Hi, Communications and Game Design major here. Sorry for the long-ish post.

I've been in a very difficult and complex position since I graduated last year and after getting rejections with almost no interviews, I'm really stumped on what to do.

I mainly want to work as a 3d character artist but I would be happy with any art, development or localization/translation jobs to get started in the industry.

I have tried applying to jobs in the USA, UK (where I grew up in), Germany (one of my nationalities), in Turkey (other nationality) and Japan (N3 language level + I love the games from there).

Currently I am stuck in Turkey due to not having enough of an income to move and I do not see any viable career-growing options here since game dev in this country is almost all focused on hypercasual mobile games that do not seem to be helpful if you want to further your skills in Zbrush/Marvelous/Blender/Maya etc.

I'm bilingual (English/Turkish) and have Conversational Japanese which I'm aiming to bump up to Business Level (N2). I'm considering pivoting to localization if 3d art does not work out right now.

Its been very mentally taxing since I've been trying to get out of here ever since family moved here and the culture shock persists to this day. I had thought a degree would help a lot in getting a sponsorship but enduring the discrimination/othering I face here as a mixed national has been slowing my productivity down quite considerably.

I have been and will keep working on my portfolio, of course. Its just that these unique circumstances/personal + family troubles have almost but destroyed me so I could not be as productive as I wished to be. Aside that, I am confident in my ability to adapt and work to the fullest if given an opportunity.

I'll leave my artstation link here: https://www.artstation.com/lena_hardt

I realize having a mix of character art/environment art/illustration is not a cohesive portfolio so I'll be focusing more on 3d chara/clothing design going forward.

Lastly, I apologize for the occasional venting, but these problems have been isolating to a maddening degree, I do not expect many to relate, but when desperation sets in, I see no other recourse than to reach out and ask for help, something which is wholly new to me. Even admitting I need help feels like I've failed miserably.

I hope anyone reading this has a nice day and good luck on developing their games.