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Swaggletooth
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Swaggletooth polycounter lvl 5
Hi everyone, I hope you don't mind my asking but I was wondering if some of you might be able to provide some pointers for my portfolio?
I'm trying to find work, but with so few people expressing interest I was wondering where I might be going wrong with my portfolio.

One thing I haven't really put on my portfolio (and that I do a lot of) is tiling environment textures. Is it worth sticking some examples of these up?

My portfolio site is here http://alexandervoysey.wordpress.com/

Replies

  • mats effect
    Biggest issue right away is the home page is an about me rather than straight into your work. Take a look at this site for example http://environmentartist.com/ you want to be thinking along these lines when it comes to showing your work, its straight to the point no clicking around.
  • billymcguffin
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    billymcguffin polycounter lvl 11
    Your levels look pretty good, but your individual models look a bit dated. Do you prefer doing individual props and peices, or level design? I would suggest that you focus your portfolio on just one of those topics.

    In terms of layout, it looks pretty good, but if you can, you should make your images bigger. Also, the first page people see should be your art, not your about me.
  • DireWolf
    You have some nice props. I would get rid of the character models.

    I think your level design isn't showing us your ability to design a level. I'm not sure how to get that point across myself, show wilder view or maybe a top down plan of the whole thing? Maybe some more experience level designer can give you better advise. At the moment they only give me impression that you're a generic environment artist.
  • slosh
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    slosh hero character
    Your stuff is not bad but compared to current gen standards, everything feels about 60% done. You need to get in and do a lot more texture work as well as shader and rendering to make the final presentation much stronger. Level design is not bad but the assets being outdated doesn't help. I agree with scrapping the characters because they are mediocre at best...polish the guns and make them look as real as possible.
  • Swarm22
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    Swarm22 polycounter lvl 15
    My opinion is that everything looks kind of dated. Current games today have moved well past that quality of art. It all looks like your mod work for Counter Strike?
  • brandoom
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    brandoom polycounter lvl 13
    Need to show wires and textures. Nice work though.
  • YakZSmelk
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    YakZSmelk polycounter lvl 11
    Swarm22 wrote: »
    My opinion is that everything looks kind of dated. Current games today have moved well past that quality of art. It all looks like your mod work for Counter Strike?

    I agree with Swarm, it's all nice looking work but it looks 'last-gen', you clearly have the talent, push yourself to make some next-gen content!
  • BagelHero
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    BagelHero interpolator
    Obvious wordpress theme hurts. Take me to your art right away, mats effect has the right idea. Everything you show on your about me is really dated looking, but your 3D models page is better. +1 to slosh's suggestion of pushing the texture work and shaders, because I think that will really bring the level up to scratch.

    Good luck.
  • Nosslak
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    Nosslak polycounter lvl 12
    I also think your work looks pretty dated, but to add to what the others have said (in no particular order):
    1. Diversify your models a bit more. I had the same problem with my portfolio when I posted it that there was too much of the same thing (still kind of is, but I'm working on it). In your case it's obviously that everything is modern military, so I'd try to add some fantasy and sci-fi models as well to show that you can do those too and open yourself up further for work at studios doing games with those themes.
    2. I'd like to see the highpolys and know the polycount for your individual models. Posting the flat texture sheets wouldn't be wrong either.
    3. Remove the commenting functionality.
    4. Add your portfolios URL to your images.
    5. Get your own domain as this will look a lot more professional.
    6. Redesign the top banner as it looks kind of awful at the moment. To be honest I'd scrap it completely and make a new one with better colors, no phone number and a more specific job title.
    7. Scrap the news section as I don't think anyone really cares about that .
  • Swaggletooth
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    Swaggletooth polycounter lvl 5
    I wasn't expecting this much feedback! Thanks everyone.

    I guess I am being held back in many ways by using older tech (Source is the newest game engine I've used, I do all my rendering in Max 9 still); character models are... definitely outdated and should probably go (especially since other threads suggest character modelling isn't entry level anyway).
    After numerous people suggesting I move the main page to straight renders of models, I guess that should be fine.
    Biggest issue right away is the home page is an about me rather than straight into your work. Take a look at this site for example http://environmentartist.com/ you want to be thinking along these lines when it comes to showing your work, its straight to the point no clicking around.
    That's a pretty useful example site, I'll definitely be showing my wires from now on and probably reducing the volume of stuff I'm showing.
    DireWolf wrote: »
    I think your level design isn't showing us your ability to design a level. I'm not sure how to get that point across myself, show wilder view or maybe a top down plan of the whole thing? Maybe some more experience level designer can give you better advise. At the moment they only give me impression that you're a generic environment artist.
    This is one of those things that's hard to really show with a BSP engine (and probably another reason why I need to move onto something newer), a lot of the practices I used to keep things optimized no longer really apply to newer engines.
    Nosslak wrote: »
    I also think your work looks pretty dated, but to add to what the others have said (in no particular order):
    1. Diversify your models a bit more. I had the same problem with my portfolio when I posted it that there was too much of the same thing (still kind of is, but I'm working on it). In your case it's obviously that everything is modern military, so I'd try to add some fantasy and sci-fi models as well to show that you can do those too and open yourself up further for work at studios doing games with those themes.
    I've often thought about that, I wasn't sure if it would give the impression of a less focused theme for the portfolio? I'd certainly like to try doing it one way or another.
  • Phaeton1911
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    Phaeton1911 polycounter lvl 4
    how come you use this older tech? is downloading new software a problem?
    definitely keep up to date with technology to within a year or two of current versions.

    your work is generally good but definitely HL2 generation
  • Shrike
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    Shrike interpolator
    Hm, your 3D stuff is not convincing, but it heavily depends on how old you are

    What was more interesting is the leveldesign. From the screenshots it was kinda hard
    to see depth in gameplay, so I cannot really judge the leveldesign qualities.

    But mind that you can get a job as leveldesigner, if youre really good at that.
    Leveldesign is something that can not really learned traditionally and most good
    leveldesigners have a similar background as yours, coming from FPS map creation.
    The 3D skills are also a plus if you understand stuff better and can fix some problematic things yourself. It looks like you are at a point where you had to decide which of the two you want to do, as getting 3D skills up to level would take quite some time aswell. If you display leveldesign then you have to show top down views where you describe things and show paths and what their functions are, and how the flow of the map is or how the encounters are designed
    and so on. If youre pretty young then you have a good start into 3d modeling however, it depends on when and what you want to work
  • Swaggletooth
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    Swaggletooth polycounter lvl 5
    (Apologies for the delayed reply, I have limited internet)
    how come you use this older tech? is downloading new software a problem?
    definitely keep up to date with technology to within a year or two of current versions.

    your work is generally good but definitely HL2 generation

    Well, functionally speaking it seems to work fine... but obviously I feel I should keep up to date - what do most people here use now for modelling / rendering?

    @Shrike
    Honestly I was only ever really good at the artistic side of level design, triggers and stuff like that were always a huge headache for me. So really I'd rather stick to the creation of art assets.
  • Suba
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    Suba polycounter lvl 5
    I like your hardsurface surface stuff but your characters needs more work on the anatomy and proportions. I think it actually level down your portfolio, I'd personally think about removing them.
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