Looking for Portfolio feedback as a Character artist

b_fair

Hello guys...im looking for feedback on my character artist portfolio that ive been developing for about a year and trying to break into the games industry...do you think i can be hired by looking at my portfolio and is my art attractive to you? Thanks in advance.
adelbelloulhi5.artstation.com

Baiano22

Hello! I am a Junior Character Artist trying to break into industry as well, but I do stylized stuff, so I can't provide enough feedback to you. Just passing by to say that I know sometimes fell pretty hard to go there and look for a job, but don't give up our work looks awesome to me! Realistic characters seems hard to do!

ZacD

You have one character with a face and that's the weakest part by far, unfortunately character art is a really competitive field and you really need to be able to nail character faces and anatomy to break into that part of the industry. Your materials and presentation are otherwise great. Could probably use another character or two with a face in your portfolio, and one with less gear/armor. 

Firebert

Too few pieces of work to truly gauge, but I would seriously reconsider the style mixes of your Geralt character.  The body modeling detail and texturing leans very heavy on the hyper-realism side, but Geralt's face feels like it lacks a strong understanding of facial anatomy and texturing to fit with the hyper-realism you created in his costume.  It may benefit you to take a few months of focusing on sculpting various faces of well known actors, only the face, and really only focusing on just the sculpt.  Don't worry at all about the topology, focus only on the forms and using the tools to get the result you want from the sculpt in raw form.  From there, definitely dive through full body anatomy sculpting, even better if you can take that practice into gesture and showcase your understanding of how the forms change based on the character's gesture.  It may not be a possibility for you, but if you can find live figure studio courses for drawing or sculpting, please take them.  They are insanely beneficial and could help you really strengthen your understanding of form in the human body.  

You clearly understand how to model well and texturing of costumes with clean UVs, but I would either pull the Geralt character completely off your portfolio, or revise the face after you have practiced more, or simply grey out the face and rename the portfolio piece to "Geralt Armor Designs". It greatly hurts your chances of getting hired when people sometimes remember your strongest piece and always remember the weakest piece out of your portfolio.  

However, you definitely have a great skill set here!  Truly.  I just don't see enough characters to see a AAA hiring you.  An Indie studio could potentially give you a gig, but in the indie market it is just as tough when funding is usually the biggest issue keeping you from getting hired.  You could and should reach out to outsourcing firms with your work.  There are a ton of them floating around that are based on nothing but outsourcing of art assets, and given what you have shown, I would say you have a nice shot at landing a role with one of them, but you should get some stronger foundations of anatomy under your belt on the daily, even if those are quick 1-2hr practice sculpts that you can wrap into a portfolio piece to show you know what you're doing.  Thank you for sharing your work!  I know it isn't easy to put yourself out there.  Keep on keepin' on, and thank you for coming here to ask for some constructive critique. Wish you all the best.

kanga

Good info above. Anatomy is letting you down. You can practice using an app like Daz as reference. Free and the figures are customizable.

Concentrate on structure. Get a handle on generic figures first. You can turn off textures and rotate about the figure to see how forms connect.

Matt Fagan

kanga said:

Good info above. Anatomy is letting you down. You can practice using an app like Daz as reference. Free and the figures are customizable.

Concentrate on structure. Get a handle on generic figures first. You can turn off textures and rotate about the figure to see how forms connect.

Buzzkill, but this is not good reference. Do NOT use this for anatomy practice. @b_fair, Stick with actual 3D scans of real people (3d scan store, triple gangers, etc.). Don't use DAZ, unless you want to stifle your ability to read actual form & scale with accurate depth of how the computer sees the human body.

I would say do the suggestions @Firebert made about sculpting faces. Your pieces are strong, especially presentation. That part punches out a lot of the work you've done for each character, including the breakdowns. (Claps) Good job!

Improve your anatomy of the face, skin texturing & shaders for the presentation, otherwise put a grey shader with a generic head, and make it about the body & the armor. A AAA company will consider your application. But If you leave the head, you will be seen as high as a standard character artist role, if not, an associate level one with potential to a hiring manager (lead character artist). Right now is a very tough time to break in, keep practicing your craft, because "perfect practice, makes perfect".