Portfolio review and best pages to get freelance jobs

dlz

Hi,

I would like some feedback on my portfolio and recomendations of pages to do freelance jobs, either selling 3d models or making projects for a client (which i find extremely difficult at least in the freelance pages i'm in).

If anyone can give me some advice of what i can do, because i spend lot of my free time building my portfolio and I'm having a lot of trouble finding jobs or making money from 3d related jobs.

Any feedback or advice of what is the next step to follow is very apreciated.

My portfolio (mostly based on characters): https://dlz.artstation.com/

Greetings

Taylor Brown

I think part of the issue with your portfolio is that there is no real clear idea of your process or your goal. Are you hoping to do game characters? Film? If its games, show the person looking at it that you know how to optimize for games. The only two assets that have 3D viewers are super unoptimized. Are you taking your work through the whole workflow or just polypainting in zbrush and snapping a render? Look at your portfolio from the POV of a recruiter / client and imagine all the questions that would pop up in their heads and try and answer them through your portfolio.

Aside from that, I think it's really hard to break into freelancing and even harder to get into it without production experience. I'm sure others can chime in with more info in that area, though.

dlz

Hey! thank you for your answer.

For the moment i tried to cover all the areas: both models for games or for films, or even models for printing or simple renders.

In the first 2 models i wanted to show something and thought it will be good with the 3d viewer didn't know if this is damaging more than benefit the projects for the unoptimized topology, do you think I should delete the 3d viewer of that projects?

I tried diferent methods to present the models, even with shaders made in arnold.

The more optimized model for a game would be the last one, i modeled it with that intention. Maybe I should post a wireframe but the cardhairs look horrible

The think I have in mind is to begin to work with something that is paid even if it's bad-paid to push up my motivation and continue improving.

Alex_J

Your motivation to continue improving must be because you enjoy the work, not because you have some destination in mind. Because you still have several years ahead of you before your work is going to stand out from among your peers.

You've got to learn to see your work from other peoples eyes. Don't judge your current work against your previous work. Don't judge it against your peers. And don't judge it based on the effort it took to create. Judge your work against the best in the medium. Try to find all the differences and then just set out to correct them one at a time.

A few months from now you should have a completely new portfolio. Several months later, a new one again. Keep posting everything you make and it should start being obvious when you're getting to the point where others see value in your work.

I think if you are trying to get work you should spend as much or more time networking as you do working on art. That doesn't mean trying to get a job right this minute wiht the work you have, but it means building genuine friendships based on common interest with people in the crowd you want to be a part of.

dlz

@Alex Javor I see that reply several times i don't say that to you in a bad way, in fact I agree with some points but:

I don't want a job related to 3d only to keep my motivation, I want a job related to 3d to improve faster and to live with it basically.

I think a job either be freelance or in some studio (or networking like you said) can push the limits of a 3d artist in a way that someone alone maybe couldn't do in that level.

Alex_J

yeah it would be fantastic if you can get a job sooner rather than later. But I think it's unlikely and certainly not something you can count on. So you got to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

You can join many communities though wiht other artist in the same boat as you in order to get a similar team mechanic going on. Also maybe join a modding team to get to work with cross-disciplines and get more realistic sense of game art application versus if you do portfolio work alone. Always a good thing to be part of a team.

dlz

@Alex Javor  i see you did a game, it was with other people or you alone? also what kind of contract(if any) did you do with the others?

Alex_J

I worked with one other guy. A programmer. We made a contract for 50/50 split of the profits, who would handle the money and how it would be paid out, and also what to do if there is major disagreement about the project. Real basic contract we made from template on rocketlawyer.com, but there was times I was very thankful we had made one. Taking care of stuff like that first can make any disputes go much more smoothly should they happen.

I think the wiki has some good info about considerations in working on teams or with contracts as well.

dlz

Thank you!

I will dig more into it

Eric Chadwick

Here you go!
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Game_Industry#Employee_Rights

sacboi

For freelancing, look up CGhero:
https://cghero.com/become-a-hero
...they're new on the scene, industry connected and I've read/heard some positive reviews via other artist's that've scored work through them.