Portfolio Feedback
polycounter lvl 14
Hi Guys,
I am currently working on my portfolio so that I can start applying to places this week.
Could you please take a look and let me know what you think?
I know that it looks a little bare, but I am working on more things to add to it.
I appreciate any feedback or critiques.
http://www.chrishunter3d.co.uk
I am currently working on a sci-fi level, and the wall segment is from that.
I am planning on doing some clay renders, wireframe renders, and high to low poly comparisons renders for the wall segment.
Thanks
Chris
I am currently working on my portfolio so that I can start applying to places this week.
Could you please take a look and let me know what you think?
I know that it looks a little bare, but I am working on more things to add to it.
I appreciate any feedback or critiques.
http://www.chrishunter3d.co.uk
I am currently working on a sci-fi level, and the wall segment is from that.
I am planning on doing some clay renders, wireframe renders, and high to low poly comparisons renders for the wall segment.
Thanks
Chris
Replies
Consider changing the cover images that you click on as well if you are able too, with all the images being chopped off halfway it looks extremely messy. Also if there will only be four images to click on rearrange them in a more uniform fashion such as a straight line of four or a 2x2 square.
Adding texture breakdowns for projects can be good as well even if it's just a single layered image with a diffuse, normal, and specular.
There's no need for your about information to be on every page of the portfolio; move it to its own section and use the space to display your art.
Placing descriptions on the right also reduces your useful space; at the moment, less than half of each screen is used for its intended purpose of displaying the images.
Include an in-game image for your UDK objects.
Don't include unfinished/WIP objects in your final portfolio. It's OK to have an extra site for your progress, but only include the best, complete objects in your actual portfolio.
The 8-bit font for your banner really works better for a retro-style artist.
Your materials seem to include only diffuse maps. Try to branch out to more complex materials with at least normal and specular maps.
I'll look in to making the changes you have suggested soon.
Your CV is way too long. I can see that you have quite the track record for education and work history so please don't take this the wrong way, but unless you're a seasoned veteran of the games industry, your CV should only be a single page. In this regard, less is more. Here are some tips to reduce your CV length:
Remove DOB entirely and the labels on your email and portfolio. It's assumed those are your email and portfolio addresses. Lose the space between DOB and Tel/Fax. All that will save you three lines already.
Your Education section is rather spaced out; lots of blank spaces between your achievements. Consider condensing somehow.
You can probably drop all the positions listed in Career History that do not pertain to the games industry. That'll cut out probably an entire page. Maybe keep the most recent one to show what you did before getting into games, if you can afford the space. Whomever is looking at your CV will care much more about your field experience than your unrelated jobs.
Your introduction paragraph and the last paragraph (General Interests) are very similar. You could probably merge these and save several more lines of space. You may want to consider removing this sort of information to an "About Me" page on your portfolio.
If you're still over by a couple lines, try fiddling with font sizes and font types. Some fonts are wider than others which may cause content to stretch needlessly to the next line. Drop the font size of your empty lines significantly. This can give you enough extra room to squeeze in another line.
General guideline: Cater your portfolio and CV/resume to the position you are trying to get. Your work history describing your experience at a hotel, for example, does not fit this specific criteria.
One final thing, consider reordering your CV content by importance. Education is not as important as [relevant] work experience, and your list of applicable skills and tool proficiencies should be at the top (which it already is).
@Bartalon I will try and sort the cv stuff out tomorrow.
Here is a test version of the portfolio at the moment:
http://www.chris.4765656b.co.uk/
What do you think of the changes?
There are more to come
Otherwiser like others said I think you should take some time to finish a few of your projects and make them really presentable, for example the water mill scene, the background is pretty much nothing and like it says, its a WIP. A portfolio should show what you are capable of doing, not what your working on right now. If you wanted to show that your continually making new things (and finishing them) you could possibly link a blog or something like that but I'm not sure how well those things work. Overall I think this is your biggest weakness, just lots of WIP. Also never get to attached to your work, always know when to cut out the worst from the lot (not saying the stuff is bad, but you want the best of the best!). You should also include stuff like diffuse/normal/spec etc in the picture gallery for each work to show them (and possibly wireframes too) and minimize the load times to be as fast as possible, some of the pages were a little slow.
One other thing. I noticed on quite a few works that some others helped with the texturing, notably the spaceship and the big truck - I'm not sure if I would include these, since the final product isn't your's entirely. If your going for a 3D Artist postion, you should really show off ONLY want you can do. If your working on a much larger project and theres other stuff in the background like skies, vegetation, etc then it would be good to credit them, but I think the focus should really only be on things you did and you alone. Take that with a grain of salt as I'm not expert, but thats my view on it.
Lastly, and this is getting a little nitpicky, I noticed a couple grammar/spelling stuff, I would just go over all the pages and recheck every little detail in the grammar/sentence structure etc. Everything counts.
Hope this helps!
Your 3d art section....almost every single thing you have in here says "In Progress" in the image. If your work isn't done, don't bother showing it. Since most of your work is "in progress," that tells me that you can't finish anything. Not the impression you want to give to an employer.
Lose the about me page. At this point you probably really only want to be judged based on your work and resume, not you as a person. If a studio is interested in you, they'll get to know you through interviews.
I won't judge your CV too much because I know that formatting for a CV is a little different than a resume...and I'm not too familiar with the difference. But at least with a resume, I would suggest you don't post all of your work history....only the stuff that can pertain to the job.
What is "Interactive Gallery?" Why do you have this if you already have a gallery...its a big confusing.
I would say overall with your work...besides the fact that a lot of things are unfinished, I think you still have a ways to go. I would agree with what was already said...I would refrain from posting stuff that other people worked on with you. I mean...this happens when you work at a studio a lot...but you don't have that experience. Also, pulling the 2 props from your watermill scene and giving them their own thumbnails looks just makes it look like your adding fluff to try to make it look like you have more work here than you really do. No bueno.
In your original post you already admitted that your portfolio looks a little bare, so I have to ask...why did you also in the same paragraph say you are applying at places this week? If you can spot that out already...why would you apply to places anyways?
Just letting you know that I have made a bunch of changes, and I am currently working on some more artwork.
I have also re-rendered some of smaller pieces to keep all of the imagery the same size.
The domain has now been fixed as well.
What do you think?
http://www.chrishunter3d.co.uk
I'd suggest focusing on giving yourself a set time frame to complete 1,2 maybe 3 pieces of work to the highest standard. Whilst you're completing them, take the usual screenshots, document the 'doing' etc. ready for when you come to upload and display.
Take a step back from building your portfolio site and making it 'perfect' as the work does all the talking - it won't matter if you have the best portfolio layout in the world if you haven't completed anything yet - I appreciate that you are working on more artwork though!
For the site design itself, it feels a little clunky, I don't like how many clicks it takes to actually see your work in a decent size. The images should take precedent and not the text, it's fine to have information but maybe leave it for when someone scrolls down to find out more details about your work. The colour scheme is a little bland, you're a 3D artist, the instant a potential employer enters your blog they must be given a good first impression - otherwise you're fighting a losing battle from the start. Fill your 'folio with great artwork, and everything else will just come naturally.
I reckon you should remove the blog and interactive gallery links. On your blog you have quite a few posts, but all of them are of unfinished work/WiPs, so again it's just putting across this mentality that nothing is completed. The interactive gallery doesn't really add anything to your work.
On your blog here's a quote from you in November (referring to a veteran artist):
'He also said that I should get the scene into UDK and get a terrain etc with it, so even though I had sort of put this scene to bed, I have decided to finally get it finished and put in UDK.'
It's still not a finished scene, 4 months on!
You use an often unprofessional manner on your blog '...as I spent most of the time trying to sort out some stupid lightmap seem issues...' if I can pickup on these things, then I can absolutely guarantee an employer who does this for a living will do as well. You have a way to go, but a good attitude and a few months dedicated work will really pay dividends!
I see what you mean about the blog.
I have taken your advice and removed the blog link and the interactive gallery.
As for the art work, I am currently working on a sci-fi scene for an online indie group that I work with, so I should have some more stuff on there soon.
When you say that I am jumping to the presentation stage a little too early, do you mean that the work lacks polish?
On another note, what sort of work do you suggest I put within the portfolio?
Thanks
Chris
It is true that the cart/table assets on your folio are practically game ready, however one environmental scene should contain multiple assets like these, alongside other forms of architecture/texture work/props etc. If you're looking to be an environment artist and get in to sought after junior artist positions you realistically need 2-3 environments of an excellent standard, so at the moment - it's not enough. Which is why I'm advising you to not worry about the presentation side of things and instead actually complete some more work first.
In terms of what sort of work you want to produce, I think that is a question you need to ask yourself. If you want to be an Environment Artist, then I would point you to the monthly challenges that some of the kind folks here set to help people improve. The March challenge will be getting underway very soon! If we put that into perspective, in 2-3 months you could have 2-3 environments done. Add a month of polish, then suddenly in 3-4 months you've gone from a few assets and a wall to a few game ready, FINISHED environments. On top of your Indie work, it will be looking good.
Happy to help, and hope to see you around :thumbup:
Thank you very much! I am feeling inspired thanks to your feedback, and I am looking forward to having more work sorted very soon!
I know this sounds odd, but do you have an example of one of the monthly environment challenges that you recommend?
Thanks
On your clayrenders I think you should show the normalmap and potentially an AO map as well. Just showing off the flat models without any textures at all doesn't really give much.
Hold off on posting the wall piece until you've got a scene to go with it as it is by itself a very uninteresting piece.
Here is February's, currently ongoing - http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=130780
Remember there are loads more of those that are just a google away, with a lot more finished work on them.