asking the industry

hi, just today i found the e mail addresses of several video games companies and sent them a message asking there advice about the industry. heres a framework of my letter:

Hello, my name is Luke Lister, I am a student currently studying a Design for Digital Media degree at Leeds College of Art and Design. I'm very interested in animation and illustration in the video game industry.
The brief I'm currently undertaking requires that i source a live or professional brief and i am writing to you to seek advice on the kind of briefs and work a paid 2D artist would undertake and what would would be expected of them.
Also any advice on the kind of work that i would build a portfolio with, or how to showcase my work and general advice would be greatly appreciated
if you are interested in seeing any of my work i have a gallery on Deviant Art here, http://mr-king55.deviantart.com/
thanks a lot for your time
Luke

i changed it slightly for each company i sent it to to acknowledge them individually. basically if you can help me make a better letter or tell me a better way to go about asking for help please let me know!

Working as a team

recently on Deviant Art i offered to do requests and its made me fairly popular, i guess its pretty nice to raise my celebrity but the benifit i'm hoping for is to get more of a taste for producing work to some one elses design and to get that kind of 'this is what i wanted/ didn't want' feedback.

also i'm trying to get people to collaborate with me to create even more work! hopefully this'll kepp me busy.

Edge

edge magazine is essensial reading for anyone interested in video games, as well as the usual reviews and previews its filled with usefull information regarding recent changes in the industry and company profiles and trends and such. tis great.

if anyone knows of any similar or better reading materials i could be looking at let me know!

Manga and comics

i'd love to make graphic novels for a living. must learn the route from this book!

why pokemon is better than pocoyo

because pocoyo is a baby elf... and elf endorses pokemon.
so there phil!

DRAW DRAW DRAW

working hard?

ever scince my personal tutorial with mike i've been trying his advice and making as many drawings as i can i'll post a few here but there are more on my DA page http://mr-king55.deviantart.com/