3D Character Artist - Portfolio Feedback & critique

Moneido

Hello, everyone. First of all, I want to apologize beforehand because English is NOT my main language, so forgive me if I get mistaken in something here. I am looking for some feedback and critique on my portfolio. I considered myself as a character artist and I really like the things I do and I am really proud of my portfolio so far. The problem is... I've been trying to find a job as such (Character artist or just 3D generalist), but the country where I live (Colombia) is next to impossible to find one about my career, the only ones that are available are very badly paid or I just don't get any answer. So I started looking outside to other countries as a 3D character artist as well... but just like before, no answer what so ever, and it has been like this since August 2020.

I didn't worry too much about it until last week. Since October 2020 I was participating in a 3D character contest and I was very enthusiastic to participate, even if I kinda knew that I wasn't going to win, I still liked the idea of participating in a contest. On January 22th, the results of the winners came and, as respected, I didn't win. I didn't bother with it too much, I enjoyed participating in the contest, but since that day, with all that's happening with COVID, the economic problems, and stuff, I just can't stop thinking that I am missing something crucial. I just can't see it.

I learned all of my 3D skills on my own, my career wasn't pretty useful by teaching me. I ended up quitting. I never had any feedback/critique besides my friends, who are also 3d modelers. But, because they are my friends, they are soft with me. Since the results of the contest I couldn't stop thinking "My friends think that my portfolio and the stuff I do are cool, but what does a professional think about my stuff?" since I never had feedback nor I had an answer from the companies I was applying to. I barely get any comments on the stuff I do, I am completely blind to this route. So I would love to see what you guys think of my stuff, especially if is an honest answer.

I think what I am asking isº Am I good enough? 

Here's the link to my portfolio: https://www.artstation.com/moneido

Thank you!

birb

Welcome to Polycount!

So, the major issue I see here is that you're aiming for a character art position yet you don't have a single human in your portfolio. You have characters that could be classified as creatures without anyone batting an eye, and not only they're simple both in shape and materials but are of a extremely niche style and genre.

Character art positions are scarce and coveted, making most of them seniors ones as this awesome thread explains. To maximize your chances you need to a portfolio with a broader appeal that showcases all your abilities and fits a reasonable number of mainstream genres, because it'll be a though fight. When applying to specific positions you also need to tweak the portfolio so it matches the type of work those companies produce. Adding to the difficulty, you're based in a country removed from the sphere of influential countries where most studios are. They won't hire someone halfway across the world when they can find a local talent to fill the position—hell, some companies just don't hire people from outside the country they're based even for freelance or remote work, the end.

As someone also living in a country with a smaller industry I'm of the opinion that to land a good character position in international studios you need to be the person they can't find locally. The first step is to cultivate killer portfolio they'll have a hard time walking away from. That takes time though, so consider doing freelance jobs for small studios or individuals in the meanwhile to make ends meet. Sometimes you'll even land a freelance that would make a fantastic portfolio piece, which places you in the nice position of advancing your portfolio goals while being paid for it! Just make sure to check with the client if they allow you to share the work done (and when) before anything.

frodin

Hello Moneido - I agree with birb it looks like on your portfolio you only have creatures, aside from having humans and so, a character has alot of accesories, belts, clothes, leathers,hair and alot of complex stuff. Many times a character artist might work only on clothes or certain part of a character, since characters have been more complex every time and competition is very harsh to enter the industry that is the reality, you need to add more complex stuff to your portfolio, try to get a job locally first but with a more complex portfolio and might be starting with less complex stuff like props, from there grow, improve as much as possible, ask for feedback from people that works on the industry, thats why I suggest try to make conections on job locally first, when you get a better portfolio and work experience apply overseas or freelance, dont rush it, this takes time, thats the way I did it, even so still very deficult to get something else, definetly is a very competitive industry, keep up. 

Take a look to the advice Georgian talks about on his blog, is very true https://www.artstation.com/nimlot/blog

Moneido

I appreciate your comments and sorry for the late reply. I was told a couple of times by some of my friends that I do need indeed a human character. I have plenty of ideas for a human character, but that has to wait until I learn/can afford to buy Zbrush. One of my friends told me to learn how to sculpt in Blender, but no of us can't deny that learning Zbrush in this industry is almost if not vital. I will do my best effort to learn more, especially from the articles you guys gave me. I'll focus a little bit more on clothing designs and stuff (as you can tell by most of my naked characters, I am not very good at clothing). 

Thank you for your comments, it's nice to have some feedback every once in a while. I do know that this industry is very carnivorous and it demands perfection at any level, so I kinda went my own way, especially because I always wanted to make my own videogame or my own animations. But that, without money, is quite the challenge.

Thanks again for your comments, I guess I have a lot more to learn.

birb

It's absolutely possible to sculpt humans in Blender, you only need to plan in advance.

Blender doesn't do well with heavy sculpts. Dobarro's work on the sculpting system brought long-sought performance improvements to the latest builds, yet Blender still sucks for detail work. It can, though, handle the basic sculpting required to make humans look like humans. In fact, that's exactly how I work.

The magic lies in having a base mesh with good enough topology so you're not forced to fight against Blender all way from zero every time. The way people do it is with multires because it performs well in higher subdivision levels; I usually use subsurf instead because I won't do details like wrinkles and pore work in the blockout stage so I only need one or two subdvision levels at best, besides using shapekeys as if they were sculpt layers (what doesn't work well with multires).

After blocking the character If you really need to sculpt finer details you can cut up them in pieces and use multires, baking and combining maps later. I'd be more concerned about your potential lack of access to Marvelous Designer. It's also an industry standard and a pretty flexible piece of software to create clothing, and tbh I don't know what I'd do without access to it because it can speed up your workflow so much. I hear there's a similar add-on for Blender but I have no idea about how well it performs, if it's paid or even if it has anything similar to the vector-like pattern drawing tools Maverlous has—probably not.

Clothes are still feasible without Marvelous, you'll just have to do it the old fashioned way, modelling and sculpting stuff, + throwing a cloth simulation on it for larger folds and gravity when possible.

Moneido

I'll try Marvelous, but it has to wait. I want to learn Zbrush first. Thanks for reminding me that Marvelous exist, I totally forgot about it.