Portfolio critique - enviro / prop artist

Tzur_H

Hey guys!  So..I've just finished my 2 years course of game art, been a blast!  Met so many talented people.  Now I'm at the stage you pros all been to before, getting in to the industry, securing that first job :]

Please don't hold back with your feedback, I truly believe that only by hard work, failure, repetition and evaluation of your mistakes one can get better.
https://elkanahh.artstation.com/

Thanks!

Jakob Gavelli

Hey man. I'm not going to sugar-coat it and just go for it. I hope that's alright.

So here's my unfiltered journey through your portfolio! My first impression was bad, I almost instantly closed the page. The only thing that caught my eye was the chandelier, everything else looks very old-gen and flat, especially the substances. Anyways I started clicking on the chandelier and saw that you had all these other great assets just hidden away! 
You have a great looking bed asset! But on your frontpage, the first impression and MOST IMPORTANT PAGE, you have ugly old substances. Show your best work on the front page and remove all the other bullshit!

I made a picture to expain what I mean, but here's what I'd do to improve your portfolio ALOT imo with minimum effort.
1. SightlessVR thumbnail is very unflattering and flat. No one is going to click the project to find out that you actually have some good looking pictures in there. CHANGE THE THUMBNAIL.
2. You have great looking props in the SightlessVR : Assets project, make these into separate project to fill out your frontpage with more awesome looking art.
3. You have once again good looking Substance textures in the SightlessVR : Substances project, but you still have these old ugly substances on the front page. Split the project into smaller projects. 
4. Remove all old assets and substances. They look really old and flat, remove them. They are hurting you ALOT. 1/3 of your front page are old ugly substances. Get them out of there.

Tzur_H

@Jakob Gavelli Thanks for the honesty, I appreciate it.  I also think you're right about removing the old stuff, I think I hanged onto these pieces too long without realizing that I have better stuff to show now and having them on there reduces the overall quality of the folio.  I'll get to that asap.

Also picking better thumbnails and overall better marketing myself are things I'm aware of I need to get better at hah.

I'm just not sure if breaking the assets and substances from my recent project would be a smart move or not, would love to get some more feedback on the matter :]

Mathew O

I feel like you execute props well, I didn't see the original version of your folio but from what I see in there now I feel like I could take you on as a junior prop artist and train you up to building AAA assets. 

However if you were applying as an environment artist I have to judge you on other areas. The big ones for me being:

- Does this artist make nice art whilst considering where the players eye will be drawn in a 360 environment and not just a single angle.
- Does this artist use light to aid flow as well as composition
- Does this artist prop in a way that makes the space look playable
- Does this artist think about post processing, shader work, re-useability and how to make a great scene in general
- Does this artist build scenes in a way that could be totally re-organised when an art director or design totally change their mind and want a new layout

I think you're showing that you're capable of building nice assets, we generally have to art test applicants because we need to test their "Environment art" and not how sexy their props are so if you want to steer you portfolio towards environment art as well as prop then maybe these are some things that you can take into account in future projects

For me, this portfolio is just the dream to receive when I'm looking for environment artists:

https://www.artstation.com/artist/madmaximus

His scenes are amazing, they're well lit, tell a story, are full of beautiful assets and they show a multitude of different workflows and methods.
Obviously this guy is very experienced so you don't need to hit this standard before you can get work :P

I hope this helps

Tzur_H

@Mathew O Thanks dude!  What I take from your feedback, is that I don't have enough work to actually asnwer the questions you mentioned.  I'll be sure to work on that part.

I've got rid of some more pieces in my folio, and broke up projects into multiple ones as @Jakob Gavelli suggested, as well as spending some more time rendering and creating thumbnails for my projects.

Thank you both for the feedback, back to work now!