Question about portfolio work

ahendowski

Is it bad taste to model something that's been popular in a video game? I've been eyeballing the Metal Gear Rex from MGS1 for a while and have been wanting to do a hard surface project on it, but would it be bad taste to do that and display it in your portfolio?

I hope this question makes sense.

Doran

People will always compare it to the original and look down on it if its not as good as theirs. If you take the idea of Metal Gear Rex and make a version of it that is current gen and it looks incredible you could get away with it. Replicating exactly what has already been done is bad imo.

Make it your own.

unit187

While it might be bad taste for a concept artist whos job is to invent new things, I think it is perfectly fine to model something based on another person's concept or model.

Haftoof

Generally from what I've read, as a modeler you don't want to do your own concepts at first. You want to show that you can accurately take a concept (whether its been done or not) and build it, address the technical issues with the model and capture the feel of the art.

More importantly address things like silhouette by emphasizing parts of the model, proper topology for deformation, and the work flow.

I hear artbooks are awesome...