Portfolio Critique
I've been looking at my projects too much lately to the point where I don't know what to think of them anymore and I would love to get some feedback on the quality and presentation. I am aware that my Portfolio is rather small and doesn't scream "Hey, I want to become an Environment Artist" at the moment - just curious what flaws there are with my individual projects that I could improve on in the future.
I also have a bunch of visualization projects and apparently recruiters don't like it when you have visible projects that are not relevant to the position you've applied to. I'm guessing that having an album with visualization work would be seen as a bad thing?
Portfolio link:
https://bennobei.artstation.com/albums/7069027
So my questions:
Does one of the projects stand out negatively quality-wise?
How is the presentation of my work? Am I missing any crucial information?
Would having my visualization work visible on my profile hurt my chances at landing a job in the games industry?
I know I should create more actual environments - but what's a technical aspect should I focus on improving?
Some of my Vis work (like the CDj-3000 model I created) aren't specifically game art but show off my modeling skills. Is there a way I could use them for my realtime portfolio (apart from crunching it down and creating a textured lowpoly version)?
Replies
Your portfolio advertises yourself as a '3D Artist' - which I can only take to mean a generalist, but you specify "Environment Art" in your post here. Which is it? The portfolio in its current state is much more geared to the former than the latter at the moment. I also think your portfolio should be smaller, not larger.
On your questions specifically:
The realtime MAC-10 stands out to me as particularly unappealing. I don't like the shipping crate either, but only because it's too boring for a portfolio piece. The MAC-10 has a lot of issues with the material work - bad and inconsistent texel density, nonsensical damage and wear, etc, and these problems are really accentuated by the fact that I can look at the same model in your 'vis' section and see a much better piece in almost all aspects. This disparity is apparent across the board when comparing the vis versus realtime section of your portfolio and it does give the impression that you either don't care enough about the realtime work, or you don't really know what you're doing.
I quite like the presentation of most of your vis work, so again i'm wondering why that hasn't translated over to the realtime stuff. You've got boring backdrops and flat lighting in many of your realtime pieces. You've generally paid good attention to giving little technical breakdowns of the pieces which I appreciate, but you may be giving a little too much information. We don't need 2 different 3D viewers with different texture scales, as this sort of suggests that you couldn't settle on which is best. Maybe the presence of this speaks to a deeper issue with your realtime stuff in that you may be too worried about the performance and optimisation of your models.
The Vis stuff is by far the strongest part of your portfolio, i'd almost scrap or rework everything in your realtime section save for the skate map. I'd err on keeping the higher quality stuff visible on your portfolio over any notions of the bad impression it could make, and over time replace it with equal or better quality pieces more appropriate to the role you want.
The skate map is good work, do more of that :) Publishing a complete experience like this shows a grasp of and confidence with the engine and the workflow. It looks like you're generally across the idea of trim sheets and modular components, so maybe some foliage work would serve you well?
This question is almost asking "can I retrofit my previous work without actually doing anything to it?" I feel that if you're thinking about how to work your old pieces into your new portfolio you should just take the time to do it right and remaster them properly. That said I don't think it's particularly bad to have pieces that aren't strictly game-ready but are still strong in their own right on your portfolio, at least for now.
Best of luck!
Thank you so much for your honest feedback.
I'm gonna keep my vis work visible for now.
I honestly didn't expect my MAC-10 to be my weakest work - while texturing I went more with my gut feeling rather than actual reference and honestly thought it looked fine but that is clearly not the case to someone who is experienced.
I will definitely use more photo references for my future texturing projects.
That makes sense, I removed the unnecessary 3D viewers. Idk why I even thought showing lower quality versions of the props was a good idea, gonna stop doing that from now on.
Thank you apprechiate that! :)
Again thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed reply.
It definitely helped me to get a better understanding of what's wrong with my current projects and what I can do better in the future.