Portfolio Review- Prop Artist

Antonis_T

Hey everyone, I’m Antonis, a 3D artist from Greece.

I’ve got around 4–5 years of experience working in medical animation as a 3D generalist, and I’m currently trying to land a job. I’d really like to transition into the gaming industry, ideally as a prop artist.

Lately I’ve been applying but not getting any callbacks, so I feel like I might be doing something wrong with my portfolio or its something wrong with my skills.

If anyone’s got some time to take a look and give honest feedback, I’d really appreciate it.
Portfolio that i send to recruiters: https://antonis-tsioulis-portfolio.framer.website
Artstation: https://antonytsioulis.artstation.com/albums/14727025

ThisisVictoriaZ

Kind of ironic to go from medical 3d modeling to making weapons lol
One thing I will say is I would consider having your medical portfolio not show up on your home page, recruiters will mainly want to see relevent art pieces to the job your applying for, the other stuff is cool too but probably not necessary to see when your applying to be a 3d prop artist. 
As far as the portfolio pieces go i think its cool that you have so much sci fi stuff, I find that to be really interesting myself. It seems to me that you're going for more of a realistic art style for most of your pieces, but honestly I think your modeling and texturing could use a bit more work to really hit that mark. For example this freezer here in your Dystopian Cybernetic Surgery Lab 
your texel density looks off, and this material doesnt read as glass to me at all. I know this is only one part of the diorama, but it really drew my focus as I was wondering what that is. Compare that to some other similar environments and you'll notice that the material quality is higher and the readability of textures and models is is much better as well.  
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/vDNLOa

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VgKrEZ
Hopefully this is helpful, keep up the work!

Antonis_T

ThisisVictoriaZ I kept the medical piece in mostly to show that I’ve actually worked on shipped projects, since they’re pretty hard to find or play otherwise. Do you think taking it out would make the portfolio weaker?

About the environment, I totally get what you’re saying. Those are older projects and back then I didn’t really have a solid texturing pipeline in mind, so the texel density and material issues you pointed out are fair.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, I really appreciate you taking the time — it helps a lot.

if you have any advice with what i should be moving forward as my next project, feel free to suggest !

kosh3d

Antonis_T said:

I’ve got around 4–5 years of experience working in medical animation as a 3D generalist, and I’m currently trying to land a job. I’d really like to transition into the gaming industry, ideally as a prop artist.

[...]

Just in case you're not aware of the current 3D gamedev industry situation: it's not good. Lots of layoffs happened which means you're competing vs. people who have a lot stronger portfolios and most likely more experience. Prop artist role is very rare, Weapons artist role is probably even more rare nowadays and the bar is very high. Not saying it's impossible but you will need to work on your portfolio a lot more to have a shot. 

All your recent props are weapons made from concepts with a sci-fi look. I would recommend trying to get at least 1-2 props that have real life references. Also decide if you want to go the stylized route or make realistic stuff. Right now your texturing is unfortunately the weakest part, none of the materials on your weapons read particularly well. I highly recommend following a good texturing course (artstation learning has for example this one if you're looking for realism) to get an understanding how PBR works and how to make believable materials. 

I made an overview over the current gen pipeline for hero props here, check it out, there is plenty of info there and hopefully some helpful stuff. You will need to make a few really good props to brush up your portfolio. The quality bar you're aiming at is something like this. Definitely hide old projects that do not represent your skill level any longer, your portfolio should only have your strongest pieces. 

I hope this helps, best of luck! 

Antonis_T

Kosh3D, thank you so much for the feedback!

I knew the gamedev industry is going through a crisis right now, but I honestly thought I could still land something at a junior or maybe early mid level. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have many people around me in the industry to give me proper feedback, and a lot of people I reached out to never replied.

Do you think I should try transitioning into a different role, like environment or character art? Or if I stick with prop/weapon art, realistically how long do you think it would take me to get my portfolio to an industry-ready level (based on the references you shared)?

kosh3d

Antonis_T said:

[...] Do you think I should try transitioning into a different role, like environment or character art? Or if I stick with prop/weapon art, realistically how long do you think it would take me to get my portfolio to an industry-ready level (based on the references you shared)?

Environment art is probably somewhat more in demand but doesn't mean it's easier. Character art is one of the most difficult roles to get into, highly competitive and requires a wide array of knowledge, especially anatomy. Based on your current portfolio, I don't think character artist is a viable path. But at the end of the day it really depends on what you want and what you enjoy doing. Even if, lets say, character art positions would be plenty and easier to get into, I don't think it would be a good idea to try and transition into character art if you don't like making characters. I mean people usually pick art as a path because they enjoy making it.

As for how long building a portfolio will take, nobody can answer for you. Depends on too many factors. Some people pick up things very quickly and also have a lot of time on their hands. So they might have a really good portfolio after 6-12 months. Others might have an entirely different life situation and can only spend an hour or two a day working on their personal projects. 

Antonis_T

kosh3d understandable, thank you a lot for your time and feedback! I will work on the things that you mentioned and i will get back with updates when they are ready!