Other than speaking japanese/english

how should my portofolio "demonstrate finesse" to get the so called concept art jobs? i could never understand that hiring criteria...

It should show you have skill and a tight style, good proportion, expert use of colour etc. and not scrappy doodles, trite or bland ideas etc. You should also show off a range of things you can do, so not all ninjas or whatever

What kind of concept art are you doing? Character, environment, etc.? Do you have skills in Photoshop/other 2D art programs, or Maya/ZBrush/Blender/other 3D creation programs?

Anyone hires here?

>>2 what is tight style? can you simplify what you mean?

>>4
Picasso would probably not land a concept art job even if the interviewer thought his art was the bees' knees. Even H. R. Giger might not.

Remember, your job is to serve as the middleman between the idea guys and the character/environment artists, with an occasional side of giving marketing some jawdropping visuals to build hype with. So work on a style that's impressive and has character, but is grounded in realism and easily understood from a geometric perspective.

If the artists after you look at your output and go "cool, but how the fuck do I turn this into something we can use" you're not a good concept artist.

western professional game industry is in a shitty spot right now, people seem to buy cheaper and shittier indie games instead. Probably.

At my western professional game studio, the character and environment artists also do the concept art. That's why I asked if you have skills in industry-standard software, someone who is shit-hot at drawing might not get the job if they're competing with someone with less artistic ability but is competent in the software the company already uses, for example.

>>6 Maybe, I can only speak for myself but it would have to be something super-special for me to consider spending more than £15 on a game instead of waiting a few years for the price to come down.

I got a job composing music for games