How much concept art should I look for when working on a portfolio project as a 3D artist?
So when creating projects for a 3D artist portfolio I know it's often a good idea to model off of someone else's concept art (especially professional concept artists). That way I'm demonstrating my ability to translate concepts into 3D art and I don't have to worry about creating my own designs which probably aren't as good. Recently I've been wondering if you can have too little or too much concept art which might make the finished project look less 'impressive' on a portfolio to a potential employer.
Let's say I was modeling a vehicle for example. If I only had one side orthographic image to work off of do you think that would be too little? Even though I can probably get a sense of the overall shape, I would still be making up a good amount of it. I worry this might flip the skill I'm showing off from being concept translation to design. On the other hand what if I had tons of concept art or a concept model to work off of or even if I was recreating a finished asset from a game? is that too much and at that point is it not showcasing my ingenuity when translating concepts enough?
I'm probably just overthinking this but let me know your thoughts.
Replies
Most of the time when working professionally you will only get one or two images to work from. Being able to fill in the details of a design is part of the job. This is why there are specialized roles.
For example: A good weapon artist knows about how guns work and how they look so they can translate a concept into a finished, completely functional, weapon. A good environment artist will know about architecture and how buildings are made.
There is no right answer to this, for personal work it is up to you. Professionally you won't always get fleshed out concepts so having some ability to fill in the details yourself is an important skill.
For personal projects it's important to find something that speaks to you, it doesn't matter how developed the concept is so long as you find it interesting. If you find it interesting, you will be more likely to want to work on it.
Keep in mind that though you may only have the one piece of concept art, you can usually collect a whole big sheet of references to work with, and these are two different things. Reference sheets represent your interpretation of the concept, and may show your ability to identify and fill in gaps in the provided concept. Whether or not you show your ref is up to you, and may or may not help depending on whether your interpretation was interesting or obvious or you mostly worked from your own knowledge on a subject rather than jpgs.
If you're recreating something try to make it an update or alternative take in some way, instead of re-creating something modern in its current style one-to-one; else you're inviting direct comparison to professional shipped work you probably haven't managed to quite duplicate. It puts the emphasis on your potential errors.