Portfolio review and critique for beginner
Hi guys! I am learning 3d art, and I think I want to become a character artist.What exactly is not good enough to get employed, and what aspects of my portfolio should I focus more? I've tried to send my cv with portfolio link for like "Junior" and "Trainee" jobs, but got declined all the times. I understand that it means I need to get better, but not exactly understand what are the weakest points, so I would be very thankful to all your honest critique and some words about it, thanks!
Replies
You have some pretty decent creature/character models. I especially like the centipede thing.
You might want to make better thumbnails for your images. I like to fill the image with the models/characters as much as I can, like your Baraka model. If you try to show the entire body in one image, it leaves alot of blank space since humans are taller than they are wide, and the image is square. Just show the torso up.
The soldier looks like an incomplete model. You might want to remove it until its done.
I think a white background would look better than a black background for a few models imo. If you put a dark shaded model in front of a black background, their going to be hard to see.
I don't think the hydrant is enough to stand on its own. Apply more subdivision to it, and put it in a scene like a neighborhood or something.
Something about the window on the oven doesn't look right. It's too matte grey, and it's taking up most of the area in the thumbnails image. A better lit white background would also help. The edges on the corners needs to be more beveled. Have a look at some more product images shorturl.at/gtFH7. Adding a kitchen environment to it would beefen up the piece.
For even more points, you could "wear" the oven. Like it's been sitting in a junk yard getting rained on. Games like to do this alot. It would show your texturing skills more as well as modeling. Just a thought.
@Lukes3D Thank you for such a great feedback!
I've thought that presentation to a model was not such a big deal, but now I see that it's queit important part of entire portfolio!
And putting models in "context" is also a very great ideas will use it definitely in my next models 100%.
You've pushed me to some great ideas and I also haven't seen some my mistakes about oven, and other works,I will do my best!
I appreciate that a lot, wish you good day(or night lol),and good luck!
No problem :)
If the characters are rigged. I recommend giving them an interesting pose. Duke nukem could just cross his arms, while the alien could do some predatory stance. It could also help them fit in a square image.
Something is lacking about the skeleton. It looks like an early Lightwave render from 2002-2006 (what renderer are you using?). It's not lit very well. The breast plate could use some refinement. Maybe someone who does characters more could chime in.
I also noticed the body of the skeleton appears to be a flesh and blood human, while the head is a skeleton. I dunno doesn't look right.
Hey :) You certainly have to work on proportions/anatomy and then later on topology and textures. I would consider cutting out the design portion at this point and work off existing concepts, so you can focus on the execution. Taking a character from highpoly to skeletal mesh in engine might help to better understand which steps are involved in character creation and specific questions will come up. You could document your progress in a thread and hopefully get some pointers from people. If you want to work in game development, learn how to implement and present your assets in a game engine.
It might be more successful to pursue environment or prop art, while working on characters on the side. Also think about what specifically you want to do (Characters for games presumably? Any specific company or art style?), to have a basis for decision-making.
You don't need many projects in your portfolio, but a few really good ones.
If you want to pursue both character and props, I would create categories to create some order.
@Fabi_G Thanks for your message!
I will consider that doing my next models soon. Developing anatomy and proportions is definitely the main goal for me now.
I am not sure about a certain style yet, but doing some monsters and different creatures seems fun, but also I think any 3d character artist firstly needs to be able to create human and humanoid characters, because they are the most used in different scenarios and cases. Am I right about that?
Hey, working on human anatomy sounds good 👍️
Things you could try when working on characters:
Good luck!