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Need Portfolio Critiqued

polycounter lvl 5
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kwagner polycounter lvl 5
I am in desperate need of some harsh critique. I'm aware that, while my work has come leaps and bounds over the last year since I graduated, I'm still not at AAA level yet. I've done 4 art tests in the last 4 months and all have been rejected, but none could/would provide feedback (which I completely understand, it just sucks). So I would really appreciate if someone could point me in the direction of taking steps to better fix my work. I've been staring at amazing work all week and I just don't know how to push my work to that point. Anything at all is appreciated greatly!

https://www.artstation.com/artist/kwagner

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  • BeardedMike
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    BeardedMike polycounter lvl 7
    Taking a quick look, Your environments as a whole I really like.  Your mansion and abandoned pieces really caught my eye immediately, I would move them to the front side by side.  Your stand alone props and substance designer piece I would work on improving.   Your cauldron I would honestly consider removing and reworking, not that its bad it just needs a bit more polish.  For your props, I would focus on the textures, you can bump the texel density up a bit and go in to more detail, add some dirt wear and tear really make them stand out.  For your environments I would make some sort of exterior environment, pick something small you can get a few good shots of and make sure that small area is as polished as you can make it.  Your work isn't bad at all!  Self critique is rough because you see the work you put in to it, but you really have to ask yourself "is this worth showing to an employer."  I've been facing the same dilemma of updating my portfolio from a "university" portfolio to a real world portfolio for the last few years, hang in there you can do it!
  • kwagner
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    kwagner polycounter lvl 5
    Thank you so much for your feedback! 
  • TwistedBridge
    Hi @kwagner
    I think you could put a little bit more love into the lighting of your environments and the quality of your presentation screenshots.
    Taking your Mansion project as an example, maybe you could play a little bit more with your post processes? When I see your thumbnails, it really catch my interest and when I finally see the screenshots it falls a little flat. You have a 'clean' version and an 'abandonned' version of your Mansion, but your camera isn't exactly in the same place when you actually want to capture the same location in both environment. And you show some props like the piano which is very interesting, but it doesn't feel like it is an important prop of your environment. Also you have a table halfway into a wall that appears in several screenshots. And if I can see it, everyboy can ;) It feels like little things, but I think it is really important.
    For your textures, you ou can tell A TON by tweaking your roughness and sometimes add subtles details in it like stains, scratches or rubbing (where it seems logical to have them!).
    Same for your substance, rework it a bit, show it more love! Add some subtle color variation and maybe play a bit with you roughness. Or show us an interesting angle where it pops out, capture more renders, play more with the lighting. I really like your broken tiles, but the render doesn't do it justice. And also, you could maybe show your maps :) ?
    Same for the Fantasy Chest, with your maps it would show that you can optimize your uvs properly (and that you understand texel density in your environments).
    It is totally fine if you spend most of your time tweaking your lighting and preparing your renders. It almost always come out better when you retake it and rework it the day after, even if you have to start it all over again. It is a lot of work, but it pays in the end.
    Just like @BeardedMike said, your work is full of good stuff. It really is a question of polishing and pushing the quality of your texture a bit further.

    As a student myself I have the same insecurities and I still have to apply to my own work all that.. So I hope I didn't said sh*t things. But I know this is the kind of feedback and advices I received and that you can read everywhere  :)
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    I feel like your missing shots of solo props. you have all these environment filled with art you've made, but no where can I look at a singel hero prop except for in the "scifi scene" and the "fantasy chest".

    Id break of some of the assets that your most proud of from your scenes and do a proper breakdown of them as well.
  • kwagner
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    kwagner polycounter lvl 5
    @TwistedBridge @lotet thank you guys for the feedback!! All very helpful thank you!
  • hildner
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    hildner null
    Hi;)
    First of all i really like the layout and the themes in your environments :smile:
    But when I click on one of your shots they appear to be a bit blurry to me?
    How did you do your rendering of the shots?

    Also I think that the lighting of the environments in general could use more work.
    For example you could try to exaggerate the shadows alot more . . .now your environment seems to be evenly lit with no real contrasts or points of interrest.
    I really highly recomend you this series on lighting in unreal engine 4 (The principles are also true for any other game engine) by Tilmann Milde. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gXrZe

    keep on the good work ;)

  • Cay
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    Cay polycounter lvl 5
    I think you could spend some time on a really polished prop. Something with enough complexity to make it interesting. It could be a weapon or anything that's kind of similar in complexity.
    You'll be able to finish it quickly enough so you won't run out of motivation and it will give you enough time to really polish that asset.
    Just pushing your texturing skills.. all you have right now is mostly same color same roughness all across the assets.
    You need to add some dust to crevices, edge wear.. work on surface definition/more roughness variation.. all that good stuff that makes it more interesting.

    I'd consider removing the fantasy chest. For your substance textures I can only recommend looking closely at foto reference. There's a lot of subtle details and color variation that you haven't captured yet.
  • kwagner
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    kwagner polycounter lvl 5
    @hildner the renders are literally just screenshots from a build from Unreal. But thank you so much for the tutorial that is going to help so much. 

    Thank you so much for the feedback so far guys!!
  • slosh
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    slosh hero character
    Your work is solid.  A few of the scenes don't look as good as the other IMO.  All 3 scifi scenes need work IMO.  The scifi room is probably the closest...maybe a texture and lighting pass would improve it quickly.  The alien kitchen and space station probably require a bit more work.  The mansion is your strongest piece.  The victorian room is pretty solid and if you did an abandoned version of that, that would be really sweet.  The fantasy chest could use a substance painter pass at possibly a higher resolution.  
  • Spoon
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    Spoon polycounter lvl 11
    I'll echo a few voices.
    Your foundation is great! My first impression was that lighting could use improvement generally, otherwise it's simply taking everything just a level further on your next piece.
    For someone as new as you, this is stronger than the average portfolios we receive.
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