Portfolio - Clean up or not

Maximum-Dev

Hi guys,

My portfolio is cluttered with old work and WIPs (about 80% of it) which don't really reflect my current abilities in any way. But still, I'm not sure if I have to delete them or leave them be. I personally like to keep just a few but high quality ones and let go of the rest, but the other me says it doesn't matter what I want, most of it probably looks good to the viewers and I should keep them. I need more eyes on it so I can make the right decision.

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

Thanks in advance.

Beard3D Bandit

Your stuff is legit by the way, and I'm a bit of a noob compared. BUT you could:

since you don't have breakdowns of the scenes, it could simply be a case of packing some themes together into a single ''project'' in artstation.

- self contain the landscapes into one project in artstation
- pick 1 or 2 of your fave grass studies and keep them seperate or pack them all into  on project
- self contain the lava and mountain rocks into one project
- you could pack the Moon and Mars into one project too
- self contain your materials

and just delete atleast 1 in each project that lacks the most for you. I feel that I've just told you water is wet though sorry haha

I really love:

- the desert study + game-ready vegetation. 

something I would LOVE to see you do is a completely alien landscape. just because I've followed you for so long.

Do you have a personal blog or website?

Chidambhar_Swaroop

Omg ur works r awesome... Comparing myself to u, I am way back, hahaha...

Apocrs1980

I'm no expert in the matter but just about every interview with a potential employer has said less is more.
Show your best peice of each sceen or at least having 10 of your best peices on the home page so that it can be looked through quickly, as recruters have littereally hundreds of portfolios to look through.
Also, make sure they are in a format which can be downloaded and saved as reference so if they don't need you just yet they have a way of coming back to find you when they do.
Marvelous work by they way.
Hope I was helpful. 

Durkel

Hello Alireza,

Really nice portfolio. I would love to be on that level one day with my own environments. Anyway, here is my feedback.

- Some projects could use better thumbnails to represent the quality of the content.
 
UE4 - Moon landscape :  The craters in this project have a lot of detail, I would love to see that back in the thumbnail. I know the character is there for scale reference, but I don't like it as a thumbnail.
UE4 - Sand dunes landscape : Nice sand dunes, but the thumbnails don't really reveal much and didn't caught my interest at first.
[UE4] Game-Ready Vegetation : I got really blown away with the detail of the water drops on the leaves, but it's pretty unclear in the thumbnail. I would love to see a close up of the clovers. 
CryENGINE 3 - Various lightings : Pretty dark thumbnail. Didn't really caught my interest
UE4 - Medieval weapons : I didn't know this project contained more then one weapon. Would be nice if the thumbnail shown m

- Remove the UI of Unreal in your images if possible
- Some older landscapes could definitely be compiled into 1 project
- Combine the texture projects, I generally try to avoid projects with 2 images
- I would avoid 1 image projects at all times if possible

I personally didn't really like the Art, Metro and the Tiberia project. Of Course it's personal taste, but looking at your recent projects it's nowhere near the same level of quality. If I were you I would definitly clean up your portfolio with that amount of content. Anyways, loved your work!

Hopefully this feedback is helpfull!  

Cheers,

Derk

Durkel

Hello Alireza,

First of all. Nice portfolio, I really love your environments. I'd love to achieve that quality of content in the near future.

Anyways, here is my feedback:

- Change your cover photo. Get some eyecandy up in there!

- There is a huge difference in quality during the 2 years you've posted stuff on Artstation. I would either compile older projects together or remove them. I'm talking about the CryENGINE 3 projects and some older environments.

- Try to avoid projects with 1 or 2 images. I personally don't like clicking on a thumbnail for an image I'm mildly interested in, when I hoped to see more.

- Work on your thumbnails. If the title says "Medieval Weapons" it would be nice to see multiple weapons in 1 thumbnail, or at leat a small reveal, because I can't read the title until I hover on it.

- Reframe your thumbnails or change them completely. Some thumbnails are too zoomed in, to dark or lack in contrast. 

- A lot of your recent work have in-depth articles on 80 Level. You could add their logo in your thumbnail to give the viewer some extra information in advance.

- Some projects are on gumroad, I'd like to see that in the thumbnail.

- Add breakdowns. As a creator myself, I love to get more insight on how it's done. Ofcourse it could be difficult to present.

Red = For me those projects don't represent the skill you have right now. I would remove them from Artstation or compile them together.

Green = Could consider to pack these together if they have less then 3 images. 

Hope this helps and keep up the good work.
I'm curious of what you'll make in the future.

Cheers,

Derk

EDIT: And I'm  pretty sure you can set projects to private or not-published in Artstation. So if you have a project (WIP) that might be an option. In case, you want to finish it later.

Maximum-Dev

Hey,

Thanks very much for all the feedback! Really helpful.

Beard3D Bandit, Alien landscape, I have a lot on my to-do list, but at some point I'll get to that. I don't have any blog, just a thread. Thanks for the feedback.

Durkel, That's a lot of good tips, amazing! I really appreciate the time and effort you've put into giving me a preview of how it'd look like in the end. Very helpful. I'm starting to work on it now and I hope it turns out as expected.

Again, thank you all for the fantastic tips!

Maximum-Dev

Durkel I've put up two small banners on my thumbnails one for 80 level and one for Gumroad, I'm not as good in 2D compared to my 3D work. Do they look nice and are easy to read or need work?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Dang it! By removing my older works I've lost around 1000 likes and 30,000 views haha. 

Maximum-Dev

So all the old stuff are removed.
For articles, interviews etc. I've added new thumbnail images with a bar on the top with logos to make them more descriptive.
I think it's looking much more organized now.

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

Durkel

@Maximum-Dev  Damn it's looking good Have nothing else to say. Love your work

musashidan

Your PF is top quality but it's a pity you removed all your old works completely. I just stuck mine in a folder and labeled it 'older works'. It's still there if anyone ever bothers to view it. Yet it doesn't clutter up the rest of the ui.

Maximum-Dev

Durkel , Mission accomplished! thanks!

musashidan, I have a bad habit of considering everything garbage unless it's perfect. With that said, I'm being very merciful for having kept what I've kept up there atm otherwise you'd have been seeing only the "Game-Ready Vegetation" post haha. 

Maximum-Dev

Hi all,

I've finished updating my portfolio in and out. Like you said, dumped some old images and added proper ones, reworked some thumbnails as well. Also article posts now contains a snapshot of the actual article and has a link back to where it's published on. My banner is keep changing every time I take a new screen. ^^

I'd appreciate some final thoughts on it.
Thanks!

Durkel

Sexy stuf ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) really love those new screenshots and the articles you've included. Looking forward to new stuff!