[Portfolio] Gemma Suen- Feedback for graduate 2D/3D artist?
polycounter lvl 9
Hi there! I've been building up my portfolio website slowly, I graduated in July and have been trying to improve some of my old work and produce more.
I want to specialize in character art, but was told that it's very difficult to get into straight from uni, so I'm working on environments and finding it pretty fun.
Any feedback would be really helpful!
-Do you like the theme or is it stupid?
-Does the website function well in browser/phone?
-Layout/functionality of website.
-Anything to cut out or add?
-If it really is bad, please give me tips on website layout/function (give me tips anyways)?
-Work: what's missing, what needs to be taken out/improved, generally what's expected from a 2D/3D art portfolio.
I will post my work, and I would be so grateful if anyone could take a peek at that too. :0) Thank you for taking interest!
Here is my website:
http://gemmasuen.com/portfolio.html
p.s. I've been thinking about taking out the home/blog page, because it feels pretty useless... any thoughts on that would be great!
Other Links: DeviantART | Sketchbook | Blog | Twitter
I want to specialize in character art, but was told that it's very difficult to get into straight from uni, so I'm working on environments and finding it pretty fun.
Any feedback would be really helpful!
-Do you like the theme or is it stupid?
-Does the website function well in browser/phone?
-Layout/functionality of website.
-Anything to cut out or add?
-If it really is bad, please give me tips on website layout/function (give me tips anyways)?
-Work: what's missing, what needs to be taken out/improved, generally what's expected from a 2D/3D art portfolio.
I will post my work, and I would be so grateful if anyone could take a peek at that too. :0) Thank you for taking interest!
Here is my website:
http://gemmasuen.com/portfolio.html
p.s. I've been thinking about taking out the home/blog page, because it feels pretty useless... any thoughts on that would be great!
Other Links: DeviantART | Sketchbook | Blog | Twitter
Replies
Tip 2 - Take out your character concepts; Alot of them have poor anatomy
Tip 3 - Focus your portfolio. Im not sure if you want to be an env, character, or concept artist, but regardless none of the work shows you are an expert in any of those focuses.
Keep building the portfolio towards what you want to do. Competition is fierce right now.
Cheers
@Aga22 -:) Thanks for your insight, I'm actually in the middle of improving the bed model as you mentioned it. I'll try to do more high-poly models, I've been told that the lighting is what's letting me down, so I will try to do something about this ASAP. Do the console companies not care for low-poly at all? I thought showcasing low poly work helps show one is capable of optimising with limited poly count?
1. You need a little work on your attention to detail on your textures. You have scratches and dirt all over alot of them and it doesnt really make sense. Think about how the object would be used in real life and apply your textures accordingly. e.g. the handle and frame of the door would have more scratches and marks than the door itself.
2. Have some large images of your best work at the top of your portfolio. All of your work sort of blends together and you have to go through everything in order to find the best pieces. Make them obvious as large images so an employer doesn't have to sift through all your work.
Other than that it works and makes sense. Nice work and plenty of it. I agree with you about keeping the deviant art. I get great feedback on mine and its a good community for artists, especially graduates.
Good luck on your job hunt.
I've updated my site, this is how it looks now (if it's screwed up try to refresh):
gemmasuen.com/portfolio.html
Does this look better? I'm not sure how I would separate the large images from the rest of the work. My best guess is to have one large image per section? I also changed the thumbnails so that they fit 4 perfectly on each row, zoomed in on the items a bit and left the others the way they are for comparison.
- I'd delete Links/Home. You've already got your linkedin/youtube/twitter links as buttons in the header, wouldn't be too hard to put G+/blogspot/whatever buttons next to them.
- Put your email address (and I guess phone if you really want it) clearly visible in the header and get rid of the contact page
- Put your name, email address, and website url in the corner of every image.
- I hate lightbox but well... that's just me.
Everybody wants to see optimized low poly models, I'm fairly sure what he means is simply "higher poly than what you're using" but imo your problem is just that you're using your geometry inefficiently. All of your geometry should be going toward supporting the silhouette of your model but a lot of your geo is just sorta there not doing much.
It seems like you're also trying really hard to keep your models almost entirely as quads which isn't a very good strategy when trying to make an optimized mesh. Everything is broken down into triangles with very few exceptions so you may as well use them. Also don't include quads in the geometry breakdown in the corner of your images because again: Everything is triangles, even the quads.
Regarding the rest of the scene:
You're relying very heavily on photographs to texture your objects and the typical problems of this are all evident as a result: Ineffective normal maps and noisy diffuse textures with too much lighting information. You also seem to be just pulling the specular from a greyscale diffuse which is bad for material definition.
I don't know what your career goals are, whether you want to work on modern games or mobile devices or what but if you plan on working on AAA titles I would really suggest learning a more modern workflow of high poly modeling to lowpoly/baking. Generating normal maps from photographs is generally reserved only for small detail, for larger detail it's a last resort when there just isn't enough time to make a high poly model. And to reiterate what North already said, your portfolio could really benefit from having a strong focus on one thing.
That's more than likely because all your work is in the sketchbook forum which doesn't get many viewers and almost never gets critique. If you want feedback start a WIP thread in the Pimping and Previews section.
Sorry for the wall of words, your work is very promising and there's certainly a lot of it which is good. It just suffers from the usual problems that most student work does and the sooner you can root out those weaknesses the better off you'll be.
Keep at it.
I'll only count tris from now, and I know about the high-poly to low-poly baking workflow, I just never really used it, but I will try to do this from now on.
Thank you for the website feedback
I'm still having trouble deciding exactly what I want to do, ideally it would be AAA titles/indie, but I want to be open to mobile games since I believe my strengths lie in my vector/cartoon and I enjoy that also. Would it be possible for me to just split them to two separate pages? I've seen portfolios that have had a variety of work, just sectioned out clearly.
I shoved my character art in my 'Personal Work' section, and have gotten rid of the unnecessary pages and pieces. Also I tried to speed up the transitions of lightbox, so they didn't get in the way, and the layout is a bit different, would appreciate any further feedback on this.
www.gemmasuen.com (it redirects to the portfolio page, please refresh if you have been on my site before)
Images are pretty dark. May want to relight your scene
While it's fine to have your WIP up, I wouldn't post it up as the first thing you want potential employers to see. Instead, focus on finishing that project (don't be distracted by website stuff until you have quality work to show). You want a solid piece.
The most important aspect is a solid image/environment potential employers see, and what you want them to think is "Wow, this looks good, imma click". It's at that time they should view that link and the pages opens up to more nice large thumbnails of breakdowns, props, what not.
If you want to organize your props, textures, environments, do so in a very easy to follow and organized fashion. Clearly label a section for full environments (with breakdowns following it) a section for props, etc to show off your major strengths.
It's ironic how you built your site, because it's very cutesy, fun, and the first thing I see is a creepy old room that is very dark. Just doesn't blend well with the site, yet when I scroll down you have a lot more work that caters to the website theme a lot better. Figure out a way to tie the two together, just don't make it confusing to navigate.
In terms of crits for your bedroom scene, I am concerned about your set dressing and placement of objects, as well as the quality of your textures, lighting, and assets located in your scene.
1) Center the Photo on the wall somewhere that's aesthetically pleasing based off this camera shot.
2) Scale of chair lamp and table compared to bed frame feels very small.
3) Rug feels very large.
4) Curtain drapery is not very convincing, texture seems low res.
5) Wallpaper is very noisy and distracting.
Why is the lady in the frame bald? Perhaps use this to your advantage to tell an interesting story, place a wig somewhere hanging from a coat rack.
I would suggest moving the camera to the right a bit, to capture a stronger angle of the scene that is compositionally pleasing (think about the rule of thirds, major areas of detail vs low areas of detail. See your ceiling? It's all white with normals, it takes up a large portion of your screenshot.
I just barely noticed the corner statue in the top right, while providing some criticism, it looks interesting, yet I can't see it.
Do some research
What circa-era scene are you trying to accomplish, and during that time what time of furnishing and art style was popular? Baroque? Victorian? Dive into some art history for inspiration and references to assist in populating and stylizing your scene.
See this image?
It's part of the Disney Suite with inspired decor from Victorian and French Provincial styles. Ask yourself why that image looks nice, is it the camera angle? Perhaps that would assist in good shots. In terms of its simplicity its a square room, very simple yet everything comprised in the shot is very curvy, very stylized, very decorative and utilizes very full, plush furniture with victorian style trim.
When you step back and take a look at your work, you need to remind yourself that you're trying to visually sell your environment. Make it interesting, bring in a window and bring pools of light for mood, counter act with color through light using cools and warms.
You want a very powerful piece as your center for your portfolio so don't lowball yourself, set high standards and look at what other artists are doing, similar to your field.
Follow up on some similar threads and read about their approach, such as Tor Fricks mini baroque env.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101239
Hope this helps, good luck!
The best piece of advice I could give you is this.
"Never model for the sake of modeling"
"Never make an environment simply for your portfolio, instead make an environment you yourself are immersed and spending time within, and then ask yourself, how do you feel?"
And by pick a focus I mean more like pick environment art or character art specifically to improve on (at least at first) because it can be really slow to try to work EVERY field at the same time. You can work in as many styles as you want within that focus though but its good imo to have people be able to hit your portfolio and know "Ahhh this person is an environment artist" and know that's the thing you'd like to be doing.
And yes every time you apply somewhere I would suggest putting together a page of your work tailored specifically to the position/studio you're applying to. So if you were applying for a character art position at Blizzard for World of Warcraft for example you'd have a separate page, mostly hand painted characters or something and link them to that then include an additional link to your 'main' portfolio with a wider range of stuff in it in case they want to see what else you're capable of.
These are just my opinions though, this topic has been discussed a lot here and if you're interested in the generalist vs. specialist problem or building portfolios this is a good thread and also check out the GIM Portfolio podcast
@Kaburan- Thank you so much for writing such a detailed critique. I think I need it more than ever right now, because I'm just lost looking at my own work. I'm going to try to finish off the bedroom first before I make the changes to my website, and I will keep posting here to show. I am after a grungy dark Victorian theme. I have done some research but mainly from b/w books, which doesn't help too much with colouration.
I have an idea of how to split up the portfolio, using large banners that lead to a separate page with just large images.
The theme of the site was something I wanted to address, I'll try to grab a neutral background for now and alter the rest later. Again, thank you so much, this will help! I will get started with room today. And I'll pay extra attention to your last tips. (^-^)b
@dii Alright! Then I will definitely separate the sections with banners, I've noticed this is a very popular way sectioning out specific pieces/parts of portfolio.
Thank you for the links on generalists/specialism and portfolios. This is exactly what I needed!
Thank you all for giving me so much help, I really appreciate it! I'll probably not post for a good while until I get some progress on my work. Until then I'll try my best to follow my feedback.
I also am working to improve the bed, any feedback would be great! And I forgot to put in that the drapery on the bed is using a separate map. Forgot to include that to the image.
in general you spent lots of polygons on tiny trims. normal map can handle them just fine, there's no need to keep them all as geometry.
Gud luck with it
Update:
Reduced polys, and I found out the AO wasn't actually being used in my last render (oops again..) So I also decided to rebake the maps while I was at it. Off to make the Diffuse.. sorry I'm so slow to update. I'm still learning new things, much more than I was ever taught so I make a lot of mistakes and have to redo things haha!
It does look a lot darker than I remembered when I was rendering it. I can try to increase the candle light that's right next to the bed. I have windows, floor and ceiling to do now. Thanks for the feedback!