Looking for Portfolio Feedback

lluc21

Hi everyone! So, I've been applying for a while already and I'm mostly getting the "we have decided to move forward with another candidate". I managed to land a few interviews at the beginning of summer, but nothing since.

I've done a few passes to the portfolio trying to clean it up and getting rid of old work but some input would be appreciated to see if there is anything that doesn't really fit, feels lower quality than the rest or could do with another presentation. This is the portfolio: https://artstation.com/lucassoler 

I also have a behance portfolio where I put mostly product rendering stuff that I don't find relevant when applying to games (https://behance.net/lucassoler). Do you think some of the work here would be beneficial to be put on my Artstation?

I'm also wondering what should I work on next so that I can have a higher chance of employment? I'm mostly interested in hard surface/vehicle/prop art but there aren't many openings in those areas especially for juniors...

Any input is very welcome!

Thanks in advance.

lluc21

Any thoughts? 🤔

JohannesAg

I think the texturing for a lot of the assets could be taken further, everything looks really clean and simple. It has more of a product render feel rather than a believable in game asset look. Like the tires on your newest car have dirt on them but everything else is almost spotless. Feels like you slapped on some base materials and called it a day. The gun is kinda the only exception to this. All the modeling looks really cool tho. 
Also for game art I wouldn´t render in an offline renderer like cycles. I would go with a real time option like marmoset or unreal. 

lluc21

JohannesAg said:

I think the texturing for a lot of the assets could be taken further, everything looks really clean and simple. It has more of a product render feel rather than a believable in game asset look. Like the tires on your newest car have dirt on them but everything else is almost spotless. Feels like you slapped on some base materials and called it a day. The gun is kinda the only exception to this. All the modeling looks really cool tho. 
Also for game art I wouldn´t render in an offline renderer like cycles. I would go with a real time option like marmoset or unreal. 

Hey thank you so much for taking the time to take a look and respond! 
I tend to keep a clean look on the vehicles as that's what I think studios generally look for (AFAIK vehicles in racing games are textured with tileable materials using masks), But I agree with what you say. I'll work on revisiting some of the old works giving a bit more love to the texturing part.

Also agree with the rendering on Unreal part. That is something I really need to work on...

In regards to the works in the portfolio, do you feel like there is something standing out in a bad way that is lower quality/effort than the rest? 
Sometimes it's hard for me to see the bad pieces because I get attached or go "blind" at defects from looking at it too much...

Cheers!

JohannesAg

nah nothing stands out like that to me, of course I´m not a hard surface artist tho so this is just my two cents. Maybe for your next piece you could find a concept that allows for some more interesting textures?. And for the record I´m not at all saying the textures are bad, they're just fairly simple, I like the scratches and torn stickers, but just doing something more complex with more storytelling to it might help grab the attention of companies.
Like if you compare your robot guy with this one for example. The textures and presentation really shine here. 
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/WKOO1v 

lluc21

JohannesAg said:

nah nothing stands out like that to me, of course I´m not a hard surface artist tho so this is just my two cents. Maybe for your next piece you could find a concept that allows for some more interesting textures?. And for the record I´m not at all saying the textures are bad, they're just fairly simple, I like the scratches and torn stickers, but just doing something more complex with more storytelling to it might help grab the attention of companies.
Like if you compare your robot guy with this one for example. The textures and presentation really shine here. 
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/WKOO1v 

Oh I see what you mean. I'll try to find an interesting concept that I can use to infuse a bit of storytelling.

Thanks again for the help! 👍

sacboi

I'd suggest reworking that mini into a diorama type presentation, since it's obviously a rally based variant so in my opinion quite a useful 'revision' side project to really explore painter's suite of texturing tools too the fullest effect which will neatly tie in with your intent of generating additional storytelling elements, for a given piece.

 

As an example, this may provide further clarity - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lxv0RJ

Edit:

Thought worthwhile to also mention a well worn truism "quality over quantity" alongside a hefty dollop of luck

lluc21

sacboi said:

I'd suggest reworking that mini into a diorama type presentation, since it's obviously a rally based variant so in my opinion quite a useful 'revision' side project to really explore painter's suite of texturing tools too the fullest effect which will neatly tie in with your intent of generating additional storytelling elements, for a given piece.

 

As an example, this may provide further clarity - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lxv0RJ

Edit:

Thought worthwhile to also mention a well worn truism "quality over quantity" alongside a hefty dollop of luck

The thing is I tried doing small dioramas with cars in the past (see the audi and fiat 850 scenes), and I'm rarely satisfied with the result, I can't quite manage to achieve a convincing result that doesn't look like a photoshop montage. (The Fiat scene would need redoing the photoscanned street tbf)

For the mini diorama are you referring to a scene with some action like these (the jump is probably a bit of a stretch tbh...): 


Or something more along this lines with a static pose?


Thanks!