portfolio content advice

Perlinfalcon

I am currently trying to get some kind of portfolio together in order to start applying for work as a character artist. I don't feel quite ready to post anything yet, so I apologize if that makes it difficult to give advice.

The thing is, I really like making creatures. I believe that I am also quite capable of making human models, but my real love is in monsters and animals. I am just finishing up a human model for my portfolio and am starting to contemplate what my next character should be. So as it stands, my portfolio has three creatures and one human. I would love to make something that has more of a "wow" factor, and feel that for me that would best be done with some kind of creature, but I worry that I wouldn't be seen as diverse enough.

Any ideas? I apologize for not having examples. I can put up some less-than-finished renders of what I have if people need me to.

ZacD

If you can do both males and females well, I would have at least one of each sex on your porfolio. I feel costumes and clothing are half the work of a character artist, and if you are just doing creatures, you are missing that part of the job. But I've seen artists that are just creature artists, but of course those jobs are rarer.

Perlinfalcon

ok, thanks for the input! I have an idea that's been in my head that involves a human-bodied creature with armor and a more beastlike head. Perhaps that is the best of all worlds.

Justin Meisse

It's not really portfolio advice BUT I recommend getting practice in doing fur, feathers and scales. When I became a character artist my first few tasks where a jackalope, an armadillo and a giant Parrot, I was sweating bullets on each one.

JacqueChoi

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EarthQuake

Yeah, it will be very difficult to find work if you do not excel at humanoid characters, as that is what the vast majority of game characters are. With the level of competition in character modeling the last thing you want to do is limit yourself to smaller niche.

It would be best to show a range of normal(normal doesn't mean boring though! normal anatomically speaking) humans, along with humanoid monsters, and then some more fantastical creatures as well.

Now this isn't to say you shouldn't continue your passion for creature modeling, if its what you really enjoy doing I would expect it to be your best work, however your other work shouldn't look significantly worse sitting next to it.

Perlinfalcon

thanks for the advice, everyone.

@Justin- no worries there. That's actually one of the things I worry least about. I LOVE feathers and scales and fur and all will feature pretty prominently in my portfolio. Seeing so much bad bird anatomy in games and movies is what actually sparked the idea of me getting into the industry in the first place.

@Jacque- thanks for the warning. I am very aware that the competition is really tough out there. I have spent many many sleepless nights thinking about it. So thanks for probably giving me a few more! Those portfolios are indeed impressive. I can't say if I am quite up to that quality at the moment. But I do feel I have the potential to get there with some work. So all I can do in the meantime is polish what I have, put it out there, then keep on working to improve and add things as I go.

@Earthquake- thanks for the advice. I think you are probably right. At the moment I am just stuck trying to figure out what I can do to make something as impressive as I can. Especially something to bring along to the GDC. Perhaps I should flip through some concept art. I am ok at creature concepts but have trouble with human concepts. Maybe if I found a good human concept to work on that would be best. Oh, and thanks so much for your work on Marmoset. I am deep in there right now working on materials for my current project and it is definitely making life easy! I have your complex materials tutorial open as we speak.