Critique my portfolio! Please?

scotdanielburns

Hey everyone, I've been working on my portfolio and replaced a lot of old pieces from graduation. I'd like to see any critique you guys have or suggestions. My finished projects are in their corresponding tabs, my WIP's are in my blog which is creating a new game character and game environment. I'm just trying to get a good environment to show I can do that as well if needed. 

Here's the link to my Artstation Website - https://scotdanielburns.com/
Please be as harsh as possible with critiques and provide any suggestions you may have. 

Thank you! 

(Context: I graduated last July and have been updating portfolio since then. My main focus is Character art but I love all modeling and texturing, and I've been working on getting better at the latter recently because I felt I was lacking in texture. Since then I've learned substance designer and will be using it on my current projects where I can.)

jose.fuentes

congrats on finishing school, now comes the hard part.  Just keep at it and make characters.  If you want to be a char artist then try to only make chars.  Anything else will be a waste of time.  I would focus on one really good char.  Take your time, and make it as best as you can, push for quality over quantity always. Your portfolio will always be judged by its weakest piece.  So as you get better, delete your older stuff. 

Hope this helps

Nandx

Have you checked out this? Pretty good starting point for any 3D character artist.

Shrike

As with basically every graduate, don't try search for a Job right away, the chance is minuscule. Work for at least 4-5 Months on your skills, check out many tutorials, other artworks and learn about fundamentals, learn more about anatomy, create entirely new artworks, scrap all the old, and then you stand a good chance. You just need more time and just pump out more work.

jose.fuentes

Nandx said:

Have you checked out this? Pretty good starting point for any 3D character artist.

this is a great resource 

scotdanielburns

Thanks, Guys, I have just been developing and replacing older pieces of work. How many projects would you think is a good amount to show at each given time. I've been keeping it around 3. I'll probably only have one environment at a time because it isn't my priority as much but I do enjoy doing it, same with materials. Jose, you said Quality over Quantity which I generally agree with. I've had some advice before that showing older work might be good for showing my progression as work I did 5 months ago when I graduated was terrible compared to now. 

Does anyone have any feedback on the latest Character I posted and I can work on that for the new character I'm working on in the blog tab? 

I watch all the flipped normals stuff but that's a well-written version of the video they did thanks. 

scotdanielburns

Shrike said:

As with basically every graduate, don't try search for a Job right away, the chance is minuscule. Work for at least 4-5 Months on your skills, check out many tutorials, other artworks and learn about fundamentals, learn more about anatomy, create entirely new artworks, scrap all the old, and then you stand a good chance. You just need more time and just pump out more work.

Thanks, Shrike. That's basically what I've been doing since I graduated, I've learned a hell of a lot in the last 6 months, practice and time definitely are what I need. Is there anything you recommend I spend time doing or working on based on previous characters?

musashidan

Now that you've spent time on getting the pipeline down and are relatively comfortable, my advice would be to practice sculpting and anatomy for the next few months. Sculpt like crazy! Busts, fragment studies, creatures, concept sculpts, dynamic posing, sculpts, sculpts, sculpts......

If you look at any top character artist's folio you will see a lot of sculpt studies that are not finished production assets.

Your demon character is a good place to start with your portfolio. You should always show your raw Zbrush sculpts with your finished characters as well. This can strengthen the impact of your skills because it will show off the work you put into the piece that is often watered down in the final in-game asset.

The other 2 characters are not good enough quality to market yourself. While they show that you have a grasp of the workflow, I would use them as a springboard to apply the experience to newer characters of better quality. The likeness character, particularly, is a poor example because it doesn't look anything like the actor - you said harsh....

Character art is an ever-demanding discipline. People have taken it to insane levels of detail so you really need to push yourself. As mentioned above, if you are marketing yourself as a character artist then scrap the environment art for the moment and concentrate solely on characters. Best of luck.

Zi0

Focus only on character art if you fancy becoming an character artist. With characters you can still model cool props that the character is going to use like a tool etc. The flippednormals list is a very handy guide.

scotdanielburns

musashidan said:

Now that you've spent time on getting the pipeline down and are relatively comfortable, my advice would be to practice sculpting and anatomy for the next few months. Sculpt like crazy! Busts, fragment studies, creatures, concept sculpts, dynamic posing, sculpts, sculpts, sculpts......

If you look at any top character artist's folio you will see a lot of sculpt studies that are not finished production assets.

Your demon character is a good place to start with your portfolio. You should always show your raw Zbrush sculpts with your finished characters as well. This can strengthen the impact of your skills because it will show off the work you put into the piece that is often watered down in the final in-game asset.

The other 2 characters are not good enough quality to market yourself. While they show that you have a grasp of the workflow, I would use them as a springboard to apply the experience to newer characters of better quality. The likeness character, particularly, is a poor example because it doesn't look anything like the actor - you said harsh....

Character art is an ever-demanding discipline. People have taken it to insane levels of detail so you really need to push yourself. As mentioned above, if you are marketing yourself as a character artist then scrap the environment art for the moment and concentrate solely on characters. Best of luck.

Thanks a lot. I definitely agree the demon character is the only one right now I'd say is a full character piece that is semi-fully realized the way he should be.  I'll definitely take your advice on the constant sculpting. Do you have any advice on posting those online? would they be better suited to add to my blog as a study instead of showcasing it? 
I guess I don't feel like a sculpt should be a portfolio piece? I'm possibly wrong about that but I feel like for a games portfolio everything has to be retopo'd and UV'd. 

I will definitely be showing the Zbrush sculpts in the future alongside the game version because you are totally right about the watered down part. 

Overall I'm grateful for your feedback and will take it on board. I'm glad you feel the demon character Is a good place to start and you nailed that the others were more about learning workflow properly than fully realized characters. For the likeness, I agree its terrible and I can totally do better than that now . Likness is tricky though and ill avoid it for a while I think. 

scotdanielburns

Zi0 said:

Focus only on character art if you fancy becoming an character artist. With characters you can still model cool props that the character is going to use like a tool etc. The flippednormals list is a very handy guide.

yeah, I agree. In future, If I wanted to dabble with the hard surface I'd do a prop since its more closely related and can be part of a character project. My environment project in my blog was more for me than anything else. Learning a few things I wanted to learn.