[Johnny9ball]

Ok the role of a digital artist. This is a fairly broad question so I will try and cover some areas of what a modeler does in different jobs, since you are intrested in modeling.

Many studios that hire digital artists have whats called a production pipeline. In a production pileline Digital artists work together and fill very specific roles. When a project is comissioned then it works its way through the production pipeline till its completed. You will have many different artists working together that make up the production pipeline modelers, animators, surface and texture artists, lighting artists, riging artists and many many other positions. Usually the project is first sent to the modelers for the inital models while this is happening every different person is doing there part such for example someone may be makeing the backdrops for an animation ect... and so on. Some people in the pipeline have to wait for example the animators can not animate till the modelers give them something. After modeling then surfaceing and then animation. Usually any voice acting is done before the animation so the animators can synch up the digital actors to the voices. It works very much like movie makeing, every person fills there part. To get jobs in production pipelines many people will specilize in an area of 3D in your instance you would want to concentrate on your modeling skills till they are razor sharp. When applying for a job to be a modeler you would make demo-reel will lots of very detailed models on turn tables. If someone was applying for surfaceing they would make some wicked cool surfaces to show on there demo-reel.

Now this does not apply to all situations. In some jobs the production pipeline is small and requires a digital artist with mutiple talents. In smaller studios such as some tv productions or shows as Entertainment Tonight (Which uses all LW by the way) the digital artist may be called on to do more than one roll in the digital production.

In freelance jobs you need well rounded skills to get the projects done because many times it will only be you doing the job.