Portfolio Revamp

cholden

With my work completed, it's time to update my web site.

http://chrisholden.net/

Major changes include retaking of some sceenshots, and putting them all in a nice html gallery format. Now thumbnails go to their own page with additional images, information and back/next buttons.

I'm still going through a lot of content to see what I want to add or possibly remove (bottom right is clearly temp). The WIP and character pages are afterthoughts. The main gallery is my only concern. If you see any buggery or retardo let me know.

I will likely rewrite my name in that little box about one hundred times before I'm happy with it.

notman

I like the hello, my name is sticker

Looks good. Personally, I think it could use a bit more detail, but if minimal is your goal then it's cool

JDinges

Hey looks nice and simple.

The only problem I have is the white background, hurts my eyes when I focus on the thumbnails. A light grey might work better, though my monitor is pretty bright.

Mark Dygert

Looks great, one suggestion: click the image to go back to the gallery?

Cubik

Clean design, easy to find stuff. I definatly like your rocky landscape best, nice mood and I have always had a soft spot for semi-cartoony Jak&Dexter textures. And could you please tell me how you have tiled the brick and rooftile texture in the handheld enviroment scene? I just can't figure out how you have done it.

Renaud Galand

looks really cool!

One other issue : we're starting with you env/design art, that's cool, but when we are in another section there is no link to come back to env/design stuff (or I'm just blind). The back button is cool but not really profesionnal :]

Edit : I'm blind But "Main" isn't really mean env/design art for me, hehe. Anyway, it doens't matter, your stuff rox

MoP

Nice revamp, looks pretty good. I agree with JDinges on the white background, tone it down a little.
Also, I'm not a fan of the unsharp mask you seem to be throwing on all the thumbnails, it makes them look busy and kinda jarring, IMHO.

Put the polygon counts for your characters on all of the images, some of them do and some don't, needs consistency!

Personal preference, I'd make the text links into image links, it looks smoother and more integrated IMHO ... actual text often looks a bit low-quality, I find.

Nice artwork and variety though. Keep it up.

gauss

when i'm looking through the images, i miss having a button that allows me to go back to the main page. once you're "in" the art level, the buttons only allow you to navigate laterally, not back up the main site. other than the previously highlighted issues of maybe toning down the background and fancifying the buttons a little, it's looking good.

motives

hmm well this was my experience when i checked out the site:

" click click: hmm pretty cool stuff, nice environments. Not much new tho, seen alot of it before.. And whats that firetruck/transformer doin in there? Click click: charachters.. Ahh nice stuff also good sense of shape mm me likey.. But kinda old and ive seen most of it before.. Click click WIP: OMg H4x sk1ll5 cool stuff-a-roo highpoly sweetness!

bottom line, Make the Wip gallery your frontpage

cholden

Thanks everyone.

Darkened the table around the thumbnails in the main gallery, added a link back to the main gallery on every image page, changed "main" to environments (yea it does kinda make more sense), and made a ton of small changes/fixes on almost all the pages. I don't do characters professionally, so that whole area is back burner, fun stuff. Though if I got a job doing them I'd make a nice characters section.

Cubik: they are tiled as normal textures are tiled over any surface. They also use a decal dirt map, and the corner bricks are also a detail decal. With low resolution art, a lot of mileage can be gained this way as well as faking shadows.

motives: cool, how much are you offering me for the job?

I found out almost all my links were pop-ups in Opera, so I went through and changed all my image/page links. If anybody has anything else popping up, let me know. Everything should stay in the main window. Though this is currently neglected on the tutorials page as I've yet to touch that section.

lkraan

I like the simplicity and you have some cool stuff there!
I would mention the poly counts, texture count and sizes and show the textures for all your stuff.
I can imagine that people who review portfolios want to see that.

MoP

I think you should make all the backgrounds darker, not just the tables around the thumbnails. Having really dark images straight on a white background still looks a bit cheap to me.

I would say that if you've got a characters section, at least make it look worthy, or just put those in the WIP section. You say "that whole area is back burner", but when it goes for keeping a professional and consistent style, I'd try to make everything in the main sections to the same ideals - ie. polycounts shown whenever relevent, flat textures etc. It kinda brings down the whole quality if you have one polished section and the rest is just a little haphazard.

Don't you listen to yourself or Jon Jones? I'm sure you've both mentioned stuff like this before!

cholden

You should have seen the list Jon gave me. I'm certain I updated every page at least three times based on what he said alone, and he's still not satified.

Jon Jones

You'll NEVER be good enough! Bow before me, Fedora Dog!

Nah, man, it's good stuff. I'm just a picky bastard, and when it comes down to it, in my heart, I wouldn't say these things unless it made me feel better about myself at your expense.

Lee3dee

Jon, could you grace my website critique post and give me your mighty list.

Steakhouse

Fedora Dog nothing Jones, that there is a genuine Sam the Dog, from Sam&Max Freelance Police fame.

cholden

Great points Lee3dee, I'll try and get those on the site. :P

Steak: I reckon it's a Far Side / Frank Sinatra reference. Since a kid I'd always draw a dog in a fedora and glasses and a cat with a cape. You'd think by now I'd be good at it.

motives

[ QUOTE ]

motives: cool, how much are you offering me for the job?


[/ QUOTE ]


eh that would be an all nature payment.

maxdamagus

It really is a very functional site, putting myself in mindset of an employer, it was quite refreshing in a way avoiding all the clich

cholden

Thanks maxdamagus. That's pretty much exactly what I did. For my last job I spent a lot of time going through a lot of portfolios. After a while they all become the same thing except for those with instant content and something memorable. For anyone that's ever posted a job listing, you know exactly what I mean.

Anyway, I got around to cleaning up my characters page. For me, characters as still back burner, fun stuff as I work primarily in environment art and design, but I wanted to make it look nice and consistent with the main gallery (all for you MoP). If anyone wants to have a look through the characters section for bugs, typos, broken links, and general silliness, I'd greatly appreciate it.

http://chrisholden.net/characters.htm

As for overall content, don't mind the first character for now He will be finished up later this week.

MoP

Thanks Chris

Nice work on there, the only (really minor) nitpick I have is the way you've presented Lady Grey - the smooth shaded render is dark from the back, then really blown out from the front - looks odd. Also, flat-shaded with wires doesn't really work too well, IMHO, I prefer the way you presented the wireframes on the other models in that gallery.

cholden

Got your new lady pics up, as well as worked on the cat some more with three new pics of him as well

http://chrisholden.net/characters.htm