PORTFOLIO - Give me feedback on my fledgling 3d body of work!

Joseph Silverman

Hey polycount! I'm slowly making my triumphant return to 3d art, and I'm clawing together a portfolio so I can earn myself a big boy job.

No excuses, but thanks to my fulltime retail job, I'm not getting near the hours I'd like to put into producing blow your socks off triple A 3d art, so as of yet this is largely just a proof of concept that I CAN create 3d primitives and apply textures to them. That said, as I scrape together more hours to produce 3d work, I hope to eventually polish this into a professional, well rounded 3d portfolio, and that's where you come in!


http://catkilo.com/3d/


I would love general input on the body of work that I'm presenting here. I know the presentation and general polish of the assets is holding me back, and while I don't have time to make immediate fixes, I am looking for work, and every bit of feedback helps.

Snader

My initial response is that you're sloppy. Not that you're lacking skill, but that you're rushing too much and aren't putting enough love into the pieces. This is very apparent in the mecha-cat texture for example.

DLoud

I'd really love to see a bit more attention to detail. I share the sentiments above. The impression you give is that you're trying to finish work quickly to add pieces to the portfolio.

Your focus seems to be primarily characters so I'd like to see more full game-ready characters in a game engine (marmoset or UDK are easy enough). Busts or speed sculpts are great for a blog but I'd avoid putting them on your portfolio.

Overall it's clear you know the tools and can go through the workflow of creating a current gen character. Now is the time to flex your artistic muscles.

LRoy

Your sculpts have a nice feel but it gets lost in the bake down.

Hazardous

Dude, for someone who was one of the staunch / outspoken defenders of the female tropes in games thread - and for someone who critiqued my work on females calling one of my girls a 'creepy oversexualised shell' im surprised to see a mostly naked metal bikini girl that fits that description at the top of your folio.

Edit: To add something useful - I agree with what snader said, I'd probably spend a bit more time 'polishing' - getting materials to really read like they should, and fixing up any strange normal map problems, LRoy is right, theres something being lost in the translation from your sculpts down to your low poly, i would take a look at your retopo - because I think in some parts there may not enough polys to capture the forms correctly, hence why they arent looking clean etc, especially on the faces.

carlobarley

if you dont have time to make immediate fixes it will be hard to look for work~

daphz

I think Dloud summed it up nicely for the most part. It looks like you have a solid grasp of the tools, and know more than basic anatomy and whatnot. But the things you have posted do look a bit rushed. Slow down and take your time to really get something looking polished.
About that green and orange dress lady, it looks almost like some details were still rough when she was baked down, which causes some spots on the normals look a bit soft or wonky, like on the hair and mouth. Also can we see the unwraps?

keep at it man!

Zwebbie

I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I think you don't study enough from referency. You seem to be wielding your brushes well enough to get the shapes you want, both in 2D and 3D, but your faces all end up the same large-mouthed wide-eyed face. Your models and sketches are easily recognised from a mile away. I'd say dedicated studies, just making likenesses and not quitting before you've nailed them, would help you out a lot.

Also, I think it's confusing you named your 2D page 'home', I don't usually click on the home button.

Gav

To be honest with you, I'm not sure how marketable your work is in this set of examples. Beyond everything seemingly as though they are speed sculpts, I think the work is hard to relate to. Like, if I were recruiting for the projects that I have been on - it would be hard to see how this work would easily transfer into our production pipeline. You have a locked in style, everything seems samey as though you keep making features the exact same way every time - that combined with your rendering makes it all seem pretty one note.

Joseph Silverman

Thanks a bunch guys! All useful feedback, I appreciate it.

Zwebbie, gav, okayyyy, one of the next characters I make will be some variation off the ever popular mr realisticman.

Haz, touche, there's definitely some room for improvement on her design. Maybe pants woudlve been a good idea! Appreciate the tip about density on the retopo, it's something I dont really 'get' as well as I'd like yet.

Carlobarley no kidding, it's rough.