[Portfolio] - Tom Poon

Yozora

Hi, I redesigned my portfolio recently at http://tompoon.com/

Originally I called myself a character artist, but I'm planning on making some environment pieces (gogo Unearthly challenge!) because I haven't really tried environment art much.

If you have any crits about anything then feel free to comment, but I'm not too keen on going back to fix the old work, I rather spend that time making new and better things...However it'd be nice to hear anyway
I know I'm missing a realistic character on there so I've chosen to model a realistically accurate celebrity as my next character project!

GOBEE

weird you say you haven't done environments much. Your environment work, to me, looks way better than your characters. I would get rid of your characters, call yourself and environment artist, and see what happens. If you want to keep your characters in your portfolio, I would suggest at least removing the Forge character. Doesn't seem as good as the others. All in all, I like your stuff. You're not bad at texturing either. You got the skills man, can't wait to see more detailed environments.

PixelMasher

I think if you were to focus on environment art you could rapidly improve and become pretty awesome. your textures could be pushed quite a bit further to improve depth and a sense of coherence i think.

focus on making the walls and ground look amazing, its 80% of the screen when someone is playing a game the buildings in the street scene have a decent texture but it could have some dirt along the base, chipped out bricks etc, add variation with decals and modeling in some damage/crumbled stuff. oh and some wires hanging from building to building could add some cool shadows to the scene as well.

also, the benches are wildly out of proportion if you look at the door right near them and again at the door at the end of the street. Ill whip up a quicky paint over of what i mean for the ground, ill add it in when its done. hope this helps, It definitely has potential.

finally, I would pick a specific thing to study if you are looking to get into the industry as quick as possible. either focus on environments or characters and really get a feel for making them awesome. I find its easier to pick up other skills after you know how to make something look really tight and polished be it a character or environment, and then apply that "eye" to other pieces.




**dont mind the super stretched ground textures i overlaid haha it was a quicky. I R making perpsective :P you could go about recreating something like this with vertex blending and then adding some details in with decal overlays like the sewer grate, stains etc. main thing is you want some contrast and depth to the ground.

Yozora

hmm thanks for the comments, I had a feeling my character work wasn't that good and its mainly down to my lack of texturing/sculpting skills I think (the meshes and UVs are fine... right? )

I will work on some environment pieces asap to see how it goes! Just bought this Eat3D dvd... gonna try that out first I guess

Kawe

I wouldnt say environment work is way better than character work. About the same level I'd say.. so if you wanna stay a character artist you should do that but either way you are going to need some more practice.. but hey.. who doesn't?

ChrisG

just looked at your resume and you went to mk college, Im there!:poly142:. Well at the bletchley campus studying design (craft) btec nat dip, you at the chaffron way campus?

chris

Yozora

well the environment work should be worse because that stuff was done over 18 months ago and at that point in time I didnt even know I wanted to be a game artist (it was done during university).
They also werent designed for games (loads of tris, most objects dont even have uv mapping and the ones that do is very poorly laid out and the worse part is that 90% of the materials used were default max materials that comes with the package ).

Its actually kinda sad that people are telling me my old work is better than my new work
I believe if I were to make an environment now with the knowledge I gained from making game characters it would look a lot better than those old pieces I made... plus all the knowledge I'm gaining just looking a these forums

I only really decided to become a game artist and started making a portfolio about 7~ monthes ago.

And chrizz, I went to the one at Leadenhall, and that was over 4 years ago! But you're the first person I saw on these forums from MK

ChrisG

ahhh I see, Im not from mk but two stops south on the train (or 12 minutes). I know that someone on the crazybump forums is from mk, you to are the only guys I have seen close to me.

Keep practising, I can see all you need is practise as you have the techniques pretty much down. Practise is annoying though:poly124:

chris

man_o_mule

Yozora wrote: »

I believe if I were to make an environment now with the knowledge I gained from making game characters it would look a lot better than those old pieces I made... plus all the knowledge I'm gaining just looking a these forums

Then get on it man. Only way to get better is to practice. (I should take my own advice :P)

SHEPEIRO

id say that your modelling looks fairly good, clean easy to read meshes, but your texturing leaves your models looking plastic, you deffinatly need more practice at material rendering, that goes for the environments aswell, the materials let them down, esp the specular.

if you want to get better at material setup/rendering (realtime or rendered), dont make environments or characters, get some real reference and make materials on spheres.

keep it up