In need of portfolio advice/feedback

Leinad

It's been some time, but I do feel like it's necessary to get some input on my portfolio from polycount once again. I've been working on this for a while now, trying to keep my focus (life has a way of getting in the way sometimes) and do my best to improve as often as I can in hopes of one day working in a studio. I am not quite sure where I stand from an employers stand point (in terms of quality of work) so it is often quite intimidating when I do apply to positions.

I'd love to get feedback on ways to push forward, perhaps on areas where I have the most glaring weaknesses.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate any help I can get.

Here is the portfolio link: http://leinadirabka.blogspot.com/

Samuraidragon13

I would separate your 3D gallery into different sections, like make a section for characters, a section for animations, a section for your different general assets. Also I would create a home page and have page links to your 3d and 2d galleries on the home page. You have really great work. Good luck!

Leinad

Thanks Samuraidragon13, yea I've been debating on whether to add more tabs. Part of me wants to make sure it's not too confusing to navigate so I ended up just putting them all in the front page in the 3D section.

I am glad you like my work!

Nosslak

Overall I think the portfolio looks pretty solid, but it could be improved a bit.

First thing I'd change would be to strip out lightbox as it slows browsing down, but a lot of people seem to swear by it so I guess that's just my opinion.

The render engine is called Marmoset Toolbag, Marmoset is the company behind it. Might be worth specifying if it's 1 or 2 as well.

If you're going to show wires try to strip out the UI as much as possible (ie. remove the strong gradient, remove mayas polycount text and the rest of the UI). I'd also render the wires with so called isoline display (smoothed wires) as that would probably look better.

You should get a proper domain as that looks more professional (eg. leinadirabka.com instead of leinadirabka.blogspot.com).

If I had to remove anything that would have to be the gun probably as it looks kind of bad right now in my opinion. The problem with it is that the material definition is off (eg. the tubes look like copper or brass but have a white specular), the wooden fibres (I'm guess that is what it is) should be bent (I'd make the top layer here out of the same metal as the tubes also to make it more interesting). The whole grips wooden part honestly look like a last minute decision where you realized that you wanted to break up the metal and just painted on some wood, with too little separation in the normal/geometry. I'd also say that 18.000 triangles is way too much for this (I'd go with maybe 10k tops). It could also use some more wear, tear and grunge IMO.

Don't show WIP work, it'll look like you don't finish your stuff. You've got the demon centaur in both the WIP and Demon section of your portfolio as well. I'd remove the robot sketch as well as it's design is kind of unappealing (to me at least).

Lastly I'd also rename some of the portfolio pieces to be a little bit more descriptive and interesting. For example I'd write Demon Centaur instead of just Demon and write what kind of owl and insect that you modeled.

Leinad

Thanks Nosslak, I've made changes to the portfolio after considering your advice and added a few new pieces.

My main concern with my work currently is making sure the quality is consistent. If my best work is considered decent then I'd like my other art pieces to consistently reflect that. I am not sure if the gun is my weakest piece. Surprisingly it's often the piece none 3d artist like the most. But I do agree, it's lacking in material definition. It's something that I've struggled with in pretty much all of my work. But I am getting a better hang of it as I keep struggling with it (defining my materials) with every new project.

Thanks again, really appreciate the help.

ng.aniki

Hello !

The most important thing for me, that is missing in your portfolio right now is to work on your models presentation.
For each model, you should have one 'beauty shot', where the model is posed (+good facial expression), has good lighting, good shaders, good camera angle/composition, and some kind of background (just not plain gray).

This is the extra work you have to put on your models. If you look at all the badass portfolio out there, you can tell that they spent easily 1/5 of their time on making a good presentation for their models.
And it basically doubles the value of your art piece.

Some examples (just the first results that google gave me):
http://m1.behance.net/rendition/modules/34934013/disp/14f3434dbd947faf1c675a8d6d272857.jpg
http://www.characterink.com/2012/12/15/hitman-absolution-characters-part-2/
http://www.renderu.com/images/uploads/Image/Articles/Making%20Of%20Flemish%20Dude/Pic14.jpg
http://www.samchester.co.uk/welcome6.jpg (it can be very simple, some quick effects, a vignette,.)
http://www.leslievdb.com/img/800/800_Buu_Leslievdb.png

Leinad

Thanks ng.aniki. It’s definitely something that I’ve struggled with. I still haven’t found a desired method in which I can quickly pose the model without causing undesirable mesh deformation. I did previously rig a character to pose it but that proved far too time consuming just so I can get the kind of pose I liked without the undesired deformation. But this is obviously something that I simply need to practice more to improve my presentation. Thank you for pointing it out.

It’s been sometime since I last posted, I’ve been trying to improve the portfolio. I’ve made significant changes from when this thread was originally created but I don’t think it’s necessary to create another thread just to get further feedback.

So what do you guys think with the current work/layout. The one thing that is difficult for me to really gauge is the quality and consistency of the work. I know it’s subjective, but it’s a bit daunting when applying to jobs titled “looking for talented artist”, “looking for experienced artist” etc…