Looking for portfolio advice/critiques

Shea

Hello,

I'm in the process of overhauling my portfolio and I'm looking for any advice I can get.
I've got updates coming within a week. Specifically, all the unfinished work in the 3d section will be updated with finished versions as well as some additional 3d work. Hopefully, my abilities will be much better represented once my portfolio has been updated, but since I'm getting close, I'd like to get the dialogue started.

Any critiques, comment, or advice would be much appreciated!

http://shealane.levelism.com/

Jaywyr

Hi juste give my advise if it's for find a job/internship, your portfiolio need more pro works, not pro pro works but works like pro works ^^. As it is your book is better on deviantart/blog not on a pro portfolio.
Your template is good, simple and powerful . Also chose your way because on your portfolio I dont really know what you are.

Jaywyr.

Tejay

The most blaring problem I see is you lack any focused bodies of work. What are you trying to be? You have characters, environments, and sketches/drawings. Are you a 3d generalist? Why is the only games work you have pixel art, while your 3d is all high poly sculpts. If you're going to be a 3d generalist then focus on 3d that works in game engines. If you're going to be a character artist focus on anatomy and characters. If your a prop or environment artist I think you get where I'm going.

It's a daunting tasks but keep chipping away at it and you will get closer towards what your goal is.

Topperr

I agree with Tejay and Jaywyr you need to find one type of discipline ideally and stick to it at the moment your portfolio is showing alot of different types of work, 2D, 3D characters and environments, also I think you need some more game ready pieces to show that you can go through the steps required if that's the route you're aiming for. I'll have a look back once you've finished those pieces and can offer some more specific critique

Shea

Also chose your way because on your portfolio I dont really know what you are.

Jaywyr.

I'm trying to be a 3D artist. I prefer modelling characters, so, ideally, I would like to be a character artist, but I would very much like to do environments as well. Of the stuff I have coming, there's a mix of character and environment art.

Obviously, I need to narrow the aim of my portfolio. Should I get rid of my 2D art pages all together, or leave a few choice pieces?
Is having a mix of character art and environment art too broad?

Thanks for the advice!

Shea

Tejay wrote: »

If you're going to be a 3d generalist then focus on 3d that works in game engines.

I agree with Tejay and Jaywyr you need to find one type of discipline ideally and stick to it at the moment your portfolio is showing alot of different types of work, 2D, 3D characters and environments,

Thanks for the feedback!

The updates I have coming are game ready models rendered in Unity. That's really all I've been working on lately.

To what extent should I purge the non 3D/Game related work if I'm trying to be a 3D artist? Should I get rid of all the 2D work?

Shea

I got rid of a fair amount of the 2d work, but think I might have to get rid of more.

Flipflop_Ninjasaur

2D works are generally fine, as long as they support what you're going for. Similar to what Tejay was saying, if you're trying to be a 3d character artist, then having 2d works showing accurate anatomy certainly wouldn't hurt your portfolio. Of course, it's support, not the main focus.

Shea

Thanks for all the help!
I just updated my portfolio. Any feedback would be great.

There are more updates to come!

Shea

I've done some more updates.

How does it look?

Is this an employable level of work?

Should I make any changes?

BARDLER

Shea wrote: »

Is this an employable level of work?

To be perfectly honest, you are not quite there yet. The only 3D art work on your portfolio that looks finished to me is the pistol prop, which looks solid. I would recommend making a fully finished environment, prop, or character depending on what you want to do. Focus on bringing that project to full completion with polished textures, lighting, and presentation. Focusing on getting really good at one of those three areas will help you bring your portfolio quality up faster, which will help you get a job faster.

Hope that helps.

kvick

You can show people you're ready for work if you have 1 or 2 really good pieces as opposed to a site full of okay ones. I'd say get rid of the 2D work and focus exclusively on characters for now if that's what you want to do. If you want to make environments too then make an environment that supports your character and make it as nice as you possibly can. You're all over the place right now and it feels like a lot of unfinished work.

Don't feel like because you're focused on characters you won't be getting better at environments either. Adding hardsurface props and objects to a character is really the same skill as environment modeling, just a different composition so you will be getting better at both.

Right now you really need to understand the distinction of what is good quality and what isn't in your own work.

If you post work that isn't of high quality and you're aware of this, then why haven't you improved it?

Shea

BARDLER wrote: »

To be perfectly honest, you are not quite there yet. The only 3D art work on your portfolio that looks finished to me is the pistol prop, which looks solid. I would recommend making a fully finished environment, prop, or character depending on what you want to do. Focus on bringing that project to full completion with polished textures, lighting, and presentation. Focusing on getting really good at one of those three areas will help you bring your portfolio quality up faster, which will help you get a job faster.

Hope that helps.

Yeah, thanks. That was very helpful. It's pretty funny that the only 3d art that looks finished is actually 2D.

Just so I get an idea of what needs needs to be done:

That rhino piece is probably what I would consider my most finished 3D work. Outside straight up artistic critique (though I would like to hear that too), What needs to be done to it to look fully finished. Is it just a matter of rendering and lighting?

PS: I like the taxi model on your site.

You can show people you're ready for work if you have 1 or 2 really good pieces as opposed to a site full of okay ones. I'd say get rid of the 2D work and focus exclusively on characters for now if that's what you want to do. If you want to make environments too then make an environment that supports your character and make it as nice as you possibly can. You're all over the place right now and it feels like a lot of unfinished work.

Don't feel like because you're focused on characters you won't be getting better at environments either. Adding hardsurface props and objects to a character is really the same skill as environment modeling, just a different composition so you will be getting better at both.

Great feedback. Thanks!

As far as getting rid of the 2d work, multiple people have suggested less 2D , and I have gotten rid of lots of it (there was a lot of 2D work on here before). I'm open to getting rid of it, but a couple of people (only one in this thread) have said keeping a few pieces highlighting appropriate skills isn't bad. If anyone else has an opinion on the matter, I'll do whatever people suggest. I took a couple of 2D pieces off the front page.

Also, I'm a little confused as to how specific I should be. I'd love to be a character artist, but some people have told me you should be able to model anything to get a job. I've also been told that most entry level modelling jobs in Vancouver are usually environment and prop work. You were pretty clear I should be very focused on one job function, so I have to rethink things a little.

Right now you really need to understand the distinction of what is good quality and what isn't in your own work.

If you post work that isn't of high quality and you're aware of this, then why haven't you improved it?

I think attempting to judge my own work is an issue. I'll get rid of the unfinished stuff before applying for anything, but I'll leave it up now for the feedback. Is there any work that stands out as low quality specifically?

The "Games" section, is pretty much every game I've worked on. Clearly, my resume is very barren. For this reason, I included everything. Should I get rid of any of the work on the "Games" page? Should I get rid of the page altogether?

Thanks for the feedback!

Nosslak

Shea wrote: »

That rhino piece is probably what I would consider my most finished 3D work. Outside straight up artistic critique (though I would like to hear that too), What needs to be done to it to look fully finished. Is it just a matter of rendering and lighting?

The rhino knight shows some potential right now, but it's not really living up to it at the moment. The biggest problem IMO is that he's pretty much all gray/brownish with very little color and material variation, so you should look into pushing the different materials a lot further. You could take a look at some of the rhino guards from the old disney Robin Hood movie for some ideas potentially. Here's a concept I really like, with similar colors to yours but it's pushed much further:


I would also try covering up some parts with some colored cloths to break him up further. The chainmail doesn't work very well at the moment as it pretty much just looks like noise so I'd probably look at either fixing that or covering it up with some of the cloths I mentioned.

The leather gauntlets could use some love as well as they are really screaming for some sick leather scrollwork right now, like this:


His gear could also really use some wear and dirtying up as well. I also don't think a scar or two would be misplaced on him either to give him some character, could maybe even make the top of his big horn broken off.

So in short there is really a lot that you could do to push this piece a lot more to make it stack up to what a professional chaacter artist would create. You asked for some kind of quick solution by just improving the lighting or something but there is a lot more that needs to be done than just that. You could try to throw him into either Marmoset or UE4 and you'd probably get a bit of an improved result, but not even close to as good as if you fixed these problems I mentioned.

Shea

Nosslak wrote: »

The rhino knight shows some potential right now, but it's not really living up to it at the moment. The biggest problem IMO is that he's pretty much all gray/brownish with very little color and material variation, so you should look into pushing the different materials a lot further. You could take a look at some of the rhino guards from the old disney Robin Hood movie for some ideas potentially. Here's a concept I really like, with similar colors to yours but it's pushed much further:


I would also try covering up some parts with some colored cloths to break him up further. The chainmail doesn't work very well at the moment as it pretty much just looks like noise so I'd probably look at either fixing that or covering it up with some of the cloths I mentioned.

The leather gauntlets could use some love as well as they are really screaming for some sick leather scrollwork right now, like this:


His gear could also really use some wear and dirtying up as well. I also don't think a scar or two would be misplaced on him either to give him some character, could maybe even make the top of his big horn broken off.

So in short there is really a lot that you could do to push this piece a lot more to make it stack up to what a professional chaacter artist would create. You asked for some kind of quick solution by just improving the lighting or something but there is a lot more that needs to be done than just that. You could try to throw him into either Marmoset or UE4 and you'd probably get a bit of an improved result, but not even close to as good as if you fixed these problems I mentioned.

Wonderful insight. I completely agree with all your points. Thanks for taking the time to be so thorough. That was very, very helpful!

I didn't mean to sound like it needed a quick fix. I probably shouldn't have worded it that way. What I meant was that I've seen very simple models that have a "finished" look, that I'm lacking, and I thought it was more then just needing better artwork (which I, clearly, do need).

Thanks, again! Great feed back!

....and the art on your portfolio is gorgeous.