Leinad - Portfolio feedback (I'd love to hear what you think)

Leinad

It's that time again. Every few months I like to post the current state of my portfolio in order to get a better understanding of where it stands.

So with that in mind, feedback on any aspect would be wonderful.

Portfolio: http://leinadirabka.blogspot.com/

Fenyce

You should change the order of your works...
Put your best work first. The one your most proud of.
IMO the Goblin is your best work. The owl is sweet, too.

Maybe you should even consider removing some stuff.
You're showing 20 pieces if I'm not mistaken. Break it down to half of them.
It's nice that you want to display that you can do a lot of stuff, but if it's not a real good piece, then don't show it.

For example. That hand painted owl is well done, it's much better then the low poly sword. So remove the sword and keep the owl.

I hope I don't sound rude, ha ha. If so I'm sorry!

Leinad

O don't worry about sounding rude, thank you so much for the feedback. I am making a list right now of things I should do so consider everything you've said noted and I'll get to it in the upcoming days.

I am going to refrain from changing the portfolio design while this thread is active. It can get confusing for proper critique if I constantly change my portfolio as feedback is coming in.

To do list:
1) Bring the Goblin to the top
2) Owl should be more visible
3) remove lowpoly sword
4) Cut down on the number of pieces in portfolio

Out of curiosity, I'd love to hear which pieces you guys would cut out or make less visible if it was your portfolio. Is there a piece that most clearly shows a weakness in my portfolio? Right now I am leaning towards cutting out the pieces titled "Geodude", "Attrition", "Broken", "Low Poly Stuff".

Don't worry about hurting my feelings, if I was easily dissuaded I would have curled up in a ball and quit a long time ago

Fenyce

Out of curiosity which kind of game would you love to make? Since it could and maybe even should influence the way your portfolio looks like.
For example... if your aiming for making stylized fantasy games, your portfolio should reflect that.

Leinad

I tend to put more emphasis on the kind of studio I would like to work for than the games I’d like to make. I’d prefer to work for a studio that doesn’t have an extremely high turnover/burnout rate, and one that is more employee centric.

In my portfolio I try to show diversity in style, or at the very least adaptability/flexibility and potential in hopes of easing the job search. I am branching out into props so I can apply to more jobs. I started out as focusing on character art and it became clear quickly that there weren’t as many junior positions available to apply to.

I get more excited at the thought of working with people and the process of making a game for a living than any specific type of look or style.

Suba

Hey man.

I would also say you have way too much stuff. and that showing that much diversity will not help you to find a job. You have drawings, animations, 3D high, 3D low poly, assets, characters. It is confusing. My advice would be to really focus on what you're doing best and more important know what you really want to do and what studios you are aiming for.

I'd say you are pretty good in animation and 3D. Ditch all the 2D stuff.
Then I'd say you don't have enough animation work to show it off but you do have some nice 3D. So I think you should cut the animation videos also, and leave those 3d projects:
-Goblin
-SteamPunk Gun
-Owl
-Sword
-Low Poly Blade
-Woman
-Demon
-Insect

With all of that you can go for a 3D generalist title and it will be less confusing. Then if you really want to be a generalist, well aim for really small studios, but you gonna have to crank up the level of your 2D stuff, and in my experience focus on low poly when it comes to 3D. I know a lot of companys that make mobile games love to hire generalists but most of the time they won't need high poly realistic work but more low poly toon stuff.

Hope it helps.

DWalker

I'd have to agree that your portfolio lacks focus.

Don't include work-in-progress projects; only include finished projects, and you should regularly cull things to present only your BEST work. Keep in mind that you'll be judged by your weakest piece.

Separate your professional (i.e. portfolio & resume) from your private (e.g. blog) sites.

On your resume, it's more common to place the most recent entries first, rather than last.

Shrike

Hmm, the first thing I see is a blogspot website that asks me to enable cookies.
Not the best thing to start off. Also im not sure how blogspot websites can look, but
the template dosnt look particulary great. Maybe look around for some others.
Try getting alteast your headliner with your name etc in a nice font and such, it looks pretty bland.

For the work, the main problem I see that none of it is really finished, let alone polished. All seems halfway done and somewhen left. Where are the lowpolies and the textured meshes. I see no asset that implies you knowing how to apply wear and tear and all those things properly, which is the essence of texturing.
Also the presentation of your assets is not good enough, get a unified background or so, try avoid strong gradients or medium grey.

"Growing up, I spent significantly more time training as a skateboarder, and grappler rather than drawing. Art is something that I started to do late in high school (junior year) to relax, but I never saw it as a career route till later in life."

Why would you say that to anyone ?
Your foto could be friendlier aswell : P

Dont forget, if it is in your portfolio, it is something actual that is
meant to be worked on, so trow the bad stuff, polish the rest, and get some new stuff going, it will likely be needed

Jeff Parrott

Your portfolio is a classic example of the jack of all master of none portfolio. Sorry to say. My advice would be to choose something (it seems like characters to me) and just focus on that for now. Putting a focus on what studio you want to work at is focusing on what you want to do. Studio A doesn't most likely make realistic shooter game then stylized card game. At least you wouldn't be on both teams as a Junior Artist.

Your buff goblin piece seems like it has the most potential to me. I'd say finish that up (if you want to do characters) and focus on characters. You should have a variety of characters in your portfolio. Not all goblins or fantasy based.

Look at it this way you're showing shades of great potential with some of these pieces (goblin, owl) but it's getting covered up with animations and sketches (which are fine for a blog but prolly not your main portfolio).

Leinad

Suba: Thanks! Now the idea is quite cemented, I will be cutting out the 2D stuff from my portfolio and some of the 3D assets. I’ll most likely keep them somewhere else out of sight though.

Most of the jobs I apply to are generalist positions. That’s partly why I have branched out to many areas. I recently started (about 3 weeks ago) a transition into props since I’ve been told I’d have more success finding a junior position.

Dwalker: Definitely, thanks! I’ll keep that in mind, sometimes I have a difficult time figuring out which is my best piece and which is the worst. At some level it’s subjective since I tend to gravitate towards the project I had the most fun creating.

Shrike: Thanks for the feedback. The template is highly modified through html. I am learning so I refine it as I go. Most of them are half way done. I update as I go, some of the bottom pieces were done when I was learning texturing. The top pieces tend to be more recent.

The about me section that you quoted used to be long and provided relevant pictures. I thought it was too long and cut it, so it may have caused it to be confusing. But generally speaking, I keep stuff like that up just in case I run into people who have had similar experiences and can relate to it. I am in the process of trying to make my about me section more personable since it reads and looks quite dry right now. But that doesn’t mean everyone will like it =P I can’t change my face if it doesn’t look friendly But I am a nice guy, I promise!

Jeff Parrott: Thanks Jeff! I’ll keep it all in mind. I’ve had some potential employers asking if I knew how to animate, so I added the animation around even though I don’t spend my time currently animating. Currently I am making the transition in adding more props. So my focus will be 3D character and Prop art. As much as I enjoy specifically concentrating on characters, I have been informed that the prospects of working as one is far less likely as a junior than a Prop or Environment Artist. I enjoy all areas of the creation process, I have been more focused on getting the right portfolio in order to start doing it for a living. So I am making the shift, I just don't want to cut all of the previous character work I've done.

Thanks everyone, my portfolio will most likely look drastically different in a few days, so thank you all for the wonderful feedback.