Portfolio website for critique.

Illusions

www.illusionscg.com

(should be Opera and FireFox compatible for all you non-Internet Explorer users out there)

Alrighty, its that time again, another student redoing his website in hopes of one day achieving jobbage/employment. Yes I know what some of you are saying "Wow, another website", so please bear with me. Well...this one is a tad different, well for this board anyway. Since I'm seeking a position in the NYC area, the sites content is basically a shotgun blast choosing of some of my work, show casing what I can accomplish in computer graphics, graphic design, web design (the art design portion, the pretty coding end I'm working on) not just game art. So, now that I've gotten that tidbit out of the way, I'm looking for any critiques on usability, content, visual layout, and anything you feel a portfolio/job seekers website should have. If you feel there is a spelling error in my resume let me know. Tear it apart, just let me know whats wrong, or what you feel should be fixed. Just want to make sure there are no bad impressions when I start showing this thing outside a limited circle of people.

Also, if you think there might be a browser specific area, do bring that up too. I'm trying to have this thing compatible with whatever browser a potential employer might throw at it. My web coding isn't amazing but I'm learning.

cholden

Everything seem to work in Foxfire.

Don't like that you cover you last name with images. First impression, I thought your name was John Reu, then it was John R—--h. Really should present your name clearly.

You don't need an intro page, your main portfolio thumbnails should be your main page. As always, watermarked images with contact info, and contact info clearly defined in the main page always helps.

Flare Demon and Smoke Elemental (and concept, which should be presented with it) are very cool, but what about wires and materials?

Don't really care for much more past that, and the traditional section stands out as your weakness. There really isn't anything presented there that shows knowledge of anatomy, perspective, or the concepting skills required to assemble in a portfolio.

If you focus on more final work like the demon and elemental, you'd be on to something here.

EarthQuake

The concept for the elemental thing is the only thing i see in your 2d section i would really put on a portfolio, everything else is nowhere near the great quality of that.

hawken

even though I read what cholden said about covering your name up before I visited your site, without predujice I think it's a daft idea.

Illusions

Thanks everyone for your critiques so far. Since what I'm gleening from your comments (other than watermarking the images, having my name blatantly clear, showing some wires and texture sheets, etc) is that the website has a few too many pages to jump through in it. I plan to keep the general feel and color scheme, but probably condense it down to something akin to Pior's webfolio.

In the meantime, since I have another school project to complete before moving onto that, should I even bother referencing this thing at all, or remove the url from my resume for the time being?

Sage

If you are applying for art jobs you need a site. If you don't have one don't bother applying, it will save you time. Most companies won't consider you without samples to look at. Keep up the good work, and try to show only finished work, model plus textures. Modeling alone won't get you a job unless it's high poly and you are a god. By the way your resume is doing you in a bit. Move your skills to the top portion of your resume, and put your education last. Keep this in mind, a lot of HR people fold resumes in half and only look at the top portion of it. If there is nothing there that catches their eye they move on. This is one of the things I have kept hearing at resume critiques from HR people. I think you should have your award as close to the top as well. You may have to change your headings a bit to accomodate this. I look foward to seeing the site update.

Alex