Portfolio Critique
Well hello everyone!
I will admit, I am a bit nervous but excited none the less about posting my portfolio. I am a very recent graduate of Full Sail University, and would greatly appreciate any and all advice/criticism on my portfolio. There is no way I am going to get better without knowing what is wrong, otherwise I would make the same mistakes on everything that I make which is not good. So I hope you all enjoy what I have put together!
http://www.michael-3diaz.com/
I will admit, I am a bit nervous but excited none the less about posting my portfolio. I am a very recent graduate of Full Sail University, and would greatly appreciate any and all advice/criticism on my portfolio. There is no way I am going to get better without knowing what is wrong, otherwise I would make the same mistakes on everything that I make which is not good. So I hope you all enjoy what I have put together!
http://www.michael-3diaz.com/
Replies
your "logo/name" is horrible though. I really dont know what to say to improve it though, other then take a look at how other ppl did their names and I dunno, do something like that
I think you could brush up your contact/info text some.
It starts of a bit slow, and I really dont care where you where born and if you where sure u wanted to do art or not, You make i pretty clear this is what you want with your finishing sentence anyways. I think the text could use a bit more of your portfolio design, clean and simple.
oh, and you should maybe mention your skills there, what programs u know and other stuff like that.
buuut what do I know xD
The work itself is not bad, but it does look like a pretty typical student portfolio. A couple of small environment pieces, a prop, a character, and a concept piece. It will probably be best to work towards focusing your portfolio on the type of position you want to apply for. The character and concept piece aren't really relevant to working as an env artist. For the environment pieces that are there, I don't really get a sense of what went into creating the piece shown. for the tree there are 5 very similar looking renders. There is a wire frame which is good, but no texture sheet? no callout renders of key props or highpoly models(if there were any). Things like those can show your technique and say a lot more than 3 beauty shots at slightly different angles. It was nice to see some prop renders of your teapot ride scene, but there were still no texture examples. The same comments apply to the other two enviro pieces. For a prop example like the light I would especially expect to see a highpoly. Also a note about what software was used would be nice as well. were any of these pieces rendered in a game engine?
Moving forward it would be nice to see more finished scenes. The ones you have are more or less just groups of objects in front of an empty background. An actual finished scene with foreground, background, and hero piece objects does a lot for an environment folio. Especially rendered in a modern engine. For props likewise, something more impressive than a wall light will help. Think large sized prop and definitely something where you'll get an interesting high-poly to show off.
That's kind of an unorganized brain dump... hope it helps. If something's unclear ask away.
Some advice I was given from environment artists in the industry is have a few environments with different atmospheres (day, night, etc) and have a break down of some of the good props. Focus on good lighting and composition and if your art style matches that of the studio you apply for, you should be good.
95% of the people have bad names and logos. I dont think his is bad at all, and if you cant bring up a proper argument against it, or atleast say what you dont like, then it dosnt have any weight what you say against it.
The font he uses is good, the colors are good and the kerning dosnt show
any obvious flaws. I dont really get the logic behind the placement of the 2 text components, but it is not really that wrong either. The left boxes should have a little more space between them and the text.
Website looks good, presentation is pretty nice and the work looks fine but you dont have a lot to show. Just care to make the picture on home the same width as the video.
And yeah, ditch the homepage. Just make the video the first item in your gallery.
Goat Justice - The reason why I chose to do a request form instead of posting my resume was because I have heard stories of resumes being stolen. I guess I was a little bit paranoid of that happening with mine, but you are correct that I should just post it.
As for the texture sheets, I was really debating about posting them. Of all the portfolio sites that I have looked at, it has always been a split between those who post their textures and those who do not. I've also asked those around me and I get the same half and half response, but after reading through your post, I will certainly add them along with the programs used. Thank you!
I agree x100000000
That's a new one by me. I can see someone lazy copying a format, but trying to claim someone else's credits is really asking for trouble. It's been my experience that resume's mostly get looked at to see if someone has professional experience, education and student/mod projects might get some attention, but its secondary. They're also a good way for people to find your contact info. Showing a portfolio good enough to get a test is the most important bit if you're just coming out of school.
I have, however, seen textures swiped from people's portfolios and cut-up to fit other models, or just straight stolen if they're tiling. Some folks just don't worry about it(as long as it gets you a job its served its purpose), or you can watermark or neapolitan them.