ToastemPopUp

First of all congrats, secondly I don't mean to be a jerk, but I'm legitimately curious if you were overweight when you found the lump? I know that excess fat causes an increase in estrogen and estrogen can cause you to develop breast tissue so basically I'm curious if any of that might have been a factor. Again, congrats on finishing up chemo and I hope it's only good things from here.

Not OP but I work in video games myself so if OP doesn't get back to you hopefully this will be helpful.

I went to school with a lot of students who got through the courses but never amounted to anything because they were content to just smoke weed and do the bare minimum. The video game industry is _highly_ competitive especially in the art related disciplines. And if by "character creation" you mean character modeling or character concepting those might be some of the most competitive since there's usually only a couple needed per studio (obviously this varies depending on size but compared to generalists or environment artists you need very few) and they're typically _extremely_ talented. I had an instructor who just told us flat out not to even try to go into character modeling right off the bat because it's so ridiculously competitive, and while to some that might sound like he was just being shitty, looking back on it knowing what I know now I think that advice was 100% spot on.

Personally I'd probably advise him to try and start out in asset creation or possibly environment art (if it's character modeling he's interested in), but if he's really determined then I'd say definitely don't settle for what you're being taught in class. Go beyond that to websites like artstation or polycount and just soak it all in. One of the best weapons artists I know is basically self taught (has a degree but his school didn't really teach him anything) so if your son has that level of passion he can certainly do it but he needs to be prepared for a tough road. And like anything art related, especially if it's character concepting he's interested in, he needs to practice, practice, practice.

Best of luck to him though, I hope he kills it!