[Portfolio] Ibrahim Wahab - 3D Artist

electricsheep

So here's the 897th version of my portfolio.
http://www.ibrahimwahab.com/index.html

I'm always looking for feedback and critique to help improve my work and would love to hear your suggestions. Any feedback would be fantastic.

A few things I would like your feedback on:
- Shall I remove the graphics/illustration section until I have more and better work to show?
- Are there any 3D art work on the site that should be removed or heavily improved?
- Is the About me section OK?
- Are there any work that I should include to be more competitive in the jobs market as a 3D environment/prop artist?

*prepares for an avalanche of harsh critique*


Cheers!

BagelHero

I would say to change the title in the header to something a little less generalist. Even if you don't want to limit job opportunities by saying specifically 'environment artist', it's worth putting 'game artist' at the very least.

At least your page seems neat enough and your url decent, certainly better than I can say for a number of artists recently. I'll leave any layout crits to someone more qualified, but I can't see too many issues.:)

I think the Cryengine Bunker is the weakest piece. It's not that it's entirely horrible, but it's kind of flat, the room design is boring, and it's not particularly well set. All in all, compared to your other work it feels out of place.

On the other hand, your other work is shaping up well! Maybe put some thought into re-ordering some of it, but the Bunker is contributing heavily to lessening the impact so it might be as simple as removing or improving that piece.
The thumbnail for your Gamma One District piece is also poorly representative of a fairly nice piece by focusing on that statue. It's a scene that I like, the buildings have some good character, but that statue seems super generic UDK-y immediately. I think the 7th image in the set (provided i counted correctly) shows it off much better. If you're up for reworking it, I might also suggest that you cut the scene off at the edge-middle of the road. There's too much flat nothingness either side of the buildings and it stops looking like a diorama and more a poorly thought out level. As a diorama it's great, though, so I'd trim the edges a little so it's more obvious.

I think the 2d section has some merits and shows of your sense for aesthetics well, but possibly leave it until you have some more finished work. The floating faces seem a little amateurish, but the more abstact designs are pretty neat.

Take this with a grain of salt, it's 5am and i'm writing this on my phone. Good luck!

Stockwell

I like your work a lot, although, some of it could be removed for sure to shine what you can do well. The ray gun is awesome and something I would highly recommend taking to game res :thumbup:

I find almost everything about your portfolio comes back to this following question, what do you want to be? Which right now isn't entirely clear.

So i'll go by what you wanted critqiued:

1. Graphics Illustration page? - Do you want to be a graphics illustrator? Either way, I would highly recommend having it as a separate site, so you can sell your skills in each skill uniquely.
My vote would be to remove it from your Game Art portfolio. If you want to show you have knowledge of creating vector graphics, there are lots of ways of showing that in your game art.

2. 3D work to remove? - You have to ask yourself what pieces really represent you as an artist now. Where is your current skill set?

There is this strange phenomena I'm seeing when I look at your portfolio, and that is that everything that isn't game art is better than your game art. I like the Urban Scene, the CryEngine Bunker (although their simple), but I'm not a fan of the city scene, I'd also vote that one out. You could always improve the piece and bring it back, but it doesn't showcase your best work well.

The Steampunk Spaceship is also a contender to cut I think, you have better work to show, and this distracts from that, espescially with how large the thumbnail is.

The Character, is pretty cool, but if you want to keep it i would go ahead making that game res as well, and also ask yourself, do you really want to be a character artist? It looks like props and environments is where you want to go, that's why i'd vote to cut it.

Everything else!!! The GTO, the Audi, the Ray Gun, and your architectural building, ARE ALL REALLY GOOD! But not game art sadly If you made a high poly audi out of your current base, baked that, and textured it, created materials and rendered in engine, that would be a top notch piece. The GTO, make a low poly from your high poly, rinse and repeat above, it would be much more impressive to any game art employer. Rinse and repeat with the ray gun, and break the building into modular pieces, sculpt out some tiling textures for it, and put that in engine, that as well would outshine all three of your current in game environments on it's own.

You need more game ready art, and you'll find it much easier to get employed i'd bet.

3. About Me page? - Sure, the problem with About Me pages is when people try and make them intro pages. At first glance, anyone only cares about your work, and if they like it, they just might want to know a little bit about you, and you give them that option by having one. Your's is short, concise, i'm not reading a lot, and it highlights your skills! Sweet. I'd also recommend building a resume and linking a pdf.

4. What you have is enough to compete, the problem is it's not real-time art, and that is hurting you right now sadly, since your non-game art pieces are really nice and it would be a simple and worth while task to take them into an engine.

Good luck!