Please Critique My Portfolio

DerekLeBrun

I've been having trouble landing an interview with my current portfolio. I asked for advice on another forum and haven't received much so hopefully I will get more here.

I will be making new models to replace what's currently up, and changing the layout to something simpler. I know my portfolio isn't that good, so any advice on how to improve it or my artwork specifically would be helpful.

http://www.dereklebrun.com/

Master_v12

Your Zbrushing is pretty decent but you have nothing textured

Ninjas

The proportions, while maybe physically possible seem unappealing. The muscles bulge too much, or otherwise look strange. This is most of your portfolio. It would nice to see some hard objects modeled too.

Another big problem is no texture work. Good UVs, good bakes and decent textures show that you understand game workflow. A big part of what makes a good game artist good is being able to optimize well. Until your portfolio shows that, you are going to have a hard time.

Ott

Your entire portfolio tells me a couple things.

You don't have a single completed character in the entire portfolio.

You don't know how to model feet.

You don't know how to rig or model something that needs to be animated. (The "goddess" pose shows this.)

Nothing is "every-day" stuff. I don't see any gear, clothing, equipment, weapons, hats, shirts, pants, shoes, etc. Character artists have to be able to make "cool monsters" as well as every-day normal people.

I see a decent understanding of Z-Brush, but no proof that you know anything about low poly modeling, subsurface details, or normal map projections.

Your 2-D section is sloppy and unfinished as well. "Figure-2" particularly.

I would completely remove the "Links" section, particularly since the people you link to have sub-par 3d work as well.

My advice? Finish something from beginning to end. Zbrush - Lowpoly - Textures - Rig...the works. Getting a job as a character artist is among the toughest ones out there in the game industry. If you don't have the total package, landing a spot at a AAA company isn't easy. And even the good ones find it tough to break into.

Cody

EDIT---oops. in the time it took me to write this other people said what i wrote....

I few things i noticed=

1. Nothing is textured. This says to an employer; you cannot texture/never have. It also conveys you have not finished anything. This is one of, if not the biggest problem with your portfolio. Finish some stuff man.

2. No polycounts on the low polys, and I can see smoothing group errors. And again, no texture flats because there are no textures. Sorry for mentioning this again, but this is a HUGE part of 3d work.

3. Get that news page out of there. In my opinion it is unprofessional and unnecessary.

4. Resume stuff- Take the web management job off the resume. It is unrelated and isn't very impressive. Also the game internships are way more impressive, move them up, like above software.

5. Design of site- Not that easy to navigate. And put 3d work before 2d work. That is what you are applying for right? Look at other character artist sites. See what got them jobs and try to get to that level. Or look at games. Would your characters hold up to whats out there right now?
here are some nice ones-
http://www.emptyworks.com
http://www.global-illusions.com/blog/
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/3d/3d.htm
http://www.ldaustinart.com/paul/

This is what I am going through with my portfolio right now, so I am relaying crits I got from others. Keep working and stay motivated.

slosh

well, it seems everyone before me has pretty much nailed it. the biggest thing to me is the texturing...u gotta have something. u seem to be pretty good at zbrush so put some of that effort into a sweet painted texture and get a spec and normal map going!

fogmann

I agree to what has been said so far, but I'd add that you ought to use some reference when creating your sculpts. Your human heads don't look very convincing. The old man head looks like it has been sketched in zB for 5 minutes and left like that without further consideration. That is not a good sign to an employer. You need to show that you can do better than that, and that you are willing to go an extra mile to make sure your model looks as good as possible. Grab some photos of whoever you'd like to model and try to replicate his/her head, and do it as accurately as you can. It will help you get better at understanding how the face (and the rest of the body for that matter) is constructed and that understanding is an absolute must for being able to land a gig as a character artist. Don't model solely from your imagination. It will not be of much help to you, since at most of industry jobs you will mostly model from reference photos or someone's concept art and you need to show that you are able to model accurately from the reference.

[Deleted User]

Aside from what was already said, I noticed that you list 3ds Max as a proficiency on your resume, but it looks like all of your low-poly models are the lowest subd level of the models made from zspheres, without any further optimization in Max.