3D Character Portfolio Review

MoostifurArt

Hey everyone.  Just thought I'd post my portfolio link and get some advice on how I could improve.  I've been doing 3D for about two and half years and have mostly learned from youtube and various other online tutorials.  Recently I finished a course for character design for games at Gnomon (which was extremely helpful), but now that I've created a few characters outside of that constant feedback environment I'd love to open myself back up to critiques.  Thanks in advance to anyone that takes the time to look at my work.  Cheers!

portfolio: http://www.benleeartdesign.com/

Alex_J

This isn't advice because I'm a few rungs below you on the ladder, but I wanted to say great presentation on the website. Really well thought out. 

Besides that, I appreciate the design choices of your characters, particularly the "sympathetic orc."

Good luck!

slosh

So I have a few thoughts.  First is to just axe the sculpted alien and the stylize girl character.  The alien could be worth creating a gamemesh out of but just as a sculpt, not worth leaving it in IMO.  The stylized girl character just isn't high enough quality to keep at all.  So that brings me to the old man and the wolf warrior girl.  Those 2 are decent/solid.  My main crit on the old guy is his face feels like you took a young face and just added wrinkles to it.  Facial forms change quite drastically with age and you should study that for next time.  Also, his upper body design is somewhat lackluster.  I might consider doing the whole body as well or redo the armor with a more compelling design.  The wolf girl is your strongest piece.  The texturing is probably the weakest aspect and could use work.  I would compare your stuff to similar designs from other artists and real world ref to get some better material reads on that.  Also, ditch the splash page...just completely useless IMO.  I feel like the only people who should have a splash page are artists so well known that they can afford to have that luxury and still have ADs click past it.  And you are not there yet, no offense.  Keep working though, there is improvement being made!  Try to find some good info on material setups and lighting/rendering as well as that could use tweaks as well.

MoostifurArt

slosh said:

So I have a few thoughts.  First is to just axe the sculpted alien and the stylize girl character.  The alien could be worth creating a gamemesh out of but just as a sculpt, not worth leaving it in IMO.  The stylized girl character just isn't high enough quality to keep at all.  So that brings me to the old man and the wolf warrior girl.  Those 2 are decent/solid.  My main crit on the old guy is his face feels like you took a young face and just added wrinkles to it.  Facial forms change quite drastically with age and you should study that for next time.  Also, his upper body design is somewhat lackluster.  I might consider doing the whole body as well or redo the armor with a more compelling design.  The wolf girl is your strongest piece.  The texturing is probably the weakest aspect and could use work.  I would compare your stuff to similar designs from other artists and real world ref to get some better material reads on that.  Also, ditch the splash page...just completely useless IMO.  I feel like the only people who should have a splash page are artists so well known that they can afford to have that luxury and still have ADs click past it.  And you are not there yet, no offense.  Keep working though, there is improvement being made!  Try to find some good info on material setups and lighting/rendering as well as that could use tweaks as well.

Thanks for the critique.  Already dropped the stylized girl from the portfolio.  I definitely see what you mean about the face of the old man; gravity hasn't taken its toll at all on this guy.  In terms of materials, I need to make the jump to substance.  I've been using Quixel since it's so affordable and I'm definitely in that struggling ($$$) phase.  Not to say that my lackluster materials are solely due to Quixel but I've definitely had quite a few issues/ errors with it. 

For lighting, do you have any suggestions or preferable lighting setups for your renderings?  Softer, less harsh lights maybe?