some comments and answers please?
polycounter lvl 18
For starters, please take a quick look at my online port:
www.withersmultimedia.com
Apart from the obvious critique, could people also comment on the usability of the site please? I had thought it was very easy to navigate, and then someone surprised me by saying they had not seen certain aspects of my site.
With that out there, some other answers please...
I'm not specifically searching for work in 3d, just multimedia/graphics in general. Something I read on the boards in relation to this tweaked me a bit.
I do not recall offhand if it was here or on 3dbuzz, but someone posted an article on portfolio sites, and how people often oversaturate them with skills that they should not. (Like 3d modelers showing watercolor paintings, graphic artists showing web designs,etc..)
I get this point when applying for a certain job, but I'm not that single minded right now, I just want to work.
Am I hurting my chances at getting say a desktop publishing job by showing traditional art, or 3d?
Is an animatation job going to look poorly on me becuase they don't care for my logo designs?
I had always assumed that showing as broad a range of skills as possible could only help me.
All I know is I have been sending out resumes and port links for years now, and I cannot even get a bite.
Any thoughts??
www.withersmultimedia.com
Apart from the obvious critique, could people also comment on the usability of the site please? I had thought it was very easy to navigate, and then someone surprised me by saying they had not seen certain aspects of my site.
With that out there, some other answers please...
I'm not specifically searching for work in 3d, just multimedia/graphics in general. Something I read on the boards in relation to this tweaked me a bit.
I do not recall offhand if it was here or on 3dbuzz, but someone posted an article on portfolio sites, and how people often oversaturate them with skills that they should not. (Like 3d modelers showing watercolor paintings, graphic artists showing web designs,etc..)
I get this point when applying for a certain job, but I'm not that single minded right now, I just want to work.
Am I hurting my chances at getting say a desktop publishing job by showing traditional art, or 3d?
Is an animatation job going to look poorly on me becuase they don't care for my logo designs?
I had always assumed that showing as broad a range of skills as possible could only help me.
All I know is I have been sending out resumes and port links for years now, and I cannot even get a bite.
Any thoughts??
Replies
Another thing is, what do you concider your self to be? Are you an animator, concept artist, character artist, envornmental artist, or something else? Your site should tell people that with the art you show. Your resume doesnt get you the job in the art field, your art does. Unless of course you have years of experience working on huge title everyone has seen.
Hope that helps.
- Sections on different sides of the page == bad, I didn't even notice the top row of links until the second pass.
- Traditional Art section is presented differently from the others
- The sections other than the Traditional Art section feel very chaotic, and don't appear to be easily unpdatable. (You WILL need to post new content, it's a demoreel)
- Within the Traditional Art section, you have links with different effects. (The Concept Art brings up entire sets of thumbnails. These may be easily missed and even if discovered, will frustrate your viewer)
- The sense of frustration your page cultivates is also enhanced by the fact that I'm forced to view it in a little section 1/6th the size of my screen. Compatability with low resolutions is good, but so is compatability with big ones.
- You have, basically, too much content, and what is there is not focused. Someone reviewing you for a job will not look at a quarter of what you have, whether it's because your 2d art has put him off, or just because he thinks he's seen enough. You're not being reviewed with a fine tooth comb, rather, someone has a stack of a hundred candidates to go through, and will give up on yours whenever he feels like it. This is why all advice about portfolios boils down to a few basic concepts: Be Clear, Concise, Quick, and only show your best stuff.
-Thegodzero
1.)"Your 2d is not helping you."
-Exactly what do you mean by this, everything that is not 3d? I agree that a bunch of it needs to come down, but as I said, I'm not specifically going for a 3d port here. Also, I think texture art might be a way to go for me, so some of this must be relevant. Plus, doesn't it help me get say a gaming job when I show I can write code in Flash?
2.) "your 3d looks to be class work only"
That is not entirely true, and while I get what you are saying, I personally believe I put as much love into those projects as any of my private endeavors. (Plus, dump school and I don't have much to show....but then, maybe that was your point...ugh.)
Asthane -
You make some really, really interesting points, and I plan to act on them immediately. I almost wet my pants when I got to your compatability comments, I just spent so many years trying to make sure I was not designing too big that think I lost the fear of going too small.
One question - "because your 2d art has put him off"
Again with this, could you explain better? Do you mean the traditional art? Should I drop it all together in your opinion? Even if it was texture art I was leaning towards?
The 3d, probably wont get you a job as is. The textures you have on the site are all very simple, and look mostly like photo manips. Try looking at real game assets to gauge your level of expertise on the subject. It's a start I suppose, but you have to remember you are technically in competition with other artists. Nothing here strikes me as cool, or new. Starwars is overdone, Lego is overdone and very easy to model so it does'nt show skillset, household items are rendered poorly. Frankly the work shown could be done by anyone having run through a couple weeks of base 3dsmax tutorials.
I hate to be a Simon Cowell on this, but you have a LONG way to go. Everything you have looks like you either don't know the tools as well as you could, or the drive is there but the talent has yet to mature. You may just be having trouble choosing a field to dedicate yourself to as you seem to only know the very minimum of each subject in a very large subject pool area. The good news, is that you are taking the critiques well and responding. Welcome to the boards.
I'd at least kill Web Design, Banner Ads, Image Editing, Visual Design, Post Production. If you don't want a job in these areas, then why are they there?
My portfolio's focus was lacking too when I graduated, but I always knew my heart was in 2D and it showed. Right now, I 'm having a hard time seeing where your passion is. It feels like you're showing everything just to cover all bases. But, this is unlikely to land to a gig.
If you are really trying to pursue 3 or more areas, you need 3 or more sites, 3 or more demo reels, 3 or more resumes, etc. I wouldn't suggest this though, figure out what you love and focus on it. Improve on it.
Honestly, as of now, you skills appear to be spread thin between all those areas, you don't shine in any of them because you haven't focused. If you wanna do textures, do them. Do more life studies, model an object and texture it several times. Really develop those skills and then show them off.
Good luck.
So ,with that said, I have totally changed my site, am I any closer to the mark now?
New Portfolio
I realize my work is the real problem here, so I guess my only recourse is to keep at it.
Thank you for the comments everyone, my eyes have truly been opened.
I feel like I'm back at square one, and the sad truth is, I've been at this for years.
Oh, and I feel the need to respond to two different comments that were made.
1.) My textures are photo-manips, and 2.) My site was a template.
Both of these are entirely untrue, all my web designs are done in raw html (I actually work in the field, believe it or not), and all my textures were created from scratch by me in Photoshop.
I like the interface, easy to get to stuff.
Finding a focus can be hard, LUCK.
The real irony there is, that wasn't a class project. I just wanted to see if I could model that toy.
Also, My first ever demo reel is on there now, so any more C&C from anyone would be appreciated.
Thanks
The design is very bland and unfocused, very cluttered. Try using tables with single pixel borders, a larger feature image, perhaps with a left margin, and the 3-4 thumnails running down the side of the feature image.
Your work does need improvement, and i suspect that while your work quality increases, your understanding of portfolio design and general aethesetics will too. You come off more as a technical guy than an artist, kinda of a jack of all trades with the applications who just dabbles with the content.
In other words, focus on content before you redesign your site over and over. Look into modeling topology methods, look into using real reference for your modeling, and dont focus on games. Model for art, then adapt to game specs.
Just watched the reel. If your going to render something out, use shadows, antialiasing etc. It's not impresive, and screams student work. But thats what you are right now so it's not a bad thing.