Portfolio Review (Environment Artist)

JustGarry

Yo what's up guys,

It has come time to update the old portfolio so I am looking for some crit and feedback and some ideas what to work on next.

http://garrysoutar.com

What I want to know is what to work on and what to throw away etc, I am currently trying to decide whether to expand the Church (which was a short art test) to having some more foliage and rocks etc or to start a natural environment from scratch.

I am currently working on the MP5 as this was a couple of years ago and this should be finished within a couple of days.

Thanks in advance guys I always appreciate honest feedback

LMP

I'll post the rest of my comments soon... but, the page I land on when going to your site should be the portfolio page, and I should see images of all your different pieces, for breakdowns, I should be able to click a piece and then see the breakdown. Right now, it is difficult to navigate between all your work.

JustGarry

Yup the website is in need of a rethink indeed, getting rather dated now. Good idea about thumbs of the projects on the homepage

sushi

You're right, the church could use some more foliage to make it more interesting. I can see that UDK skySphere from a mile away, I'd use a custom one or at least modify its attributes.

The WIP should be tossed or finished before presenting the folio to an employer, also a website note - the MP5 and Pirate Fortress links in the dropdown list are directing to the incorrect page.

Resume??

LMP

On GravTech, you breakdown could showcase the finished models better, at the moment they're about equal to the grey wire-frame version in prominence. Also, the default Maya viewport isn't helping much, try adding some lighting to the textured meshes.


On your MPS, the modeling looks solid. But, textures and materials need some love. Does it have a spec map? Right now it feels too uniform in material definition.


Your Pirate Fortress, it looks cool for what it is. But, Never put WIP in your portfolio, only finished pieces.

Zone 12, overall, nice.

The church is not bad, But, to improve it I'd try to work some foliage in there (grass), change the sky, to something that not UDK default, and find a way to give the lighting some more character.

JustGarry

Sushi - cheers for the advice, need to get better at foliage anyway so no better time to start practising. As for a Resume, I have one just not on the site, although to be honest I have just left uni so didn't think there was much point adding it, I will definately consider it now.

LMP - Thanks for the detailed feedback, your right about the MP5, no normal or spec maps here, reworking it now (including cleaning up the modelling) and also gonna stick it in an engine or Marmoset this time for rendering. Not sure yet if I will be keeping the GravTech stuff, was a cool project but skills have improved since then.

Will I finish or chuck the Pirate Fortress?

lukepham101

Hi Garry,

Well done on the presentation and layout of your portfolio site. I really like it's set out, no nonsense navigation, nice colour scheme, good image sizes and such. It seems like you're pretty keen and motivated too which wants me to give you some feedback on your work.

First off, you should work on your church because it's got the bare bones of it laid out but it's not impressive as it is, there's a lot that could be improved. Lighting could be more dramatic, the composition could be better and there's lots of little things to list that would improve this scene I think. I would personally remove the Pirate Fortress from your portfolio too until you actually finish it since I dislike seeing just ambient occlusion passes, if you've got a blog just put it in that but your portfolio is for finished pieces.

Learn high poly modelling for the MP5 and bake it down to a low, use things like AO, cavity and normal maps, in addition to making specular maps and that'll improve the quality of it heaps.

I'm sorry, but I would actually get rid of the GravTech stuff, or make a new scene with those assets and make it look better. Right now in those screenshots you've got, I don't really dig the lighting at all, the assets or the texturing or anything. It seems like a great start and base for it, but you either need to sculpt some good details into it, or get better at hand painting those things. Either way it doesn't really seem impressive to me at the moment.

Hope this helps, ask me if you need any clarification on what I said. Good luck!

JustGarry

Hey everyone quick update, I was working on the site over the weekend and have added a better homepage with links directly to my work (which is still to be changed so hang in there for updates ) I also added email address into the header so people have a quick way to contact me. Still working on adding a resume and there might still be a couple of bugs but almost there. Here's the link again.

http://garrysoutar.com

lukepham101 - thanks very much for your crits they have all been duly noted, I have decided to ditch the GravTech stuff and keep the Pirate Fortress (when it's finished) Then I think that will be a good mix of 4 projects, and maybe do something smaller like an indoor scene to compliment.

If anyone has any further crits keep them coming and I will be cracking through them over the next month or so.