Want feedback/Recommendations porfolio and summary
polycounter lvl 9
Hello everyone
I want to improve my portfolio to find a stable job in the industry, looking for new projects.
I would like to hear feedback about my Portfolio and summary to see what to improve or what line to follow to make it look better and to find a good job.
Replies
Thanks for requesting a review.
First things first, could you add your portfolio and linkedin to your polycount signature?
From your portfolio, I take it that you are looking for work in hand painted stylized projects?
That said I don't see any issues with your portfolio presentation. Love your work!
Your resume, linkedin and artstation resume needs to match
https://diegomeza.artstation.com/resume is missing a lot of content
I would advise making a simpler resume (only text, simple format, 1-2 pages) that is can be read by ATS (Applicant tracking systems)
You won't believe how many resumes are rejected simply because they have had an image embedded.
Your resume pasted here is not in a readable format (its .webp and cannot be read by ATS)
I would redo your resume in a .doc / .pdf format (pdf is preferred and you should make the pdf from a word file so the text can be read by ATS.
I've attached my resume, you can use its formatting to make yours. Please check for spelling.etc
Your current resume is better to hand out in person since I'm thinking the intent of this resume was to present not just your qualifications but also your work and you as a person.
Again the reaction of people to personalised resumes is varied, I like your current resume, but you would still need a resume that can be put through the ATS.
Also do you have a cover letter to review?
/in/diegomezasanchez
ArtStation - Diego Meza
https://app2.thexplace.ai/sharing?id=T-ZXqdnAaYc-nl3DIU
I don't feel that any of the artwork requires improvements in the model or presentation. I feel it really is excellent polished work.
You should include the logo of the game these characters were published in on the images, and also do a small write up on the process.
Some might advise presentation consistency, i.e some of the models don't have their texture layouts shown, though I do feel that a competant recruiter would browse through your work to find the information they consider relevant.
If you are looking for what I consider is the best portfolio I've seen for stylized work, I recommend this artist from Keos Masons.
https://www.artstation.com/gtiber
However I can't say if following his approach will get you the notoriety he has.
Hiring in the game industry depends on a whole lot of factors that are not limited to your portfolio or quality/presentation of art work so I wouldn't use that as guarantee of finding work.
But its always good to discover new ways to stand out.
Great work on the resume and cover letter! Be sure to split them though and not submit them together.
I could not click on the linkedin link in your updated older resume.
Also your location might make it difficult to gain work onsite with relocation, but its important to keep applying and many studios do go the extra mile to relocate hires.
I am noticing that remote working is on the decline, though there is still a strong freelance industry and since you have experience working with outsourcers like Volta, I feel that this should help in finding more work.
It really helps to reach out to recruiters on linkedin directly, certainly send them connection requests.
Post your work on linkedin too, 1 a day with small write ups to build an audience and get more visibility.
Connecting with artists on linkedin also helps and many are receptive but always focus on feedback that actually benefits making improvements,
i.e "You should try this workflow" - useful
vs
"this is student work" - useless
Warm regards Sr.
This shows the importance of having a simple yet solid self-hosted solution as backup for something as incredibly important as a portfolio.
"... I do feel that a competant recruiter would browse through your work to find the information they consider relevant."
This is IMHO bad advice. Of course a competent art recruiter will find all kind of relevant information when looking at your work - I would go as far as saying that a good AD/art lead will know much more about you than yourself just by glancing at a few images, as they can easily trace back all your art history and strengths and weaknesses from just looking at a few images. But the role of the portfolio isn't to showcase some bare minimum : it is also a way to judge the ability of someone to present themselves and their work, which can be representative on how they would behave as a team member or during a presentation/meeting. So if you feel like something could be improved presentation-wise and that the time spent on it may be worth it and reasonable, I'd say don't hesitate to do it as it might be what differenciates your from the next applicant competing for the same position.
Besides that the work shown seems excellent, but there is a big issue IMHO with the way concept art credit isn't given. For instance I kind of like the way you present a few models on the margin of your text-based resume - it is unusual but interesting. But since no concept credit is given, these screenshots end up being confusing and perhaps even hurting your application since no one will be able to tell if you designed them yourself or not. This goes back to the above point about the portfolio being a bit of a preview of the way one may behave in a professional environment.
Good luck !
Like at EA, on my project I didn't find any direct 1:1 correlation between a candidates portfolio quality and presentation and their performance in studio using EA's workflow and toolset.
You were expected to showcase the bare minimum and know how to use the tools while demonstrating a willingness to learn their tools during the probation period.
EA provided sufficient onboarding resources to learn about studio culture/ protocol/ workflows and being effective team players over the probation period that seemed suffcient regardless of what the portfolio looked like.
There were also candidates moving into art roles from QA, logistics that had very rudimentary portfolios (single prop of variable quality) that were onboarded into the art teams and were easily able to learn the pipeline in a few weeks.
The bare minimum was knowing how to use the required programs (minus plugins and other automation tools which did the heavy lifting)
The areas where portfolios mattered were for specialist roles like material and hair artists.
On other projects (Full Circle, Bioware and Respawn) again the budget was prioritised towards automating as much as possible, so again portfolio expectations were very minimal for junior roles and more specific for senior roles (where current employment, industry experience and published titles had greater priority)
I didn't see any indication of recruiters and reviewers from the art team going out of their way to look for mistakes and errors in candidate profile or portfolio work, unless they were very obvious omissions at any stage of the hiring process or serious red flags.
Most of employee competancy was gauged through minimal work experience and then portfolio was given weight.
for example,
- position clearly requires an understanding of the PBR pipeline, but candidates portfolio only has anatomy studies and hasn't demonstrated game ready models.
- very obvious deficiencies in model quality that indicates a candidate wouldn't perform adequately in an art test. (there was considerable flexibility in what was considered adequate)
- position requires candidate to relocate and remote work/working in local studio location is not possible to accomodate in headcount/budget alloted.
- candidate was let go from previous employment for reasons that are considered as serious infractions and go against company policy (eg. sexual assault, leaking proprietary information, currently incarcerated)
The headcount and budget alloted under favorable market conditions and timing were far more important than portfolio quality or improvements in my experience.
Once a portfolio was approved at any stage for minimal requirment, it was added to applicant records so the impact of resubmitting the same portfolio or one with improvements really depended on what the hiring situation was like at that current time.
It really was on the candidate to generate visibility since there were so many applicants at any given time.
There was also little to no comparison of portfolio work between candidates unless it became an absolutely necessity.
They needed to go through a long list of prior applicants, filtering through employee referrals and candidates with prior experience before even considering new candidates or portfolio comparisons.
While this list can cover applications over several years I am not sure how long a candidate file and submissions are retained.
(At an interview at Behavior, the HR person brought up a resume I had submitted in 2017 for a application I had made in 2019.
I had submitted an updated resume in 2019 that wasn't updated to their system. Luckily I had brought the updated resume with me to the interview.)
For instance suppose a position opens up every month and there's 200 applicants to a role where they might be able to accept 2 candidates.
That doesn't meant that the remaining 198 have no future at EA, they are kept on file and brought in as vacancies open up.
If a candidate had already passed the art test they were already deemed suitable to work at the studio when an opportunity becomes available.
Their hiring protocol is a combination of internships, temporary full time, permanent full time and outsourcing so lot of flexibility in deciding where to allot production budgets.
I have confirmed that this is followed at several other AAA studios to remain competitive and profitable and many employees move between studios throughout their career enabling this practice.
Again this is more for candidates looking for their 1st engagament, for a second engagement there is greater emphasis on portfolio improvements and you are expected to know what to focus on with information received from the 1st engagament.
Also if you are employed at a competitor in 2023 and a position opens up at the studio and your name comes up, they will still consider your application on file from 2020 while inquiring on availability.
I'm not sure if recruiters are asked to prioritise candidates employed at other studios but I certainly got a whole lot more interest asking if I wanted to leave EA when I was employed there.
I do wish an end to this practice given the vast talent pool and the significant damage leaving mid contract can do, but many employees do see this as a way to increase their seniority/compensation through hustling.
Studios were very effectively insulated against workplace incompetancy, so they stood to lose very little if a less than suitable candidate was hired.
The entire pipeline was engineered to allow candidates with the bare minimum skill and ability several opportunities to improve their profile and performance.
And there was significant emphasis on keeping production costs at conservative estimates like it is for any corporate business whose main focus is to make maximum profit on marketable products sold to consumers within very limited release windows.
I personally found the budget allocated to game dev to be fairly adequate given the nature of the business as being non unionized.
It was how this budget was allocated that I did feel that it could do with significant revisions to prioritise transparency in hiring more candidates, reduce layoffs and providing better work-life balance in the long term.
I didn't find it to be a problem at EA atleast with what my expectations were for priorities I had set.