Portfolio Review (Environment Artist)

Jack M.

Hey polycounters,
I just made myself a portfolio site. I've heard from many people now that it's really important to have a dedicated portfolio website so today I decided to make one. Any feedback and crits would be appreciated as it is still a work in progress.

Thanks in advance everybody,
Jack McKelvie

http://www.jackmckelvie.com/

Archanex

you'll get a lot more responses if you put some content in your gallery

Jack M.

I'm not sure I follow you. Try mousing over portfolio and clicking on either professional or personal.

Still need to link the main page to a portfolio page or something to make it easier to find.

BARDLER

Nope your website returns 404 error messages on almost every page, sends me to different themed pages, and the only thing I can find is a video under the tutorial section that isn't a tutorial.

Jack M.

Alright, thanks Bardler. I did some digging and turns out some of the pages are not going to be published until tomorrow. I guess I jumped the gun a little bit on asking for feedback.

I also changed the video to one of my newest tutorials rather than an environment flythrough.

As it goes for the theme. I had to change a while ago because the first one had some issues that I couldn't work around. That may be the source of that issue.

From what I'm reading things should be a little more settled by tomorrow. If not, then I have quite a bit more work to do.

Again, thanks for the feedback guys.

sprunghunt

Jack M. wrote: »

I'm not sure I follow you. Try mousing over portfolio and clicking on either professional or personal.

Still need to link the main page to a portfolio page or something to make it easier to find.

The first page should have your work on it. If it doesn't have something to look at then they're not going to look around to find the actual content.

It's harsh but true. People want something right away.

I've been told all the cool kids have done away with sub-menus (and even thumbnails!) altogether. Just a huge page of work.

Jack M.

Alright, thanks for the tips Sprunghunt. I'll move stuff around to be on the front page.

Jack M.

By the way everybody, everything is now operational on the site. Sorry for the 404 messages.

antszy101

Like others said, I would put your art front and center on your homepage. My initial reaction on opening your site was "oh, he hasn't really done anything" when clearly that isn't the case. However, that first impression leaves a bias even if the visitor does click through to your other pages.

Also, with the exception of the personal cryengine scene, all of your images and environments are extremely dark which makes it hard to actually see the work you;ve done and really detracts from the impression of your overall skill as an artist. I would strongly recommend working on a lighter environment or at least showing more individual renders of assets you've created so visitors can have a better understanding of what you're capable of. Post some texture breakdowns as well so visitors can see that you are capable of UV Mapping and texturing as well.

Out of these suggestions, I think the most important would be to create a lighter scene/environment

Jack M.

@Nerf Bat Ninja - I really need to label stuff and get some wireframes. The top picture of the door has the screws baked in and the bottom one is lighting only on the high poly version.

You bring up a very interesting point about the kickstarter project. If anyone else has any feedback I'd like to know if that could be considered professional or not. It was on freelance so I'm a little divided on that one.

Thank you for your feedback man.

@antszy101 - Thanks for bringing the darkness to my attention. I am starting on a completely different scene. I'm thinking about remaking a scene from bioshock infinite. Not sure though. I'm only going to do it if I can at least match the quality, so we'll see. Hopefully that will give some more balance to my portfolio.

I can't believe I overlooked making some texture breakdowns, and my UV mapping. Thanks so much. Brain-farted that one.

Thanks everybody for your tips and reactions. Your reactions tell me just as much as the tips. I'm going to rework the portfolio site tonight to get it primed for the scene I'm going to make.

Rafferty_Eggleston

I would definitely suggest reading through the portfolio tutorials on the wiki (http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryPortfolio) and I would definitely read through Jon Jones's article http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=587805&postcount=1

It has a lot of helpful tips. This may be from his article, but I also think that when you click on a link (if you're still going to have separate pages) that it should *not* open a new tab or window that makes the viewer go out of their way to close. Hope this helps! Looking forward to a revision!

Jack M.

@Rafferty_Eggleston - Thanks for the links. I will be reading through them tonight to really get a better grasp on creating this website. Also thanks for bringing it to my attention that opening a new window is a bad idea. I didn't know this, but it definitely makes sense.

Jack M.

Update - I made a few basic revisions to the site. I made the front page buttons more like headers to the portfolio which is now displayed on the front page. I also got rid of the sub-menus : http://www.jackmckelvie.com/

I still have a lot to do with the current scenes I have in the portfolio such as wireframes and textures shots, but once I get those more presentable I'm going to be balancing my portfolio with a brighter scene. I may also cut out some of my weaker works.

Again, thank you everybody for taking the time to give me tips, feedback, and support. It's appreciated greatly.

DWalker

Your hand grenade is missing its ring.

Jack M.

-_- *face-palm*

Needles

Your images are really dark. Maybe its a design choice. I have my monitor calibrated to gamma 2.2 and they are almost black.

Jack M.

@Needles - thanks for the input. The darkness was a design choice, but I do want people to be able to see more than black. I'll take a look with some other darker monitors and get some more feedback to see if I need to up the lighting a bit.

It would be helpful to get more feedback on this darkness thing.

Thanks guys.

Rafferty_Eggleston

The layout looks a lot better! I think someone suggested this up top, but you could make more presentation shots of the assets you made for the scenes that are dark and then people looking at the portfolio can see the detail of what you've done.

or at least showing more individual renders of assets you've created so visitors can have a better understanding of what you're capable of.

Jack M.

@Rafferty_Eggleston - Yeah, I'm going to get some nice breakdowns of what went into the environment in so everyone can at least see the modeling and texturing work I did for the environment.