Top 12 CG Artist Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the competitive field of computer graphics (CG), showcasing a robust set of skills on your resume can significantly distinguish you from other candidates. This article breaks down 12 essential tools and disciplines CG artists should highlight, sharpen, and show off—so hiring managers don’t miss what you can actually do.

CG Artist Skills

1. Blender
2. Maya
3. ZBrush
4. Substance Painter
5. Unreal Engine
6. Unity
7. Houdini
8. Photoshop
9. After Effects
10. Arnold Renderer
11. Nuke
12. Marvelous Designer

1. Blender

Blender is a free, open‑source 3D creation suite that spans the full pipeline: modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, and video editing. The legacy game engine is gone, but tools for realtime previews, scripting, and export to engines keep it a powerhouse for CG artists.

Why It's Important

It removes the paywall without trimming capability. You can build a complete professional workflow in one place, extend it with add‑ons, and ship work that looks anything but “free.”

How to Improve Blender Skills

1. Lock down fundamentals first. Navigation, modifiers, constraints, topology, outliner hygiene—boring until it saves you hours.

2. Pick a lane for depth: hard‑surface, characters, environments, lookdev. Go deep, then branch.

3. Use add‑ons wisely. Asset Browser, Node Wrangler, Hard Ops, Retopoflow—tools that speed thinking, not just clicking.

4. Daily reps. Small studies beat giant never‑finished epics.

5. Seek critique. Communities like Blender Artists and ArtStation will sharpen your eye fast.

6. Study pros. Break down wireframes, node trees, and lighting from artists you admire.

7. Keep pace with releases. New geometry nodes and viewport features can upend your workflow—in a good way.

Practice, review, refine. Momentum matters more than marathon sessions.

How to Display Blender Skills on Your Resume

2. Maya

Autodesk Maya is a studio staple for high‑end modeling, animation, rigging, and rendering, widely used across film, TV, and games for both hero assets and large productions.

Why It's Important

Its rigging, animation layering, and scene management are battle‑tested. When pipelines demand predictability and scale, Maya tends to be the glue.

How to Improve Maya Skills

1. Build routine. Small animation cycles, prop modeling sprints, lighting studies—keep the muscle warm.

2. Master the core: clean topology, UVs, deformation, and scene organization. Everything else sits on this.

3. Learn MEL or Python. Even light scripting nukes repetitive drudgery and earns you pipeline points.

4. Explore plugins when they solve real problems, not as a crutch.

5. Track version updates and new tools. A single feature (like sweep retopo or cached playback improvements) can change your day‑to‑day.

6. Show work, get feedback. Polycount, ArtStation, and studio peers will catch what you don’t.

Blend craft with speed. Studios notice both.

How to Display Maya Skills on Your Resume

3. ZBrush

ZBrush, now part of Maxon, is the industry’s go‑to for digital sculpting and high‑resolution detailing, with painting and texturing tools built in.

Why It's Important

Characters, creatures, ornate props—when you need millions of polygons and believable forms, ZBrush carves the look.

How to Improve ZBrush Skills

1. Grasp the essentials: brushes, subdivisions, Dynamesh, ZRemesher, polygroups, masking. Then combine them without thinking.

2. Study anatomy and drapery if you sculpt organics. The software won’t save weak forms.

3. Build custom brushes and alphas tailored to your subject matter.

4. Practice speed sculpts. Short constraints force decisiveness.

5. Engage with communities like ZBrushCentral for feedback and process breakdowns.

6. Track updates. Features like Sculptris Pro, Stroke modifiers, or dynamic thickness can rewire your approach.

7. Use plugins and ZPlugins when they streamline retopo, UVs, or baking.

Iteration is your ally. Sculpt, evaluate, resculpt—until it sings.

How to Display ZBrush Skills on Your Resume

4. Substance Painter

Adobe Substance 3D Painter is the standard for painting materials, masks, and texture sets directly on 3D assets—fast, layered, and physically based.

Why It's Important

Consistent PBR textures travel cleanly between DCCs and engines. Smart masks, generators, and baking tools make believable wear and detail feel natural, not noisy.

How to Improve Substance Painter Skills

1. Nail UVs first. Clean seams, even texel density, logical islands—your textures will thank you.

2. Explore Smart Materials and generators, then build your own so your look isn’t generic.

3. Create custom brushes and grunge maps. A small personal library goes a long way.

4. Use a non‑destructive stack: layers, anchors, and paint through masks rather than baking choices in too early.

5. Practice material reads—roughness, height, and color working together. Value structure beats flashy noise.

6. Pull assets from the Substance 3D Assets and Community libraries for study and kitbashing.

7. Stay current with new features and baking improvements; export presets evolve with engines.

Texture with intent. Every scratch, stain, and edge highlight should tell a story.

How to Display Substance Painter Skills on Your Resume

5. Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine 5 brings real‑time rendering with Lumen, Nanite, and robust virtual production tools—used for cinematics, games, visualization, and live pipelines.

Why It's Important

High fidelity in real time changes how you iterate. Light, animate, and comp inside the engine, then ship or shoot without waiting on long offline renders.

How to Improve Unreal Engine Skills

1. Feed it the good stuff. Use Quixel Megascans via Bridge and well‑made assets to push realism fast.

2. Master lighting. Lumen settings, exposure, color management, and light functions separate flat from filmic.

3. Prototype with Blueprints. Visual scripting lets artists test interactions and layout quickly.

4. Optimize early. Profile, trim overdraw, leverage Nanite, and use Virtual Shadow Maps intelligently.

5. Explore World Partition and level streaming for large scenes without chaos.

6. Keep pace with 5.x updates—small releases often carry big workflow wins.

7. Learn the sequencer for shots, cameras, and editorial beats.

Real‑time doesn’t mean reckless. Balance beauty with performance from the start.

How to Display Unreal Engine Skills on Your Resume

6. Unity

Unity is a cross‑platform engine for interactive 2D/3D, AR, and VR. For artists, it’s a sandbox with Shader Graph, VFX Graph, Timeline, Cinemachine, and robust lighting options across URP and HDRP.

Why It's Important

It handles everything from mobile stylized worlds to high‑end visualization. Rapid iteration, huge ecosystem, strong tooling for teams.

How to Improve Unity Skills

1. Understand the render pipelines. Pick URP or HDRP intentionally and learn their strengths.

2. Build shaders—Shader Graph first, then hand‑coded when you need finer control.

3. Level up lighting: probes, lightmaps, ray tracing (HDRP), exposure, and post‑processing.

4. Learn basic C#. Even minimal scripting unlocks effects, tools, and smarter scene logic.

5. Use VFX Graph for performant particle work and stylized magic.

6. Organize assets with Addressables and keep scenes lean.

7. Study optimization: batching, LODs, occlusion, texture memory, and GPU profiling.

8. Practice with bite‑sized projects—ship small demos regularly.

Make it pretty, make it fast, make it shippable.

How to Display Unity Skills on Your Resume

7. Houdini

Houdini is a procedural beast—simulation, destruction, fluids, pyro, crowds, and parametric modeling—plus Solaris/USD and the Karma XPU renderer for lookdev and lighting.

Why It's Important

When shots get complex, proceduralism keeps you nimble. Change the rules, not a thousand meshes.

How to Improve Houdini Skills

1. Think in nodes. Networks, attributes, and parameters are your canvas.

2. Learn VEX and VOPs. Even a little attribute wrangling multiplies what you can do.

3. Tackle small sims first: grains, smoke puffs, rigid chops—iterate quickly.

4. Build HDAs (digital assets) to package and reuse your best setups.

5. Explore Solaris and USD for scene assembly and lighting that scales.

6. Benchmark and cache smartly. Disk I/O and sim settings can make or break deadlines.

7. Share work for critique—OdForce and SideFX communities are gold mines.

Procedural thought is a habit. Cultivate it and big problems get smaller.

How to Display Houdini Skills on Your Resume

8. Photoshop

Photoshop is the workhorse for texture work, paintovers, matte painting, photobashing, and presentation boards—precise control over pixels, color, and mood.

Why It's Important

From albedo touch‑ups to marketing art, it’s where CG often gets its final polish. Smart Objects, masks, and blend modes carry heavy weight.

How to Improve Photoshop Skills

1. Work non‑destructively: adjustment layers, layer masks, Smart Filters. Freedom to revise without wreckage.

2. Build brush sets for your specialties—skin pores, foliage breakup, hard‑surface grunge.

3. Speed matters. Learn and use shortcuts, actions, and custom workspaces.

4. Color mastery: values first, then hue. Calibrated monitors and solid color management help.

5. Leverage Camera Raw for rapid tone and texture control on source plates.

6. Explore Generative Fill and variations to draft ideas fast—then refine by hand.

7. Study paintovers from pros and replicate techniques to internalize them.

Great textures and frames come from great fundamentals. Keep it clean, then get creative.

How to Display Photoshop Skills on Your Resume

9. After Effects

After Effects handles compositing, motion graphics, and a ton of finishing work. With Multi‑Frame Rendering, improved 3D space, and tight integration with Cinema 4D, it’s a flexible post hub.

Why It's Important

It stitches CG passes together, polishes motion, and adds the extra sauce—glows, glints, dust, titles—that make shots feel complete.

How to Improve After Effects Skills

1. Lock in the basics: keying, tracking, roto, color management, and precomp discipline.

2. Use expressions (JavaScript engine) to drive motion and automate tedious work.

3. Adopt rock‑solid folder and comp naming. Future‑you (and teammates) will be grateful.

4. Learn popular plugins thoughtfully: Trapcode, Sapphire, Element 3D, and motion tools that actually fit your style.

5. Practice shot‑based workflows—ingest, comp, version, review, revise.

6. Share work-in-progress for critique. Small tweaks often punch far above their weight.

Good comping is invisible until it wants to be seen. Aim for that.

How to Display After Effects Skills on Your Resume

10. Arnold Renderer

Arnold is a physically based renderer from Autodesk, trusted for predictable, photoreal results in feature work and high‑end commercials—CPU at its core, with a capable GPU mode for many workflows.

Why It's Important

Its lighting, sampling, and AOV system are straightforward and dependable. You get clean images with fewer mysterious levers to pull.

How to Improve Arnold Renderer Skills

1. Tune sampling methodically. Start low, find the noisier contributors, then raise samples where it matters most.

2. Use Adaptive Sampling to claw back time on easy areas.

3. Convert textures to .tx and keep resolutions sane. I/O costs add up.

4. Leverage Noice or OptiX denoisers to reduce final sample counts without smearing detail.

5. Instance and use stand‑ins for heavy geometry. Your RAM will breathe.

6. Keep shaders efficient. Fewer nested closures and simpler networks render faster than baroque webs.

7. Render only the AOVs you need. Extra passes aren’t free.

8. Stay current with releases; GPU feature coverage keeps improving.

Clarity first, speed second, beauty as the result.

How to Display Arnold Renderer Skills on Your Resume

11. Nuke

Nuke is a node‑based compositing platform built for high‑end film and TV. With NukeX, Nuke Studio, deep comps, and rock‑solid color management, it anchors complex pipelines.

Why It's Important

When plates, CG, paint, and grading must blend seamlessly, node graphs and deep data give you control layer by layer, pixel by pixel.

How to Improve Nuke Skills

1. Master the interface and core nodes: Merge families, transforms, grades, keyers, and blurs—with precision.

2. Learn Python to automate and build studio‑friendly tools. Even simple scripts save hours.

3. Practice with real plates. Key skin, track imperfect camera moves, match grain and lens effects until it clicks.

4. Go deep—literally. Learn deep compositing for heavy VFX shots when holdouts and edges get tricky.

5. Adopt OCIO color management and keep it consistent across the pipeline.

6. Seek critique regularly. Fresh eyes find seams.

7. Experiment. Strange node combos sometimes uncover better solutions than the obvious path.

Clean graphs, clean comps. Your future supervisors will notice both.

How to Display Nuke Skills on Your Resume

12. Marvelous Designer

Marvelous Designer, from CLO Virtual Fashion, simulates clothing and fabrics with pattern‑based workflows that mirror real garment construction.

Why It's Important

Nothing fakes fabric like real patterns and physics. Believable folds, tension, and drape elevate characters from good to alive.

How to Improve Marvelous Designer Skills

1. Study real patterns and sewing logic. The tools make sense once the garment does.

2. Prototype garments quickly, then refine seams, darts, and internal lines for realism.

3. Tune fabric presets and physical properties to match the material you’re mimicking.

4. Use pins, wind, layering, and simulation settings to sculpt the drape you want.

5. Round‑trip cleanly with Maya, Blender, or ZBrush. Retopo, thickness, and UVs matter post‑sim.

6. Stay current with updates—simulation stability and retopology tools keep improving.

7. Share work in the community for fit and realism critiques.

8. Rebuild garments from references. You’ll learn faster than by guessing.

Real cloth tells a story. Let tension, gravity, and pattern do the talking.

How to Display Marvelous Designer Skills on Your Resume