Portfolio - feedback please. =]

fatihG_

So in my , never ending, quest to get a full time job in this lovely industry, I have updated my portfolio several times over the years.

I was wondering what you guys thought of my current state of my portfolio website.

www.fagurd.com

I read up on allot of stuff regarding portfolio's, and would say that my biggest flaw would be that my portfolio is all over the place, characters, environments, 2d work etc.
Allot of the time people told me I should limit it to a single category and apply for specific roles.
I made sub-domains on my site, chr.fagurd.com for example, when I apply for a specific character artist role. So it shows more relevant work for the position.
However, having a broader range of work to show, I figure, would be better when applying for smaller studios/indies.

Anyway I would love to hear your guys thoughts, and how I can improve it further.

Cheers

cholden

very nice layout and such. It MIGHT be worth showing more than one piece in the front page thumbnails as it might confuse users into thinking there is only ONE piece in each section. Some might even say other characters/envs outshine the one used in the thumb.

fatihG_

Thanks Chris, I really like your youtube vids. =]

Think I should do a mix like the "extra's" thumbnail?
And which characters/env's do you think would be better on the thumbnails?

Right now I basically put the most recent one on there.

Bartalon

You have quite a wide range of stuff in there, and each category has several pieces. Your 2D and 3D character sections contain content which display obvious improvements compared to older items in the list. In this regard, I would say quality over quantity, and keep in mind that you will be judged on your weakest piece.

Personally when I look at someone's portfolio I would rather be impressed enough with a single piece to spend some time studying it than to spend that same amount of time blowing past a handful of unremarkable images. But hey, I'm no hiring manager so take what I say with a grain of salt

cholden

I referring to something like this, super sloppy to give you the idea
http://i.imgur.com/v4JxBOx.jpg
still one link to same page.

silkroadgame

Your stuff are nice.

fatihG_

Cheers, Bartalon.
I am always afraid that I haven't enough to show..
I'll probably review it tomorrow again and get rid of some of the older work.

cholden,
Cheers, I update some thumbs. Not sure if it feels a bit too crowded now.

Silkroadgame,
Thanks! =]

What do you guys think of the thumbnails now?

Bartalon

I like the new thumbnail of your characters. I got some more time to take another look through your stuff and have some more things to note.

• Characters

Most of your character renders have noticeable aliasing between the subject matter and the backgrounds. I'm not sure what software you're using to make your shots, but it might be worth looking into 2x or 4x antialiasing to help keep the foreground and background content together. For me at least, it's one of the more distracting things in your characters section.

I would say the green slime monster and the brown creature with scrapes all over are your weakest pieces in that section; you should still take a look at your other pieces and see how they stand up against your more recent stuff. If you feel like the execution of one of your old pieces is weak comparatively to your best stuff, consider removing that too.

I particularly like the low poly WIP character with the big red scarf around his face, but my only complaint is that it's a WIP clustered together with a bunch of other pieces that appear to be finished. I would suggest either finishing it or cutting it out. I'm leaning toward finish it

While I like the arm, I'm no character artist. That said, I can still see that the texture work doesn't bring it to a realistic state. If it's stylized, ignore me, but the arm is far too shiny for dry skin and not glossy enough for wet skin. There are no details texture for skin texture, but you have the folds on there pretty well. I'm not sure about that orange hue. If it's part of the specular I don't think that's correct, but if it's a light, it still doesn't play well in my opinion.

The "making of" strips feel more like title banners for each piece and it's a little weird having them at the end rather than the beginning. I get that it takes the viewer to another location but it could potentially serve a dual purpose of title banner and a redirect.

Generally, I'd like to see more wire frames, maybe some texture map samples.

• 3D Props & Environments

The hallway I think is your weakest piece. Generally speaking, there isn't a whole lot to it, and there are some inconsistencies about it when you really sit down and analyze it. There is a light but no light source. There is a section of the wall which as been damaged by what appears to be some sort of impact. There is no brick debris below the damaged area, and while there are obvious cracks in the wall, the bricks themselves don't show any signs of crumbling or breakage. I'm aware it's all texture work, but adding some bricks or cutting out some geometry for missing bricks could make it more believable.

In your shot of barrels, planks, bricks, and loose papers, the front-left display has perfectly aligned papers. Not exactly random. Some of the papers in the back appear to be floating.

The second Sumoroll shot has obvious evidence of poor UV mapping in the cracks. The third shot has distracting shading artifacts around the bowls and birds.

• 2D Concepts & Illustrations

I would bring everything in full color up to the top. They naturally feel more finished than black and white sketches. There are of course exceptions. The bull-looking creature concept should be at the top. I think the monkey, the HFEX01 guy with the red scarf, and the GMC Secret Santa are your weakest pieces.

• General Thoughts

You have lots of content which I think displays skills you possessed at multiple points in your career. As I said before, only pick the best, which is likely to be the most recent if you're constantly active.

Cater your portfolio to the studios at which you'd like to work. If you want to work for Blizzard, they're not going to care that you have Modern Warfare characters in your portfolio. They will want to know if you can replicate their art style. That's not to say you should exclusively showcase stuff for them, but it should be obvious that you are trying to get in with them.

If you're not trying to get hired for a certain skill/discipline, don't put work of that in your portfolio. It just shows the viewers that you aren't good at that thing. For instance, I personally wouldn't put characters in my portfolio because they would all be terrible haha.

Obviously there are exceptions, such as if you are trying to freelance, you may want a broad spectrum of artwork to cover a larger area of possible contracts. But if you're looking to work with one style or one company, your portfolio should reflect that as much as possible.

Look at portfolios of people who work at the places you're trying to get into. This can be a good baseline for the amount, type, and quality of content to incorporate into your own portfolio.

Finally, if you ever feel like you need to explain a portfolio piece to someone so they "get the right idea about it" then I would argue you haven't executed your piece well enough. The viewer sees all your work out of context, and it will only leave him with questions about what's going on.

Anyway, don't forget about all those grains of salt

cholden

I like it. It does show a LOT more content than before, but not too bad on the crowding for me. It's all personal choice at this point.