request critique blog/portfolio
polycounter lvl 12
Hi
I am making a blog with all my work on,
since this month I'll be looking for an internship
could I have some feedback?
I really have the feeling it is lacking but i have 0 experience sitedesign.
I'll probably also create a seperate page with my best work on
http://hannesdelbeke.blogspot.be/
I hope I can find an internship where I can paint or model and texture
I can also script and rig, and know basic animation
Later I want to become a conceptArtist, but looking at my work now I know it's not good enough
please drop a comment
also if there are certain pieces you like or dislike feel free to post
thanks
Hannes
edit: recently had a dead link, so I hope everything keeps working
I am making a blog with all my work on,
since this month I'll be looking for an internship
could I have some feedback?
I really have the feeling it is lacking but i have 0 experience sitedesign.
I'll probably also create a seperate page with my best work on
http://hannesdelbeke.blogspot.be/
I hope I can find an internship where I can paint or model and texture
I can also script and rig, and know basic animation
Later I want to become a conceptArtist, but looking at my work now I know it's not good enough
please drop a comment
also if there are certain pieces you like or dislike feel free to post
thanks
Hannes
edit: recently had a dead link, so I hope everything keeps working
Replies
You have some great work, especially your paintings.
I think your site is a little cluttered and confusing to navigate. You have a characters page, and a robots page, but the same robot appears on both. The same goes for your sculpt page and vehicles page.
I also think you should keep any sort of WIP's and playing around to your blog. I can read on your sculpt page that the spaceship you did was you testing out Dynamesh, which is cool, but it isn't overly impressive or a fair gauge of your skills, as I can see by scrolling down the page.
Always put your best foot forward, employers might only have enough time to take a quick look at your site, and if it doesn't engage them straight away they might not bother to look much further. I would also suggest making another page your start page instead of your blog.
I also personally wouldn't use so many tabs. It shows you're not certain what you specialize in, and it's very confusing to navigate. You mentioned that you will make a separate page for all your best work, but imo that's exactly what the portfolio should be - just that one page:] I wouldn't put things like quick sculpts, master copies, or explanations of your class assignment (the less text the better and more professional your site will be) - you don't really want to read as a student, even though you are going for an internship.
Consolidate your About and Contact tabs into a 'Resume' tab, and make that downloadable as well.
Personally, my favorite work of yours is the scout robot, the speed-modeled gate, and especially the animated mine ( your handpainted work is beautiful:] ) Make sure everything you put in your portfolio is something that has been brought to completion and the renders are nice.
Good luck hunting for an internship, get this site sorted out!! x]
removed a lot of the tabs (put them all in a sub menu under blog)
Redirected the main page to my port folio page,
this way the user will see my portfolio first instead of my blog
Changed portfolio from scrolfolio to thumbs
this looks cleaner
about and contact became resume
made the resume cleaner, and added pdf link
added more work, and current active project
still on my to do list:
finish and polish a few things
clean up the posts for every project, now some projects are just a photodump
add description, screenshot
make a title image
add more handpainted work
I hope it is less confusing now to navigate
thx again for the help
IMO, the website looks kinda "poor". I believe that the thumbnail titles for "low poly", "high poly" looks very "unassertive". Also your name is kinda out...
I particularly dislike to roll up and down too much in a portfolio. I think you should create smaller thumbnails, so the viewer can take a better look at your projects very quickly, before exploring them.
That menu bar for "Cars, robots" etc, I really think you should give up from this. Nobody will be so patient to click on them, read all those things. Portfolios should be more visual than written.
Other thing is, well, I don't like blogspot so much. You have limited things you can work on the layout.
Anyway, take a look at this folio, how well organized is, how the thumbails are shown and how they affect your view.
http://zaphk.com/
I hope it helps, and good luck
aaargh the stress
day after tomorrow 6 interviews with local companies
Brutally honest, you need to cut EVERYTHING out of your folio expect 4 things. Your Hand Painted Forest, Hand Painted Mine, Hack and Slash Unity Project and your Darksiders 2 Aex.
I will quickly go through why everything else needs to be cut.
Concept Art - While not bad, its no where near good enough to make you a concept artist. It is also just paintings based of pictures of people, which isn't what a concept artist would do anyway. It dose not help you showing you can draw.
Characters - These are your weakest pieces by far, they are hurting your portfolio and should be removed asap.
High Poly Stuff - The Car is the only nice thing of the bunch and still I would cut that. Unless its some mind blowing piece of high poly work you really shouldn't have it in your portfolio. Instead of showing you can do 1/3rd of current gen game assets, show you can do a full pipeline by showing a Lowpoly asset, that has normals baked from a High Poly base and is textured. Just showing the High Poly is really 1/3rd of the work. Your missing the LP and Texture. Scrap them.
Blog Dropdown - Remove this entire section and all work attached too it. Your portfolio and blog should be two separate websites. Your portfolio should be showcasing the best of the best of your work and used to help you get a job. Your blog is more of something that you can post wips on and is things for friends/admires to follow.
Another reason you want to remove it from your portfolio site is you are showcasing what seems to be the majority of all 3d assets you have created. As an artist you need to be able to determine what is quality art and what is not. If you cannot do this on your portfolio you will not be able to do it in a job setting. This is a major thing employers look at when looking at your portfolio.
That is the reason why the saying less is more holds true for game art. It is better to have 1 or 2 really fantastic props/environments than 4 or 5 sub par ones. Cut the fat, only show your best work.
As for the 4 I think you should keep, they look great! Love the style of the handpainted work. Separate these sections to Environments and Props. Not Lowpoly and Highpoly.
I would cut out the "one day" Darksider Axe you have as its nothing special and just distracts from the mace. Just keep the nice Maker Hammer.
For your forest scene I would love to see this expanded into a full scene instead of just a diorama, but it is still really nice if you need to move on. But the bark of the trees are just flat color and dont have the grain work like the fallen tree making them look unfinished. I noticed it and so will employers.
You have some great work, but its buried under a lot of things that need to be cut. Your hand painted stuff is great, but I would get some current gen realistic assets in there as that is what the majority of studios are looking for. Good luck!
-Anthony
applied most of it asap
removed blog link and the drop down
removed the 2 characters
removed one day axe in darksiders
For the moment I'll leave the High Poly on it, since I'll be applying at 2 companies who only do high poly the day after tomorrow
I hope I have the chance to work in a gamecompany instead of an animation or render company though.
As soon as I do I promise to remove the high poly stuff.
Same with the 2d, going to apply at some little phonegame companies who make a lot of their games in 2d
I'll try to create some realistic props and focus more on environment art and handpainted stuff
another question:
in the best case I would be an intern at an experienced company where they make 3d for games
but for now I do not have this option yet
so would it be better to work in (for learning experience)
1)a good 3d company who make high poly models,
2)a smaller company who doesn't make 3d,
3)a startup company that lets you kinda do whatever you want (= your the only artist)