Feedback on my Portfolio
polycounter lvl 8
Hey guys! I've been getting my portfolio ready for when I go to GDC on Friday and was wondering if you guys could give me any feedback on it?
http://kevinstuartneal.weebly.com/
Thanks!
http://kevinstuartneal.weebly.com/
Thanks!
Replies
Home page: all I see currently are; 2 machines and 2 weapons. You say you are a Prop/Environment Artist; but where are the environments?
"Eye of the Giant" page: I don't see a description anywhere to begin with. What is the environment? What is it's purpose? How long did it take to produce? Is everything there your work? I believe this info should be at the top, introducing us under the title, which paints a better picture of what we're going to see.
Horror Stories, Sherpa and Burn: I'm unsure about the level of quality here. It doesn't seem to match the other props you have. If you are doubtful; best remove it. You don't want to compromise the overall quality of your work.
Avoid thumbnails and slideshows. They are fiddly and tedious to navigate. Employers may find them off putting. Fill the screen with larger images with less wasted space.
On a more positive note: you have some good 2D work, but you might want to make that more relevant to your intended role. The hand painted textures fulfill this however.
Weapons; choose only your best one and keep it. Remove the others. You want to "wow" someone with that one piece. The technical breakdown of your screenshots in this instance is good.
AKM; show the textures. Material definition is good.
Revolver: some detail could be added to tell a story a little more. Such as discolouration or scratches on the metal cylinder or hand grip. Subtle additions that could make it stand out.
Computer & Vending Machine: Great work, I've got no comments to add to these. Keep them both.
You have a small amount of work to do in order to get your portfolio into order. Provide descriptions of each piece. Re-arrange the presentation. Make some changes to your work. Once you've made these changes, you should be good and ready.
Best of luck and enjoy GDC!
@BetaRazer Thanks for the great feedback! Yeah, I've been mainly focusing on props and weapons recently while I was learning 3DS Max. I'm working on getting a new environment in there but I'm learning Zbrush and Substance Designer along with it.
I originally had Eye of the Giant on my 3D page but didn't feel like my 3D work was as strong there and it was a team project so a lot of my work had to do with refining other artist's assets and getting everything textured. I was mainly in charge of making the characters, terrain, foliage, some smaller props, and texturing.
There is a project description for each of the games under the images where I talk about what I worked on, should I move them up? The game projects are a mix of programming and artwork. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep them but I thought they would show that I have some experience working with a team on a game.
What would you recommend instead of thumbnails? I thought it would be worse to just have a wall of images of different assets.
-too much empty space on your site, I had to scroll down just to see the two guns when all 4 pieces of art could have easily fit on my screen
-not familiar enough with the Fallout games to crit if they resemble their art or not (so for me that cuts out 50% of the work I would be judging you on if I was a recruiter, not to mention if the studio doesn't follow that art style)
-AKM looks solid as a model, but their is so many detailed tutorials for AK-47's and similar that it's hard to credit anyones skills to the model because you never know if they followed a tutorial to the tee or did it themselves. Texture could use some love especially the gloss
-revolver feels boring to me, maybe increase the contrast in the gloss map or work on different lighting
-your 2D stuff is nice, people are always split decision on including it or not (sketches, portraits etc) but I would for sure keep the flat textures, and maybe just merge your 2D with 3D and title it portfolio, the less people are to navigate the better
-Game Projects, I quickly scrolled down before the slidshows loaded, saw one image of really low poly stuff and then skipped the entire page so do what you will with that info
-About Me, never a fan of pics on portfolio pages, people will judge you based on that even if they don't mean to also your bio is dull so maybe just leave it all to your resume and skip this section too
-contact me, not sure if people ever use this format to send out their emails I think it's more for people to apply for jobs. Better off just leaving your email in the corner of all pages or something similar but not a huge deal
-scrap the environment artist title or add an environment, this makes it look like you don't know what you want to be or are fresh out of school and using preset job titles given to you
gl man, you got this!
If possible; try and include a small, high quality piece as your main environment.
And yes, move the description up and place it under the title, with the artwork to follow. Not sure about the programming works though. The knowledge is nice to have, but not essential in your case as you want to show off the art more.
As a general rule of thumb; avoid using thumbnails. People don't like squinting to see the detail. Go for high-resolution images and fill up all that screen space with art. Not only will it flow better, but it'll be more nicely presented too.
@CandyStripes05 I did follow Tim Bergholz's tutorial for the AKM, I have a new gun that I'm working on right now that I'll be able to finish by Friday. I'll replace it with that one.
I wouldn't remove the AKM as it still looks good as a model, I would update the texture though and then bump it off your portfolio as you add in more/stronger work that didn't require a tutorial.
http://kevinstuartneal.weebly.com/
the about me section, if you're going to have it then include some info that I saw on your linkedIn like professional projects you worked on, even if you have no approved images then use company name and project name if allowed. Also what school you attended if it relates to the field. You don't need to put the years you attended but should include type of degree and if you graduated or not.
It is presented well, looks clean, and removes almost all of human error at least in the design aspect. Show your texture flats on here as well!
You are a 3D artist, not a web designer.
@3dReaper I was considering just using my Artstation as my portfolio but I wasn't sure how people felt about that.
Thanks for the feedback!