Critique my Portfolio

CarlK3D

I'm looking for any Criticism or Tips on ways I can improve my portfolio. I'm happy with the layout right now and can only think I need better work on there.

I've split it into 2 sections Left Side - for Hard Surface Work (Guns, Vehicles, Robots for Applying for Simulation or Bigger Games Studios). Right Side - Hand Painted Work (Since AUS is mainly Mobile and I think traditional Art is really important in this field)

I've been working on adding things to my portfolio for a few months now so new work will appear there from time to time.

Let me know what you think - Portfolio

ZacD

I think the main issue is there is a conflict of styles. It's hard for a company to tell what direction you want to take your art, where your interests are, and if you can actually product consistently good hand painted models or realistic normal mapped models.

Also the Reaper's Rifle is no where near as good as the AK-47, I wouldn't include it with your portfolio.

I think this image would make a better thumbnail for the bike http://payload196.cargocollective.com/1/13/422701/6226228/-1%20Game%20Shot_1100.jpg

CarlK3D

I agree with the conflict in art direction. perhaps I'll turn off some pages depending on what job I'm applying for at the time.
I will end up removing the Doom Rifle when I have a better piece to show. thinking of doing the M41A Pulse Rifle from Alien.
I'll try out that Image as a thumbnail also.

ZacD

Also, there's 11 different fonts on your home page, it just looks messy with that many.

Tobbo

It might be a good idea to add your name and email on your images as well.

Optinium

Zac is on the money regarding those fonts, I'd conform them a bit, the text at the moment is hugely distracting and that turns people off your art.

I see what Zac is saying about conflicting styles, I personally don't think that's a bad thing, especially when starting off as no doubt you'll want to experiment and learn (like me ), I think the key is the presentation. I think however that there should be an overall direction, e.g You mainly do weapons but you've dabbled in some hand painted texture painting.

I'd maybe split up your personal projects from your professional/uni/group projects (maybe a different page).

CarlK3D

I've changed my Portfolio to Weebly. I much prefer the Amount of control over Theme, Drop & Drag & CSS.

Optinium's portfolio was a big influence to go with Weebly. I like I idea of having a Blog as well as a portfolio in 1. means I can get rid of my Website and put all my tutorials onto the blog part of my portfolio.

Still need to fix the Fonts though. Thinking the left side will use 1 Font and the right will use another since there 2 different art styles

New Weebly Portfolio

Optinium

I'd maybe get rid of the writing altogether and let the art entice people. That's what I've tried to do, only indicating game work or WIP's.

cholden

Your swift adjustments displaying open mindedness is commendable.

The integration of sketchfab may put you on the bleeding edge of portfolios. This is something I really like.

CarlK3D

@Optinium Thats a really good point. Labeling doesn't entice people to explore it in more detail. I'll try it out

Thanks cholden that means alot to me

*update*
I've fixed most of the Thumbnails. the Hand Painted Assets will be changed when I have more Assets to add to the thumbnail. there's only 1 atm. I'm working on a few more right now

lotet

ok I have two quick things

First, your name is almost klark kent, thats awesome.

Second, I dont think having different styles in your portfolio is a bad thing in any way, its not like people are go go "no, I dont want to hire this guy for low polygon work because he is also good at highpolygon stuff".

I think diversity is GREAT to have in a portfolio, as long as everything is good quality it doesnt matter what style it is.

two real crits though, change the thumbnail for trolley troy and the tron bike thingie.

jsargent

Hi I also don't think that having different styles is a bad thing! I have always had quite a half and half portfolio and its never really been a problem, especially in the smaller studios. The only thing I would say is that you really need to push each one. For example really show your high polys, make sure your textures and materials are really really up to scratch etc... Also in your about me section you say you want to be a hard surface or environment artist but you don't really show any of this in your folio which consists mainly of small props. Maybe try to make a full realistic environment piece next if you want to go in to that as a career?

CarlK3D

@lotet I've altered the Thumbnails, they look a little more interesting now.

@jsargent At this point its a choice between Stylized stuff Such as your Aragorns Quest piece & Rabbids Rumble and Hard surface work such as Gun & Vehicles. I guess Environments refers to the Stylized stuff more then hard surface but I've found it hard with my current skill set to put one together that looks any good or works. Thus I have been painting textures and small props to build skills.

Btw your portfolio is sweet, basically the same kind of style I'm trying to create

CarlK3D

Changed the Blog section to Tutorials, Slowly moving 65 posts (8 done so far)
I plan to do More Written & Video Tuts in the Future

Tutorials

Tobbo

Is there a reason you are doing a tutorial series? I get the impression that you are doing it to impress potential employers and not so much to actually help anyone?

These short, basic, already existing tutorials are probably hurting your cause more than helping it. You even go so far as to post a YouTube video at the end of several tutorials stating, this is where you learned how to do it. Otherwise indicating, that it does a better job of explaining the process more than you can. It also comes across as simply copying the process for the sake of making a tutorial while not bringing anything new to the table.

I don't mean to be so negative and I hope you don't take it personally. But it comes across as half arsing it. These should be the last thoughts you want linked to your portfolio site.

If you want to keep doing the tutorials that's fine. But I'd recommend doing it on a separate website. Because from an employers standpoint, it's really not helping your cause.

With that being said, I think you could spend your time more wisely by learning and making mind blowing artwork instead.

CarlK3D

@Tobbo Any Feedback is good feedback so thanks for sharing your thoughts. As for the Tutorial Series for both UDK & Unity I did 50 Different Posts for UDK back at the start of 2013 & 15 Unity in the 2nd Half of 2013 far before I even had enough art to make up a Portfolio. The Main reason I created them was to Learn UDK & Unity and I found it helpful for myself to document everything I learned (encase I came back for a project, I can read over my own work)

I read 10 Tips To Improve Your Portfolio Website Forum and I get the same feeling about the Tutorials working against me so I guess I could just Remove all the ones that are to basic, Already exist & are just plain copies. I want to get rid of my website as to make my amount of sites minimal but it does contain Posts I want to keep in the Future & there are a few that I learned by myself/ without Video Tutorial (nGUI for Unity comes to mind)

I'll revise that Tutorial section tomorrow, thanks for the Input Tobbo & Yeah My primary focus atm is producing Art.

Any more Thoughts would be great!

GOBEE

Carl-

I'm with Tobbo on this. I would remove the tutorials entirely. I think they are actually a negative on your portfolio. Looking at your resume, I don't see any experience so to me the tutorials, although helpful, lack credibility. I have never heard of anyone getting hired based off their tutorial writing skills. Put it on a separate blog if you want but on your portfolio? Toss it.

With that said, I love your hand painted textures and I would like to see you go more that direction. You have two guns, why not create a weapons section and add them both? I like the sketchfab thing, it's actually REALLY sweet that I can see your model, but remember that not everyone will have the time nor patience to use it. Get your best shots up front nice and big. You have SECONDS to make an impression when someone looks at your portfolio. Blow them away!

CarlK3D

@GOBEE & Tobbo Yeah Ok I'll remove the Tutorials.

I think I'll focus on Painted Textures & Props for now.
I also want to Learm Modo & make more Guns/ Hard Surface Pieces. I might try to Incorporate the Gun's I make into an Environment Since I need experience making Environments to (Hand Painted Environments are freakin hard to make work

AlexCatMasterSupreme

I would remove the AK and the scifi rifle personally as well as the sculpted textures in your hand-painted section, your strongest pieces are the straight hand-painted stuff. Also why is the hand painted stuff in two sections? I don't think the AK is really portfolio material to be brutally honest. There looks like there is shading issues on it, some odd looking details, the shape of it is totally off as well as the details, then you ran it through DDo is looks like, I can't really explain it, it's just odd looking to be honest. I know that isn't entirly constructive but I am trying to be straight forward. The scifi gun is better but the texturing could be improved a lot with some more natural wear. If you need better refs I have a thread with a whole bunch of pictures of mine.


Another thing I would consider is your presentation, using a darker background than your subject will help it pop a little better and allow us to get a better look at what's going on, if you don't the background and the gun both try and get your attention.
I added some crits for the rifle in the image. Another one I didn't add is that it looks very blocky and not really too functional. I don't know if that's in the concept but it is my impression.


As far as your portfolio, I would try and pick one font you like and use it all over instead of many different ones.


By sculpted I mean remove this
and the one under it. Maybe even the bricks, the wood at the top is ace though.

I am not trying to be a dick, just trying to say the things I think are true to be helpful.

CarlK3D

@Alex I'll keep those in mind, I'll replace them when I have something to put in there place. I kept the Assets & 2D Texutres separate to fill out the Portfolio

Looking at your portfolio make me feel bad since I've also been doing 3D for 2 Years my work is no were near that level. You must have worked really hard. Also I love your Portfolio Design

CarlK3D

@AlexCatMasterSupreme Thanks for all the Criticism, Better to know what I've done wrong the 1st time so I can work on getting better in the future. I did put the AK through Ddo when I was learning how to use it but It didnt give the result I wanted so I scraped it and did it all in photoshop for the diffuse, the Normal Details & Spec was nDo2 (I did keep the Gloss Map from dDo though). I'll remember the Dark Background Tip for Future Presentation.

*Update*
- Changed up the design a bit
- Removed all the Light-boxes/ Enlarging
- Removed some of the 2D Textures like Alex suggested
- Combined all Hand Painted into 1 section
- Created a Template for Thumbnails (as seen in Tr-Zero, Hand Painted & Trolley Troy)
- Added M9 Beretta Render & SketchFab Embed to Hand Painted Section

I'll keep the AK & Rifle for now (Still need to created new Thumbnails) but they will be swapped out when I get back into making more guns

AlexCatMasterSupreme

I think that's the good attitude to have, I think you have some decent hand painted skills, better than me as 2D and painting is my weakness. I am looking forward to what you make next If you want I can help you design a site, my logo was made by my friend on Polycount and then my website itself was made mostly by someone on crydev. Let me know if I can help in anyway with stuff. btw my logo guy does sites but it's kinda spendy, I'd help you come up with the look for free, but his ideas are prolly better.

Just keep at it man.

CarlK3D

That sounds great any help or advice would be great. I'll try to make my own today but everything I've uploaded an image to weebly it doesn't seem to remain as clear

AlexCatMasterSupreme

CarlK3D wrote: »

That sounds great any help or advice would be great. I'll try to make my own today but everything I've uploaded an image to weebly it doesn't seem to remain as clear

That's why I got a site, I could have it be however I wanted, i had a carbonmade and I couldn't stand it.

CarlK3D

Ok, I'm happy with the state my portfolio is at atm, until I produce more art to replace Art of lesser quality.

- Brought out Domain & Removed all weebly crap
- Added Ninja Attack! Its the only good Environment I have atm (I applied for Star Wars BattleCry so I wanted at-least 1 Environment there)

Opinions are always welcome

carlkent.com

lukepham101

Hey Carl,

Your portfolio layout is nice, I'm glad it's a no nonsense website with art straight in your face. I think your work is pretty good for a graduate straight out of school but there's still plenty of things that keep it from being that instant wow factor. I'll list them in points below for you.

1) The problem with the AK is a couple of things. Your wood looks really worn out but the metal looks like it just has a little damage on it. I would recommend putting some dents in the normal map, scratches in the specular and more subtle detail added into diffuse. Essentially I just think you need to work on your texturing and material definition. I feel like you have an unnecessary amount of shots of the AK as well, if anything just a high poly, wire, texture break downs and baked low poly should be enough. The same goes for Doom Gun you have in your portfolio as well.

2) Your hand painted stuff is cool, but I really think you should put it into a full environment since it's okay to look at them individually but again they lack that wow factor when it's just individual pieces.

3) This may sound really harsh and painful but I would advise scrapping the sections of the games you've worked on and just starting new scenes and just polish 2 or 3 of them and showcase that in large. If the artwork you've done in a game looks just okay, then it's better to just not showcase that at all because that's what employers will think you'll be able to provide them. For example if I see badly mapped textures & environments that looks just meh, it just casts unnecessary doubt on your skills.

Hope I haven't been too harsh, I think you've definitely got potential but just keep it up man and you'll be great in no time. Good luck!

CarlK3D

@lukepham101 First of all I want to say I really like your Tactical Operations Centre piece It looks fantastic. Also I see we did the same course :P only 2 years difference though.

I've Removed a few Images from both the AK47 & Rifle Pages.
As for creating Hand Painted Environments I've tried it before in the past but Its hard to get the Colors and Style to suit/ blend well. I've only been looking Hand Painting for the last 2 months so I'll be building up on Props to get used to the technique before taking on the big pieces. I started with simple objects & 2D Textures (Barrel, Pumkin) now I'm working on 10 Packs of Weapons to try to get a consistent style of Texturing (Guns & in the future Swords, Cars & Planes hopefully)

Once I have the 1st 10 Gun Pack Finished I'll remove Trolley Troy & Make a section just got the Gun Pack

Thanks for you thoughts & nothing is ever to harsh when your trying to help.