Portfolio 3D artist feedback and advice

SarahSan

Hi all ! 

My name is Sarah, I am 21 and I am a french student, I would like to become a 3D artist. I am currently looking for an internship and I need feedback for my portfolio, I need to improve it. So, it would be great if you could help

I am attaching some works here and the link to my website below.



http://sarahboumy.wixsite.com/portfolio








This one is an animation. There is a video 



Thank you !

Drgreenethumb

I think you need to figure out what kind of 3D art you want to do. You have concepts, creatures, characters, and environments. You should focus your work and do one of those things. Also some break downs of your models can be very helpful to demonstrate that you can optimize and make game ready meshes.

Drgreenethumb

Also you might want to remove your anatomy studies and creatures. That is your weakest work. The environment stuff that you have is decent and i think your portfolio will improve greatly if you remove the anatomy study and creatures.

ArNavart

First of all, it took me couple of minutes to figure out how to navigate your site (it's not good) and while I was doing it, that changing bright background just killed my eyes, as it's already late evening and I'm tired. I'd advice you to have also Artstation page too along with personal portfoilo site. For the pieces I agree with the above posts, your enviroments are decent, but that bull creature doesn't look that good. And yeah,  I didn't notice, there was an anatomy study. Was there?

SarahSan

@Drgreenethumb Thank you for the advice ! I am going to change this. Also, I will add some environment works and maybe some props.

@ArNavart Thanks. About my site I was not sure about the navigation indeed. I still don't really know what to improve, what was complicated ? The menu ? And it's true, I usually forgot my Artstation page, I will update it.

I just have a last question. About the creatures, should I post them on Artstation but not on my site, or should I don't post them at all ?

Thank you !! 

Elithenia

if you want to be an environment artist, you should have environment art first and foremost on your portfolio/artstation.
Anything else you want to show.... put it in a blog or fb. Your portfolio should only have what you want to work with in the future. 
If you want to be a character/creature artist, you need to focus on doing some more and stronger models of that. 

Leon_Raven

As many other people told you here, your 3d environment art shows a lot of potential, but you have to be careful about what you are showing in your website. Only your strongest bits should appear in it. Personally the only bit I would improve or delete is the "temple in the dark forest". It is the the least interesting piece of your portfolio. Also, make sure you order your work in a way to show your strongest bit first. Remember recruiter might not have enough time to go through your whole portfolio! So make sure the best bits will hit them as soon as they open your portfolio page. 

Benvox2

Yep, I will just second and third what is being said here. If you are aming for a game industry environment art position, I would remove anything that is not environment from your main portfolio. That said, some smaller outsourcing companies want generalist modelers.

rodpv

Dear Sarah,
I want to give you a suggestion which is not related to your art, which will grow and evolve as your career. Just be confident about this.
You're on your path, it's happening. You're an artist. It doesn't matter if it's your first step. You have a spark in your work. Follow that.

As for the advice, always remember:
1 - When you ask for feedback in a public place, everybody is going to feel entitled to critique your work.
2 - While feedback is fundamental for artists to grow, you need to develop the wisdom of understanding where it's coming from.
3 - Advice must come from mentors. That is somebody whose main interest is for YOU to grow and be the best version of Sarah.
4 - You need to filter out negative feedback that is:

• dismissive feedback (I don't like it)
• diminishing feedback (you're not cut for this)
• projective feedback (Sarah you should do this --(Because that is what I need to learn too)--)
• dogmatic feedback (everybody does X, Sarah you need to do X)

5 - Negative feedback tells you that the person dispensing it is acting out personal needs. They're not useful to you or your work.
6 - At the beginning of your career focus on asking structured feedback to people with mileage. That is people in leadership position.
7 - People who grew into leadership roles sees you as pure potential. This allows them to be compassionate and objective.

It took me about 15 years to figure this out. I'm still working on it. I hope it helps.

SarahSan

First of all, thanks to all of you for your constructive critiques. It motivates and helps me a lot ! I am going to follow your answers.

@rodpv Thank you for your help. It is really helpful and I learnt a lot from your advices. It is really nice of you for all you said, I am really pleased that you took the time to explain these things to me.

7 - People who grew into leadership roles sees you as pure potential. This allows them to be compassionate and objective.

I did not understand what you meant though.

rodpv

SarahSan said:

First of all, thanks to all of you for your constructive critiques. It motivates and helps me a lot ! I am going to follow your answers.

@rodpv Thank you for your help. It is really helpful and I learnt a lot from your advices. It is really nice of you for all you said, I am really pleased that you took the time to explain these things to me.

7 - People who grew into leadership roles sees you as pure potential. This allows them to be compassionate and objective.

I did not understand what you meant though.

Hey Sarah,
I'll try to make myself clearer.

A person who developed himself into a leadership position (art direction, art lead, project lead, C-suite, etc) may see you as a future hire, collaborator or simply as a human being with potential.

Now, many LEADS may not be LEADERS. They may be BOSSES. In this case asking for feedback to such a person will be useless and harmful.

But if you're lucky enough to stumble upon a LEAD who's also a LEADER then his feedback will skyrocket your growth as an artist and is worth gold. Why?

Because the mission of a leader is to inspire, nurture and take care of other people in order to achieve progress.

It may be difficult to find such a level of dedication in younger roles simply because the main concern at this level is to take care of ONESELF and deal with the many curve balls life throws at you.
When we're younger we're still learning the value of cooperation OVER competition.
This can make it hard to offer useful and encouraging feedback.

But ultimately everything is possible: I met young internships with the wisdom of old, Indian gurus and leads with the narcissistic issues of a 5 years old kid. And vicecersa

Bottom line: compare yourself to the highest industry standards with regard to your portfolio and aim for very specific, relationship-based feedback.

SarahSan

Hello @rodpv,
Sorry for my late answer, I understand what you mean, I'll try to keep that in mind my whole career, it helps a lot. I think there isn't enough people who teach this psychological vision of this industry, and thanks a lot for this (again).

9Solid

Hi Sarah, 

I agree with the others about the focus on the portfolio, so I'll stick with my own experience trying to navigate your site and some things to address or look out for. First, your home page. It says portfolio but doesn't allow me to click on an image to see more of your work. Portfolio kind of looks like a button so I would just remove that to avoid confusion.

Clicking on 3D brings me to a page with your 3D projects. Clicking on the images opens a gallery full of the images on that page, which is a little confusing. I would have hoped that that would have given me more images/info about the work you did. The projects coming soon I would remove until it's finished.

Overall, I would layout the best work front and center. Have everything detailing a project on one page, so you don't have to click on see more to look more into things. I would add more info on the group projects to detail exactly what you yourself worked on and I would love to see more images of different angles of some of the projects. You're making 3D environments, let the viewer see all the hard work you put into it. The work itself is good, and you definitely have potential.

rodpv

SarahSan said:

Hello @rodpv,
Sorry for my late answer, I understand what you mean, I'll try to keep that in mind my whole career, it helps a lot. I think there isn't enough people who teach this psychological vision of this industry, and thanks a lot for this (again).

You're very welcome. And I agree: too many people see themselves and others as mere mosaique of skillsets in this industry.
Of course skillsets are invaluable but if you don't train your heart as an artist... you'll remain a simple, grey cog.