Working for the game industry

I haven't been working for the industry for long (about 6 months now) yet I feel that I'm getting a good idea what it's like for small companies to function. 

A small business usually work based on commissions or contracts; a client in this case comes to is with a specific task and budget and once it's agreed we proceed to work on it. The general idea it's fine, the actual process is a nightmare. In my experience, the client didn't have a solid idea of what he wanted and they kept changing their mind half way or near the end expecting to have the changes done within the original time frame. This obviously bring pressure not only to the manager of the project, but to the entire team as technically the client is demanding you to work twice as much of what you're getting payed for. Things within reason can be done, but dramatic changes or adds on the work had to be discussed and re timed/budgeted. 

I problem I came across often is when you or the manager time things wrong; thinking that it can be done quickly when in reality is more time consuming than expected. This doesn't sound much different from what people who through at Uni, yet in this case any failure significantly affects the finance and reputation of the entire team. 

Certainly is been hard to keep quiet and do as your told, specially when you know things could look better. Not that my opinion wasn't valid, but it was because the client had a vague vision, yet not an specific idea. (I don't want to say an specific example to avoid troubles).

There are a lot of times when I just wanted to flip the desk, when I thought I wasn't cut for this, or when I thought I was working too hard for a project I'm not even keen on, but I've managed to see the bright side of it. 

Something I leaned at Uni and that I'll start applying into practice is to learn to time; think of how long it'll take me to do something, add a bit of extra time if there is something I've never done before and double that time. Not that I want to take it slow and get paid for doing nothing, but in reality it'll probably be a more realistic time scale and the client will be happy. Also there's a chance to finish earlier if things go right and get some extra time to polish things up.

The other bright side about working in undesired projects is the expansion of skills; unless you have a very very narrow audience and workflow target getting out of your comfort zone is something every artist should try every now and then. I feel like doing cartoon/stylised is the most fun for me, yet trying odin's something realistic, backgrounds, animals or something you're not used to will certainly improve your artistic skills and maybe learn a few techniques in the process.

It has certainly been difficult to juggle work and university studies during my entire degree, but now that I'm at the end of the tunnel I don't feel like I regret it. If anything, I'm looking forward to try numerous projects and look up for that ideal job, and in the mean time enjoy the process.