Am I just kicking a dead horse?----Portfolio critique.

NikolaiKor

Hi everyone. 
This is a straight forward post. I need help to identify some or all of my short comings. Been trying to find a job as an Environment artist for a while now, sadly the responses i get are No, or my favorite Ghost from company HR people or disappearing recruiters. I'm getting to the point of burning out and getting down on my self. 
So i'm asking for help to either fix what is broken or admit defeat and go back to school for something else. thus the title of this thread.

Here are the last few environments that i did.




The rest of the portfolio can be found through the link below. Sorry for the shameless plug.
https://www.artstation.com/russiancb

All the input is greatly appreciated.

Again thank you for taking your time to look through my stuff.

NK.

Ashervisalis

Hey Nikolai, please don't get down about your work. You have cool work, it's just a difficult industry to get into. Do you have specific artists you look up to? Maybe spend more time looking at their portfolios and how you can bump yourself up to the next level. Keep on moving forward!

Alex_J

Some actual environment artist can probably give more actionable advice than me, but the main things I see is a lack of content. I see walls and floors and not much else. Lighting and materials looks pretty nice IMO, but it's just like empty environments. I'd say flesh these environments you have out a lot more -- make them like what you'd expect to see in the upcoming AAA titles.

bkost

Hi Nikolai, I understand your position and the feeling of burn out. You may need to take some regular breaks to get away from the grind, maybe go on camping trips or get away from your pc over the weekends. You'll be more refreshed and the burn out won't be nearly as bad. 

It does look like you are on the right track. But your portfolio is underwhelming while looking through the posts. Take for example, your Dusty Scene post. The breakdown of the materials and progress shots are excellent, but it just falls short. It feels like you got halfway to the finish line then abruptly stopped. Take a look at the reference and pursue to match it as close as possible. 

Most of your posts can fit into this same folder of 'nearly complete' pieces. Your pieces are really lacking that final push. Like what @Ashervisalis said, look at artists with positions you want and see how they're presenting their work. 

jStins

Hey Nikolai, I think you have a good foundation here so don't get down on yourself. Sometimes you just need to be persistent in the wake of rejection (or getting ghosted -which sucks!) and let that motivate you to keep pushing. That said I think there's some things that can be done in how you're presenting work and in the work itself that will help you level up the portfolio.

ArtStation - I think your landing page and thumbnails need to be more deliberately composed. Don't use separate categories as you don't have enough content to justify it. I would just put the logo / wordmark of any project related work on the thumbnail for that piece. This is enough to indicate that it was created as part of a larger group effort. You can reinforce this in the description if needed. The thumbnails themselves need to stand on their own as inviting and pleasing images that entice the viewer to see more. Your Global Agenda thumbs are particularly bad offenders. They are too busy and not really representative of the work you did on that project. The landing page is secondary to the quality of the work itself, but strive to give your users (art directors, recruiters, etc...) a smooth aesthetically pleasing experience from start to finish. They should click your link and be hit in the face with art that makes them want to see more. @PixelMasher 's ArtStation is a good example of what I'm talking about. 

Portfolio Content - Your personal environments are good, but feel empty and naked. The use of the UE4 mannequin is out of place. I feel like you're using it to reinforce scale, but try to do that with props an debris at various scales. Think about adding props that fit not only the logic of the space, but the story of the space. Finish your WIPs if you have the energy or remove them. Be brutal in removing older lower quality pieces (even if they are from a commercial project). I'm guilty of keeping work around longer than I should just because it was professional work. I should probably go remove some stuff from my site right now actually, heh... 

I'd consider removing everything besides the two you posted here and focus on developing those frankly. The World of Darkness assets have potential, but the presentation confuses me.

Sorry for the ramble. I had to come back to this post a few times. You should make separate WIP threads for the two environments you posted here. They really do have a lot of potential. Good luck!

Bostvic

I've not got much to add that hasn't been said by people far more experienced than me, but if I could repeat what someone else had said for emphasis it would be this:

jStins said:

Think about adding props that fit not only the logic of the space, but the story of the space.

The two things you should have more of are props and a story. Right now your environments don't necessarily "tell a story". Take the Arabian bath houses. If it was a scene in a game, what would happen there? Is it an FPS? In which case maybe put a bit more battlefield debris about. Or is it a peaceful, relaxing scene, maybe in a cutscene, for example. In which case add some towels or other props that hint at the mood of the scene. My point is: props like these are super important, not only for setting the scene, but because they will almost certainly be what you work on as a junior in a company, so showing a lead that you can do them is number 1 priority.

For a good checklist you can look here:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/PortfolioContents#Environment_Artist.2C_Prop_Artist

Don't get disheartened! You have some really great work in there.

Taylor Brown

I think he left out a key point of info. He isn't looking to break in, he's looking to get back in. Or atleast that's what I gather from the 7 years of studio experience on his artstation.

NikolaiKor

Hi guys or gals.
Thanks for all the feedback. I can go through and explain why certain pieces are the way they are, but i don't believe that it is necessary. Looks like the common consensus is the lack of props and making the scenes more game like. Which i guess wasn't my intention from the beginning. I was mostly setting them up as a reproduction of places or things that I've seen around the net. 
But this was a great feed back, most likely this is what the HR people look for.
@bkost Thanks. Dusty scene is a special case that was time boxed and was setup to mimic style and allocation of pieces of an already existing game.
@jStins Lots of good stuff man. Appreciate the reorganization feedback, need to look in to that and see what can be done to facilitate the changes. The old stuff is always is question to keep or not to keep. The game it self is old now and only running on private servers i believe. So at which point does your work become not valid or better said Add value to your work experience?
@Bostvic I like you. Was a very cute comment. Thank you for the check list will keep it in mind.
@Taylor Brown On the nose, but i believe i'm in the same boat now as i was back then, starting from the begging even tho i just missed 4 years of the game building experience.

Again thank you for all the feed back. I need to regroup in my head and get things going again.


NK

Jack M.

Being honest, this industry can really suck sometimes. You can have a metric ton of experience, but if your portfolio isn't top notch you'll get overlooked by recruiters. Then again if you have no experience, but a top notch portfolio they'll rake you over the coals to get you for as cheap as they possibly can. Not to mention there's hundreds of people out there looking for the same job. It's one of the most competitive industries I know of.

That said, I think you'd have much stronger chances if you had more content on your Artstation. A lot of it looks kind of old or incomplete. Having another 2-3 pieces of really strong work would help your odds a lot.

NikolaiKor

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NikolaiKor

Hi guys or gals.
Thanks for all the feedback. I can go through and explain why certain pieces are the way they are, but i don't believe that it is necessary. Looks like the common consensus is the lack of props and making the scenes more game like. Which i guess wasn't my intention from the beginning. I was mostly setting them up as a reproduction of places or things that I've seen around the net. 
But this was a great feed back, most likely this is what the HR people look for.
@bkost Thanks. Dusty scene is a special case that was time boxed and was setup to mimic style and allocation of pieces of an already existing game.
@jStins Lots of good stuff man. Appreciate the reorganization feedback, need to look in to that and see what can be done to facilitate the changes. The old stuff is always is question to keep or not to keep. The game it self is old now and only running on private servers i believe. So at which point does your work become not valid or better said Add value to your work experience?
@Bostvic I like you. Was a very cute comment. Thank you for the check list will keep it in mind.
@Taylor Brown On the nose, but i believe i'm in the same boat now as i was back then, starting from the begging even tho i just missed 4 years of the game building experience.

Again thank you for all the feed back. I need to regroup in my head and get things going again.


NK

jStins

NikolaiKor said:

 The old stuff is always is question to keep or not to keep. The game it self is old now and only running on private servers i believe. So at which point does your work become not valid or better said Add value to your work experience?

My thinking is that quality of the work should always take precedent in the portfolio. The resume can still show that you've worked on shipped titles. Basically your shipped titles list never changes, but old work should drop out of the portfolio. I'd love to hear a more experienced artist chime in on this though.