGNER ⚔️ 👉 https://lnkd.in/dznYRrbz - SENIOR 3C GAME DESIGNER 🕹️🎥👉 https://lnkd.in/dYS_tsjK
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Alex Kong liked thisAlex Kong liked this🚀 Reallusion’s #AIStudio Early Access is LIVE! 🎬✨ Unlock the ultimate 3D-to-AI workflow in #iClone & #CharacterCreator -using 3D motion, cameras & animation to guide AI with stunning consistency. 🤖🔥 #Reallusion #AIAnimation #VirtualProduction #3DAnimation https://lnkd.in/dR6Y9Ncj
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Alex Kong liked thisAlex Kong liked thisThis is the laziest way to generate AI videos. Ingredients to Video: Seedance vs Kling vs Gemini Omni Which model would you pick? You just need one image that serves as a storyboard. E.g. a 3x3 or 4x4 image showing all scenes of a story. Then use this image as an "ingredient" for AI videos. I’ve tested this subject across multiple video models that support ingredients to video, and decided to show the results from the 3 below. (The rest of the models are not even close.) My pick this time is Seedance 2.0: Highest prompt adherence and smooth transitions. In fact, almost all the storyboard-to-video examples you see on social media are made using Seedance. But the credits are not for Seedance alone. Without Claude, I wouldn’t be able to quickly compile a food photo guide, ingredient story, and recipes that serve as context for the storyboard. Without GPT-Image-2 on ChatGPT, I wouldn’t be able to dump the context and generate accurate storyboards. This is the benefit of focusing on context instead of writing essay-like image or video prompts. Once the context is right, your prompts can be as casual as you want.
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Alex Kong liked thisAlex Kong liked thisI got deepfaked. Someone cloned my voice and used it in a simulated bank transaction - and I couldn’t tell it wasn’t me 👀 That’s the part that sticks with you. What did catch it? Velma flagged it with 99.5% confidence❗ The gap between what humans can detect and what’s now possible with AI is only getting wider. And we’re not going to out-train billion-dollar labs on instinct alone. We need technology that can meet that level - and defend against it in real time. That’s exactly what we’re building at Modulate
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Alex Kong reacted on thisThis is a repost for my friends that are comp artists rocking Nuke. If you need a break maybe try this and let me know ... 😆 by Ahmed RamadanAlex Kong reacted on thisVFX Supervisors " We need better color management and pipeline stability" Internet " Best I can do is DOOM inside Nuke Foundry. With all the talk about AI these days we get a nice break in the hype cycle to enjoy some great additions to Nuke nodes. Just remember kids add your macro's to auto hide when your Supervisor and client come for those dailies. The Dude provides !!! DOOM for Nuke is here : https://lnkd.in/gYWPujHx created by Ahmed Ramadan #DOOM #Nuke #VFX #FoundryNuke #compositing #games
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Alex Kong liked thisAlex Kong liked this🔍🎮 Indigo Studios reveals how #CharacterCreator5 powers their game The Family Crypt with realistic characters, streamlined animation & seamless #UnrealEngine integration. 👀 Discover more! https://lnkd.in/e4YZuk_E #iClone #GameDev #3DAnimation #Reallusion #IndieGameDev
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Alex Kong liked thisAlex Kong liked thisIf you want 10x the opportunities you're getting right now, here are 3 levers every Junior to senior artist on LinkedIn should pull. Full tutorial. 1. Showing the process - Not final result I speak for myself but there is a huge opportunity to be the person that is showing the process (with your voice) of how you think. 99% of artists are soooo happy to sit behind their screen and post a final image and just "hope it does something" online. I love you guys but I know you didn't get into this field without being absolutely gobsmacked by some behind the scenes footage you saw for any of your favorite films. And then tell me you were at least a little more impressed by the process, trial and error, grit, ingenuity that you see on full display by the team. Be the only one on here showing, not telling. 2. Networking The downright easiest way to get real momentum in any career is to be the person people want to network with. The crazy thing is, this has nothing to do with shaking hands and being charismatic and other extroverted lies you tell yourself (or others believe) Here's the secret. I say it quite often, but if you want to be seen as an interesting person, be interested in the person in front of you. Also, if you want confidence to talk to anyone, make something interesting. Some tool, resource, etc that actually (crazy thought) helps people on their journey. Now anywhere you go, anyone you talk to, you now have a "thing" that you can give out freely to your peers. Now you have a real deal conversation starter. 3. Use the opportunities around you I bet only 1 or 2 people will read and truly get this (and then implement), so I am writing this for you. You got into this game to create amazing images for companies to promote their Intellectual Property (Product/Service/etc). OK! you might not be able to work for ILM today... but there are hundreds of businesses in your area that would droooool at what you could accomplish for them to market their stuff. You are already working on personal projects that may or may not get you a job... but you know what? You could be using that saaame time and saaaame energy building a relationship with business owners in your area. As you pull these off you can show their friends and acquaintances and start picking up jobs from there. If you get it... you get it. If you are really picking up what I am saying here, you will realize that everything I just said in this post is all you need to actually start a real career freelancing and not having to wait on the whims of a studio to hire you. YOU are the one with the tools, knowledge and skill to create images that sell. If you learn to present your work well, network with people and actually deliver for the businesses in your area, you are lightyears ahead in controlling your future. Take action and help your friends along the way Peace and Love
Experience & Education
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Kong Coaching
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Licenses & Certifications
Courses
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Acting for animators with Ed Hooks
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Hollywood Camera Work and The Science of Awesome
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John Truby's 3-Day (Los Angeles) Story Master Class
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Pixar Story Workshop at Siggraph with Andrew Gordon
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Previsualization and Animatics at Gnomon School of VFX with Brian Pohl
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Producing animation projects with Alex Solo and Pablo Baksht from Lo Coloco Films
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