3D Artist Portfolio - Critiques

aaronmwolford

Hey all,

After having an art test and being passed over for a huge opportunity the beat yourself up phase kicks in. :poly127: However, rather than dwelling it's time to get back on the horse. I wanted to post my portfolio and get your all opinions on where I should go from here. Give me the good, the bad and the ugly. What do you think my focal point should be? Any C&C will be extremely helpful.

http://aaronmwolford.com/

jhoythottle

You should really finish the textures on that Gorgon Pistol. It's a really nice model and I think a stylized weapon would really stand out on your portfolio. I think it's time for the bell to go. It's not holding up as well to your latest work and the image itself is being stretched, so the detail is being lost anyway.

I'm fan of your props and you know I love stylized stuff. I think spending some time on another nice set piece could be really cool. Something more wood based? Like a trebuchet or a guillotine. Something like that could easily take the place of the bell that tells a story. I'm not an environment artist, so I don't know what they look for in a portfolio. All I can say is that your work looks solid... and art test rejections suck.

aaronmwolford

Great points. I may go back and finish the pistol once I have a couple more strong pieces added. Agreed on removing the Warbell. I'm actually doing a series of medieval assets for an indie project that I will swap out with the bell. Or do you think I should remove it now.

How many pieces are ideal on a portfolio? I definitely do not want to keep the bell just for quantity sake.

jhoythottle

I think it holds up for now and shows some variety. Maybe keep it until you find a good replacement.

TomGT

Nice guns! The Gorgon especially looks pretty cool.

The thing that stands out to me is that some of your images are low resolution and appear stretched.

Im on a 1920x1080 monitor and your site stretches them out pretty bad, even worse if recruiters are on a larger screen. Your Warbell and Robot Race pictures are especially low-res at first glance. Even if clicking the image reveals the proper size, first impressions matter a lot!

Art rejections suck indeed. Keep improving man! Good that you are already back on the move.

arvinmoses

I looked at this the other day and had a hard time really finding what was lacking. Everything looks really good and accurate.

I think the thing I'd maybe look into is to try to add a little more story to your textures. Everything looks good but the one that catches my eye is the Bell. Something about that seems more interesting.

I think if you run your weapons through another 3 - 5 passes it make a world of difference.

Im a little partial to texture work so that's what I noticed.

Your stuff looks great man! I think just a few more passes will really help it stand out

slosh

To me, the textures look extremely unfinished. I assume the caplock is done in your mind? To me, the texture still needs work. The gorgon is clearly not textured and the scorpion looks close to untextured to me. Get in there and finish these. If your art test was like your folio pieces, they are probably thinking the same thing. Your models look good, bakes look good, the textures are severely lacking. And since you are a game prop artist, the end result is the MOST IMPORTANT thing. You clearly have skills though so just push your texturing further.

aaronmwolford

Thanks for the feedback guys! Yea I agree I should push the textures more. I'll go back and revisit the Scorpion and Caplock. I'm going to finish these off as well as the pistol from the monthly noob comp for Oct. Then I think the next plan is to make some props and environment pieces that are not firearm focused. This will help add some variety to the whole site I think.

Shrike

I have to agree here, the texturing feels very basic
Try getting a lot more edge definition and large scale wear , also the base materials have this non correct material values look. The modeling and bakes seem good, you should try use a bit more polys tho to get the last flawed silhouettes and forms down perfect. The lowpoly should look 90% like the highpoly

Your renders are also not so nice, try using a better cubemap / HDRI or so or another renderer. Nicer backgrounds would also help, and a unified presentation too

http://aaronmwolford.dunked.com/czscorpion/lightbox/#1445504
Here are a lot of polys missing, you can't just bake it down like that, it looks
terrible in first person as a result. First person is the most important view of all.

Edit: just to clarify, bevels would have been needed here

aaronmwolford

Shrike - Thanks for the feedback. I will go back and make the changes you mentioned.

beefaroni

Yep, as others have said, your textures feel unfinished and are lacking material definition. Look at some of the weapons in the recap recently.

The bakes look great, it's just the textures that are currently holding your portfolio back.

aaronmwolford

Hey guys. I've went back and attempted a re-texture of the Scorpion. Thoughts on the new direction? The last image is the old texture for comparison. Any CC is greatly appreciated.

pmiller001

The things i was gonna say have already been mentioned, 
Most of, if not all my critiques fall upon the texture work. 
I'll add that i'm not impressed by the robot race piece, Personally I'd take it down. compared to yoru other ones it just doesnt hold up. 
THat may be a personal thing, I still think its worth thinking about (removing robot race).

Chase

Not to beat a dead horse, but I'm in the same boat as you. Modeling and bakes always turn out great. Texturing is the "needs to improve" aspect. Advice I've received as of late is to first figure out the history of the model. For weapons, think about how long they've been in action. That will get you on the fast track. Your texture seems to be in the similar direction I tend to lean towards, which is one that's just gotten its first glimpses of battle. I really like balance of the edge wear vs grime. The real crit I have is just material definition with the base metal underneath the coating and bullet casing.

Example: Still has plenty of roughness, but you can still see that metallic map at work


Maybe it's just the way the lighting is catching the base metal, but it seems flat to me. That's a simple fix though.

Hopefully this helps!

joshschmitt

Your zenith  needs a lot of work, smoothing errors on the silencer would not be acceptable.

aaronmwolford

Thanks for the feedback. The Zenith is still a work in progress. My intentions are to go back and rework some existing textures. The only model I've reworked so far is the Scorpion. Currently, I'm working on the Caplock now. Once I've fixed the textures on the Scorpion, caplock, and the HK I will go back to the Zenith. 

Chase - Thanks for the feedback. I'll go back and work on the bullet casing some more. 

aaronmwolford

Here is a revision to the caplock texture. CC welcome! Thanks everyone for the support!

aaronmwolford

Added a bit of rust and dirt around the screws. 

Shrike

You should cut the pistol and the vending machine,  the polycount is just too low and most edges and silhouettes do not look good as a result. Try getting your materials rougher, nearly everything is overly glossy. The small scale texture details are good but the metals are missing proper edge definition, it will be difficult to look good without some drybrushing technique. The way you did it on the CZ is a good direction.

Chase

I'm digging that wood material on your Caplock pistol. Yeah, the silhouette isn't gonna get me goin, but the mats are looking much better. Just apply a bit more dirt to the metal bits. BTW your site isn't loading! Unless you're working on it than nvm.

aaronmwolford

Really?! Can you try it again? I wasn't working on it, but it seems to be loading for me...

Chase

Now it works! That's really odd. Must've been a server issue?

aaronmwolford

Hmm maybe. Dunked could have bugged out, but at least it's up and running now.