[Portfolio] TheMadArtist / Mike Ogden

TheMadArtist

So things have been interesting at my job lately to say the least, so I figured it'd be a good time to post my website and get some crits on it.

http://www.mikeogden3dartist.com/

I have about 3 and a half years working at a software company doing military sims, arcade games and home theater games. While it's using our own engine and it's still real time, I know it's not proper game studio experience, so I'd be applying for more junior level environmental artist positions I'd imagine, or generalist 3d.

As for the site, things I'm aware of:

- Due to a computer crash, I'm missing some wireframes and texture flats (and some pieces I'm still digging around looking for em). Once I'm all set up and I find that some pieces don't have texture flats or wires to show, should I remove those pieces since they aren't consistent with the pieces that do?

- I know there are a few pages that still say 2009, and the back buttons don't show up, text being not quite lined up, just need to go in there and fix those.

- I do some 2d work from time to time as freelance (flyers, sites, etc), hence the little section at the bottom that I link to when I get clients on ODesk or whereever. Leave it or make it a seperate page?

Anyways, thanks for looking and any crits will be much appreciated.

felipefrango

The 2D flyer material isn't really strong and varied so I'd probably remove it, you've got some nice 3D stuff and the pool league stuff doesn't seem like they belong there. I like the game covers, maybe show bigger images, not applied to mockup boxes. I'd remove the border from the image links as well. And in the contact section I'd expect that image to be a mailto link cause your email is not selectable so the only way one can contact you is to go back and forth between your site and the email and memorize it.

Gooner442

Totally agree with felipefrango on the 2D flyer stuff, it does clash and isn't too interesting. I like your 3D stuff, the top 6 are your strongest, especially 'mausoleum'. I'm not too sure about the knife, the gun or the elephant, the gun and knife are a little too standard and the textures don't really grab me, the elephant looks out of place and a little too CG.

Think the other stuff is great though, generally your modelling looks strong. I think you could push your texturing, get in a few more layers and 'age' your environments a bit more. For example the textures in 'western' and 'study' look too clean, dirty it up a bit and get rid of some of the horizontal and vertical lines.

As for the site, I like it, really simple to navigate and clear images

TheMadArtist

Thanks guys, yeah I agree about the 2D stuff. I get a lot of leagues and bars we play at asking me for simple flyers so it was just easier to have those there; but I'll take them down and maybe just put them on a seperate page that you can't link to and just send them the direct url in the future.

haiddasalami

Are these all 3ds max renders? Would be nice to see the environments in an engine..

cholden

Too many pieces. The first 6 (envs), the forest scene, and maybe the vehicles are pretty awesome. I'd remove the other stuff though. They just don't compare with the other quality. If you don't do anything else, for the love of your career, remove that pistol, elephant and the 2d junk.

TheMadArtist

cholden wrote: »

Too many pieces. The first 6 (envs), the forest scene, and maybe the vehicles are pretty awesome. I'd remove the other stuff though. They just don't compare with the other quality. If you don't do anything else, for the love of your career, remove that pistol, elephant and the 2d junk.

Gotcha, will do that. A lot of that was older work that I was keeping to show variety, but I can see that hurting in the long run. Thanks.

felipefrango

Yeah, your work is only as good as your worst piece it's one of those cases where a rotten apple actually spoils the bunch.

wasabi

man, I love ur vehicle works. I want to see some high poly versions of them.

TheMadArtist

Ok, streamlined it and got rid of a lot of older pieces. For future projects, I'll be focusing on working on more complete environments presented in an engine.

Chemical Alia

Wow, these are some beautiful scenes, very atmospheric. My only suggestion would be to show some work that's a little more optimized with video games in mind. Like, some areas are built with a lot more geometry/higher poly than what may be necessary for most games, so showing that you know how to handle making up for details with normal maps and alphas would be really valuable to someone who's considering your work. Good luck!