Felt a little weird how your header/logo is in color while your links to your work is in B&W. It gets even weirder when I mouse over your links and they go from 0% saturation to 120% saturated. Quite a big contrast there. Going into each page I feel like every thing are over saturated as well.
What I would do is tone down the header's saturation, make links 30% saturated when mouse off and 70-80% when mouse over.
I find it odd the gallery images is only like 12 but you click one and it leads to a different image with 100+ images to scroll through on the professional page. Also the loading time of the images is a bit long.
Also your header should link to your home page or you should have a homepage link.
definitely cut the steampunk style headliner and the not so tasteful photoshop effects, like the strokes with gradient, the bevel and emboss "professional / personal" work texts and such , theres not a single correlation between steampunk and your site, and it dosnt look good or helps
if you are on either one of both subsites (pro/personal) the buttons on top appear almost as if the left side is professional and the right side is personal work, its kinda strange , cut those buttons and put them in your navigation right away
graphics with x ? >.>
also cut that racoon, it drags the rest down id say
theres a lot of nice work, but you definitely need to go through and cut all that is not up par
Aside from what others have said, I would get rid of the two categories at the start and have it on one page. People want to see good art and don't care about browsing based on a distinction between work you were paid for or did on your own time.
My portfolio reflects my skills as a generalist. I've worked on games/ cartoon shows/ advertisement/ arch viz etc. I really don't mind what i do as long as its working with 3D.
I'll take head on that advice of removing the unnecessary parts, roll over text / split work pages/ steam punk thingy in the banner etc.
In regards to the lightbox stuff, i built the website myself but i know basically nothing about coding. I'd prefer the images to loopback to the thumbnail it was triggered off and not keep cycling through.
All the images are 1280 x 720. That's probs why it takes a while to load them. Is that to big?
"My portfolio reflects my skills as a generalist. I've worked on games/ cartoon shows/ advertisement/ arch viz etc. I really don't mind what i do as long as its working with 3D."
You are right. It does show that.
To me it shows an artist that doesn't really have any drive to make things with his own vision. If that's what you want that's fine. But it does mean that you are probably going to keep getting licensed work.
I guess when i look at your portfolio, all of your own original stuff is weird and abstract. They look like somebody testing out software without any idea on what you want to make. Or trying to learn how to do something.
Then i go to the professional work. All the poly pocket stuff was done by a team. I have no idea what your contributions to each shot was.
All in all i come away not know what you are capable of and i have no idea what you want to do as an artist. It doesn't reflect any passion or excitement to want to create amazing things.
Loose all the weird abstract stuff from the personal side imo. And focus on making good quality assets that make you excited to be an artist!
Agreed with Muzz, the abstract stuff isn't doing justice to your personal work, the living room is the most interesting one there and even that looks a little boring. Even a generalist artist has to have a specific area of interest, if not professionally. Any movies or games that you really enjoy that you want to do something as homage or as an inspiration from them? Are you a sci-fi fan, fantasy, RPG lover? That's the space where you want to show that.
For your professional work, sub-categorise them into the different projects you worked on, I'd say 3 or 4 maximum should do. One example of the final work is fine but also show the breakdown of what you contributed. Remember, the portfolio is demonstrating what YOU did for that project.
It did come off pretty harsh, but yeah fair points. Thanks for the constructive criticism.
It was supposed to have included a description of what i'd done at the bottom of the lightbox; character & environment lighting + compositing but i can see that it would not be very noticeable. I'll include a strip at the bottom of the image with text to highlight this.
It is always a problem when working with a team as how to best show off your work; i've included only images i've worked on.
I can see where your coming from with the personal images; however apart from the fumeFx fire ball & space drone image I can't agree with you. The other ones have a clear intention & show a finalized image; i'd like to show somebody that i can create from my own mind and not just from following orders.
Weird & abstract is personal taste. I create footage for VJ'ing which is what some of these are from, i'm happy that the images would appeal to the sort of person/market who i'm aiming at.
If that is your intention to make images for Vjing you need to make it obvious that is what it is for. And also, Vjing stuff doesn't come off well in stills. You need to make a demo-reel for that stuff.
Also, you know this but not many clients are going to require you to make abstract stuff.
Figured i enjoy environment art over anything else so will have that at the top. Followed by what else i'm going to focus on in descending order.
Can't figure out the slimbox cycling through all images issue as of yet & also how to hyperlink the banner at the top to the index as its hard coded in css. Will deal with when i can.
I'll be updating the mobile games mini section soon so its not just 2 lonely thumbnails as it makes look out of balance.
Will also be adding breakdowns for certain images when i find time to do them.
Thanks for the feedback i think its starting to look much better for sure.
I would actually consider loosing slimbox and actually have them open into project pages. There is nothing to tell me that it is a whole project and not just the one image that is going to open up bigger. And most people from experience have no idea to push left and right with the arrow keys.
Replies
Felt a little weird how your header/logo is in color while your links to your work is in B&W. It gets even weirder when I mouse over your links and they go from 0% saturation to 120% saturated. Quite a big contrast there. Going into each page I feel like every thing are over saturated as well.
What I would do is tone down the header's saturation, make links 30% saturated when mouse off and 70-80% when mouse over.
Also your header should link to your home page or you should have a homepage link.
if you are on either one of both subsites (pro/personal) the buttons on top appear almost as if the left side is professional and the right side is personal work, its kinda strange , cut those buttons and put them in your navigation right away
graphics with x ? >.>
also cut that racoon, it drags the rest down id say
theres a lot of nice work, but you definitely need to go through and cut all that is not up par
I also second muzzs question
My portfolio reflects my skills as a generalist. I've worked on games/ cartoon shows/ advertisement/ arch viz etc. I really don't mind what i do as long as its working with 3D.
I'll take head on that advice of removing the unnecessary parts, roll over text / split work pages/ steam punk thingy in the banner etc.
In regards to the lightbox stuff, i built the website myself but i know basically nothing about coding. I'd prefer the images to loopback to the thumbnail it was triggered off and not keep cycling through.
All the images are 1280 x 720. That's probs why it takes a while to load them. Is that to big?
You are right. It does show that.
To me it shows an artist that doesn't really have any drive to make things with his own vision. If that's what you want that's fine. But it does mean that you are probably going to keep getting licensed work.
When you refer to licensed work you are talking about studios? As opposed to making my own designs and content?
Why would i not want to show that i can work on multiple things/ not just a one trick pony?
I guess when i look at your portfolio, all of your own original stuff is weird and abstract. They look like somebody testing out software without any idea on what you want to make. Or trying to learn how to do something.
Then i go to the professional work. All the poly pocket stuff was done by a team. I have no idea what your contributions to each shot was.
All in all i come away not know what you are capable of and i have no idea what you want to do as an artist. It doesn't reflect any passion or excitement to want to create amazing things.
Loose all the weird abstract stuff from the personal side imo. And focus on making good quality assets that make you excited to be an artist!
For your professional work, sub-categorise them into the different projects you worked on, I'd say 3 or 4 maximum should do. One example of the final work is fine but also show the breakdown of what you contributed. Remember, the portfolio is demonstrating what YOU did for that project.
It was supposed to have included a description of what i'd done at the bottom of the lightbox; character & environment lighting + compositing but i can see that it would not be very noticeable. I'll include a strip at the bottom of the image with text to highlight this.
It is always a problem when working with a team as how to best show off your work; i've included only images i've worked on.
I can see where your coming from with the personal images; however apart from the fumeFx fire ball & space drone image I can't agree with you. The other ones have a clear intention & show a finalized image; i'd like to show somebody that i can create from my own mind and not just from following orders.
Weird & abstract is personal taste. I create footage for VJ'ing which is what some of these are from, i'm happy that the images would appeal to the sort of person/market who i'm aiming at.
Also, you know this but not many clients are going to require you to make abstract stuff.
http://www.jmb-graphix.com
Figured i enjoy environment art over anything else so will have that at the top. Followed by what else i'm going to focus on in descending order.
Can't figure out the slimbox cycling through all images issue as of yet & also how to hyperlink the banner at the top to the index as its hard coded in css. Will deal with when i can.
I'll be updating the mobile games mini section soon so its not just 2 lonely thumbnails as it makes look out of balance.
Will also be adding breakdowns for certain images when i find time to do them.
Thanks for the feedback i think its starting to look much better for sure.
The new header is far more professional.
I would actually consider loosing slimbox and actually have them open into project pages. There is nothing to tell me that it is a whole project and not just the one image that is going to open up bigger. And most people from experience have no idea to push left and right with the arrow keys.
Agreed on the slimbox stuff, don't want to take the chance that somebody just see's the one image, & it'd be nice to present the images as unified.