Looking for people to rip into my portfolio
Hello, I am a game art and animation student and while talking to industry professionals they said they best way to move forward was to post to polycount and get feedback (the words were "to have people rip into your portfolio) on my stuff so I can continuously improve. So, I am doing just that. I am new to forums and that format, and I hope I am posting in the right place. Please let me know what you think of my stuff its linked on my account and also here: Justin Ward-Kizanis (justinwk.com). I don't really mind if the critique is harsh so long as its actionable.
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"Looking for people to rip into my portfolio
Please let me know what you think of my stuff its linked on my account and also here: Justin Ward-Kizanis (justinwk.com). I don't really mind if the critique is harsh so long as its actionable."
It's essentially a given when posting work on a public forum asking for feedback, dependant upon if any response is indeed forthcoming at all...
Then typically, offered advice may vary across the board but attaching caveats after you've already stated a premise that seemed too suggest otherwise...well really in my opinion found quite jarring!
Worth keeping in mind, determining how to receive critique is an acquired skill in and of itself.
polycount is notorious for giving detailed critique. the advantage of eliciting intoxicated honesty is you get the truth, to some degree, as welcoming harshness brings all sorts of energy along with it. if you can get a master artist to speak honestly, then that's a great thing indeed! so just keep in mind that being able to identify good advice in all forms is an advantage - i think that's the thought behind asking for harsh opinions.
that being said... your portfolio is very dense and at a glance i feel there's lots and lots to be said for improvement. it's too much for me to take in right now, so that will be my feedback for now, condense and put your most relevant information and best work right in front of my eyeballs.
until i can return with the energy to coalesce some advise, i'll just say, give me brevity, give me quality only.
you may have it presented somewhere but i'd ask, what is the goal? what is it you want to do?
I appreciate the advice I reconstructed the post title but I guess it didn't save, yeah I was just looking for honest advice that is more than "it's good" or "it's bad" I didn't realize polycount was already known for detailed responses. With that all said I appreciate your words and will work on being more selective about what I include! Thanks!
Sorry, I am not understanding what you are meaning, I realize you are saying the way I am asking for critique is weird, but I don't understand how. I understand that asking for harsh advice will lead to harsh advice and all sorts of reactions but that is the feedback I usually find the most helpful because its honest. I was also hoping to have actionable feedback weather positive or negative so that I can continue to improve. I am not sure exactly what you are suggesting I do, but I really appreciate you taking the time thanks!
In short scrap everything master one area make one thing that's look professional
You have dip your toes in to bunch of things which is amazing now its time to pick specialization and master one of this aspects Becoming generalist in a lengthy process so you need a core to ground you pick the area that is the most fun and master that [art ,game design, tech]
You can pretty much scrap all of your student projects as they look and feel like one .They have serve their purpose now you can use all that knowledge to make something amazing .I guess lab projects has potential but as it team effort It wont get any revisions
Game projects are interesting so if you have a cool game idea with interesting mechanics go ahead made a demo "portal" started this way as a student project
When you pick specialization you can start building portfolio around that whatever that might be its up to you
To clarify, basically killnpc's comment in so far this community was well known for 10 or more years ago so the term "actionable" I read as:
'yeah, I'm looking for a frank and honest appraisal of my work but...'
Anyway my advice, seriously take note of what @carvuliero wrote which is pretty much as crystal clear as that.
my 2-cents on this would be to rephrase the qualifier in terms of what you do want to hear about, rather than what you don't. E.g. "How does my topology look?" or "I'm trying to match such and such art-style, what can I do?" This gives some structure for your critics to latch onto and build a valuable response around. People will definitely still give their opinion on things outside of what you list (as I'm doing now), so don't be concerned about that.
Writing those things out as a process of self-reflection is also incredibly valuable. There have been countless instances where I've begun writing a post and by the end of it I just dump the draft in the bin because I've realised what was wrong and what I needed to do.
Now for some more direct critique:
My reading of your portfolio is that you're not actually interested in game art, you're interested in making games. Is this a fair assessment? You have a number of interactive experiences on your portfolio, which are more impressive when treated as such rather than purely game art.
You show an artistic eye that feels very genuine, but unfortunately it's hard to read much technical skill - particularly in texturing/materials and lighting. In much the same way as traditional artists will pour many hours into anatomy study and mastering realism, you will probably have to suppress that stylism a bit while you build up your technical skill. Do some studies - past, current and future bi-monthly challenges here will be quite good for that.
I appreciate the work you've put into rolling your own portfolio website, but please remove the fade-in effect on all your content. I don't want to wait arbitrarily for content to appear when I scroll, it's frustrating. (The UX designer in me is telling you to sit some friends down and test your portfolio website on them: https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/108023878-why-how-and-when-to-utilize-usability-testing; https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-conduct-user-interviews-fe4b8c34b0b7).
Welcome to polycount, looking forward to seeing your future work here.