Portfolio Critique

kasigawa

Hey everyone. My name is Ivan-Kazuya. My real name is Stanley Janoski III. I just graduated three months ago. I’m looking into getting a job as an environmental artist. I was wondering if you could do me the great favor and critique my portfolio; specifically my game art page.

http://kasigawa.wix.com/stanleyjanoski

I'm open for suggestions and please don’t be rude. 

Also, try and keep my ego in one piece if possible.

Mr.Moose

You've spread yourself very thin in your portfolio, it requires a lot of clicking around and nothing really jumps out at me saying "This is what I want to do!" I would tailor your portfolio to what you want, pick a discipline? And pursue it. Right now its all kinda, "eh", and super diverse. Unfortunately from what I've heard and read, diversity isn't what people are looking for when they want to hire someone. (IE who cares if a character artist can model a barrel and vice versa)

So besides that, what are you thinking with your "Bio & Resume" Seriously just have your resume, because things like this "I am also an introvert." immediately make anyone want to close the page, a recruiter reading that would think you aren't going to be a good fit for any team. And what is that picture  Put something professional! Not something a teen would post! Bro! Come on!

Google how to format a resume. Education isn't bolded, no one cares about what highschool you went to anymore. You don't "achieve" certificates, Just list them under education with everything else as just what they are.

Theres so much going on wrong here that honestly, I would start from square one. Look at professional portfolios, see how they display their work and their resume etc. Learn from it and try to do this all over again...

JordanN

kasigawa said:

I’m looking into getting a job as an environmental artist. 

Your site layout looks cool. 

If you're going for environment art though, you need to cull a lot of pages/art so your site reflects that. 

I would try collapsing your "Photoshop" "Illustrator" "Concept art" into one page and call it "2D or Digital Art".

Your 3D page should show only your best models and running in a game engine. Include wireframe shots/polygon counts and all the textures used (PBR).

Don't worry about quantity. 3-5 models is good enough. Same goes for your 2D stuff.

dand3d

So, Mr. Moose beat me to the punch as you seem to have shotgunned a lot of content, but sadly has no focus. 
What are you? Not what you want to be... I and any one looking to hire someone does not care what you want to be. Companies do not hire wana-bes they hire people who are. As of right now you seem to be anything and everything, which is sadly not going to help you get hired.

I also would take the advice from Mr. Moose and start over. I know you probably spent a bit of time on this site but you could show off your work much easier and quicker with an artstation folio. 

Likewise I am currently listening/watching this. 

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1023440/Killer-Portfolio-or-Portfolio-Killer

Watching this might help you make your next portfolio.

Lastly keep this always in mind when you make a portfolio... Everyone remembers you for your worst piece, and never your best. So if there is art work there that is bad by your standards get rid of it, it is not helping. 

3dReaper

On top of what others have said, I would scrap that website or heavily modify it. An art lead/director or Recruiter has 100s if not 1000s of portfolios to look over, their patience is boiled down to less than 10 seconds to make sense of your site. Make it easy for them and you have a better chance.

Make sure you are using modern methods such as PBR and the programs that go along with that..

Use Polycount's great folio guide/wiki for reference:

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Portfolio

I personally would suggest ArtStation as it is convenient and cuts most human error out of the equation.

kasigawa

Thank you everyone for your advice. I'm thinking about the idea of upgrading my portfolio. I feel I can't destroy it because it's something that took me a while to put together, so I figure I will make a second portfolio that considers everyone's suggestions. Making a quick reference list:
1. To make pages more easily accessible/ make more sense. 2. Be more precise in targeting my discipline (less diversity). 3. Show off my best pieces (I will utilize four or five best art pieces). 4. Remove the part about being an introvert. Although, I'm a little iffy about removing this part, but i can see how it could draw people away. 5. Recreate the portfolio with a less teen-like appeal (I use this logo a lot, but if it takes me to get into the position i want, i'll remove it). 6. Collapse 2D art into a digital art page. 7. I'm not sure about the models running inside a game engine, because I feel it stands out more with a PBR render, but i'll look into and try experimenting with this (materials is something i'm not a pro of). 8. Include wire frame, poly count, and maps. 9. Make something visually compelling that will stand out the ten seconds they look at it. 10. Maybe experiment with other portfolio platform sites. 

Once again thank you everyone for your inputs. I will heavily consider the feedback. 

If anyone else has any other suggestions, let me know by posting about it.  

Carabiner

kasigawa said:

[...] 7. I'm not sure about the models running inside a game engine, because I feel it stands out more with a PBR render, but i'll look into and try experimenting with this (materials is something i'm not a pro of). [...]

I think your idea to create  a second portfolio sounds great! I can see how it would be hard to start completely over.

Just wanted to chime in on this point -- if the whole point of game art is that it should be viewed in real-time, in a game engine, then it's really important to show the art in that context. If you're creating PBR textures correctly, you can just import your textures and hook them up to a material in a game engine, so it should still appear nice and "PBR-y"/realistic.

billakosama

kasigawa said:

[...]5. Recreate the portfolio with a less teen-like appeal (I use this logo a lot, but if it takes me to get into the position i want, i'll remove it)[...]

I'm not sure if mr.moose was talking about the logo or the picture in your bio&resume section. The logo looks fine to me but I don't know maybe I'm wrong.

kasigawa

Once more thank you all for the feed back. I made an artstation portfolio so far. I'm currently in the works for making another new portfolio when I have any free time. With a new portfolio piece in progress, I'll hopefully make it really stand out.