Environment Artist Portfolio Review
Hi, everyone. Like a lot of people here I'm getting ready to graduate in June and putting together my portfolio. My first review go around is next week for my school. If everyone doesn't mind looking at my portfolio site, I would really appreciate it. Thank you everyone in advance for any critiques that you might have.
Websitejonathonkaufman.webs.com
Websitejonathonkaufman.webs.com
Replies
The first scene looks like something out of a low budget 1995 game, lights are invisible and the bump maps aren't showing up. You seem to know how to make textures in theory, but the end result just doesn't look very good. I suggest seriously dropping the contrast in your diffuse maps, and let your specular and bump maps do more of the work once you actually get them to show up properly. They exist for a reason after all.
The column in the second image is a bit strange, because it looks like you were trying to make a low poly object, yet you could still cut the polygon count in half without changing the object's shape what so ever. Why does the mid section have so many polygons even though it's completely straight? They have no purpose what so ever.
I'm really sorry to sound so harsh but if it took 3 years for you to get this far then you basically threw your money away. This is what you should have had at minimum (+workign normal maps) by the end of your first year. I'm guessing your classmates had similar results, in which case you just had a shitty school and are probably better off learning on your own.
Pretty much everything Ervin said. I heavily recommend in the passing months after you graduate to start really going all in and working on your portfolio non stop. I don't know what your circumstances are, but hopefully you wont have the busy schedule that school gave you.
Also take a look at the portfolio section on the polycount wiki
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryPortfolio
One of my favorite Tumblr blogs is this. Lots of great examples of professional portfolios to follow!
http://gameartportfoliowall.com/
Best of luck!
@Ervin I really appreciate the harsh critique because those kinds of critiques can only help to make me strive to work harder. I do have more work I'm just working on how to present it right now. With the low poly column, I was originally going to sculpt on it and when I added subdivision to it the divisions would stretch.
@jonas Ronnegard Yeah I agree with you on the background. I just changed it.
@surfur After graduation I plan to hopefully find a job in games possibly in QA. And continue to work on my portfolio.
I think you should get a more simple structure for your site:
- in my opinion the images are too small (before clicking on them)
-> make them bigger
- give the individual assets an own sub-page
- the home section is empty and therefore pretty useless at the moment
Artwise:
- Each of your objects have way too much polygons
- textures need better resolution
- your metal objects don't read like that
-> they look like stone ( a fairly common mistake in the beginning)
-> whilst doing your textures, the diffuse should'nt actually look like metal
-> pretty much everything comes together with the specular map (high contrast etc.)
I studied at Qantm-Institute and after I graduated I took like 8 months off and learned me a lot due to nice help of polycount and made a portfolio.. finally it paid out
If you need help with certain questions, you can come back to me at any time!
Keep it up!
As far the work I would say your lighting (even on props) is really poor. You should spend some time making them look as good as possible.
Also make a more complicated scene. Seems like your in the middle of art styles leaning towards a more realistic style. I would focus more.