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Any particular difficulties lighting for a game like this that looks consistently good with raytracing and without?

Anatomy looks pretty good for the most part. The character is not a fat man. He is a stylized body builder with short legs and a distended abdominal region. Shorts never  perch halfway up a slope and that looks a bit weird (like they are cut off at the top in an unnatural straight line). Looks like the arm muscles need some love in the side view as the anatomy and cut lines need work. A program like Daz4D might help alot. Stylized characters are not that easy. Keep em coming!

Looks like my wife was correct about the turntable speed haha! I can slow them down for sure. That is a great point about light interaction and adding a clickable link. I followed you back on Artstation. Thanks again for your help. I've been working alone, so it's great having an outside opinion! Have a great day!

Took a little break from this project to participate in the global game jam. Here is the newest render with the previously mentioned changes and implementations. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abl_nQ7hRd0

pixelpatron said:

Red Orc: ass not very appealing

I second this, that orc ass needs saving otherwise nobody will hire you.

Seriously though, you're not off to a bad start but these aren't portfolio level works as much as they are studies.

Portfolio work should be comparable to the companies you aspire to work for. Avoid anything called "WIP" in your portfolio section. This should be reserved for something that an art director would sign off on. 

I'll forego repeating the Anatomy study feedback and instead say you need to work on your presentation. High poly, low poly, UVs, lighting that compliments the character and their personality. A studio will want to see your assets broken down, not just beauty shots. The thumbnail of the valkyrie is a good example of what not to do. You're putting an emphasis on an area of a model that's not the strongest part of the piece as a whole.

The sculpts in general feel muddy/unclear. This is because you're sculpting a lot of medium/large details on one subtool and they lose their separation. the feathers and chainmail of the mask are examples of this. The clothes/armor look like they were extracted and then sculpted on, which is fine - but that's not quite the full process. You can extract clothes and then sketch designs to figure stuff out for surface details but at some point you need to retopologize those extractions, otherwise you end up with wobbly sculpts. It's possible to polish them sometimes but you'll get a better result 100% of the time if you do a retopo pass.

Best of luck and keep us updated!

Hello Sandjar,

Some decent progress, I think you've got the basics but you've got quite a journey ahead. Here we go. 

Thumbnails on artstation, need to be feature your models better. Overall you should work towards getting a 3 point light setting scene setup in Unity/Unreal. Or you could if you're only doing characters look at the presets in sketchfab. I use a tweaked default 3 point lighting setup and it works great! Experiment with the different HDR skies.

Models themselves. Anatomy needs more work:

Valkyrie: ass not very appealing, looks like you cheated and didn't want to model the face/eyes...this might be due to the concept, although if you're trying to impress a studio they'll want to know you can model a face/female. Looks like you rushed the crotch and didn't look at anatomy for the legs/arms. I'd suggest working on a bunch of female sculpts to get more familiar with the anatomy. 

Red Orc: ass not very appealing, doesn't show understanding of it's forms. Hands look blobby disproportioned to model/anatomy (tiny fingers). Materials for wood/metal/skin/cloth could be more convincing. Boots/pants/sash/belt all blend into mush, I'd look at contrast and value changes between the skin and these other elements to give the audience some visual separation. Torso anatomy looks underdeveloped or unfinished and also like it's melting. Back, and hunched neck do not look convincing or modified from believable anatomy as a foundation. Subsurface scattering? Could fake it with coloring.

Orc and Elf: too early to be included as part of portfolio as they feel very wip and unfinished. Remember your portfolio is only as strong as your weakest piece. Less is more and if you have something that looks lower quality, unfinished, and possibly lowers the overall quality of the portfolio, it's best to cut it. 

Good luck.

I'd suggest you focus on doing exercises before tackling more full characters. Do 50 heads male/female, 50 torsos male/female, 50 legs/feet, 50 hands. 

Hi! I really like your style, and I think your portfolio is very interesting, but what you add to it really depends on what you want to get out of it. If you're interested in working in games, then showing some full pipeline characters would defiantly be helpful, or if you're just doing 3d for fun just keep doing the busts that you enjoy. I would love to see more full body characters, but again it just depends on your end goal! 
I would also, say as far as presentation, I would make a different thumbnail for the Valkyrie project so that it is cohesive with your other projects. As of right now on your website that thumbnail sticks out and looks very out of place