Critiques on my work

Technobabel

Hi all, I'm a new poster here on Polycount. I've lurked here for a while checking out all the great work. I was hoping you all could check out my portfolio work here:
Character Art work
(yes I know I need a real website, should be coming soon)
I'm a character artist at a small studio in CA, and I was hoping you all could give me some pointers on where I need to grow and improve. Any comments/critiques would be appreciated.
Oh, and I recently applied for a Character Art position at Mythic, so say a prayer for me!
Thanks in advance!
---

Chris Pavia
Character Artst - Farsight Studios

Lee3dee

your character look good but im not a character artist. heh I'd make a few fantasy based characters: knights,undead creatures, something to give you work more variety.

Good luck applying

monster

Nice models, smooth textures. Like Lee said it would be cool to see something in a different style, and maybe something Hi-poly.

The only crit is the face textures seem flat. Page 5 has too much shadow and it makes her look old. Page 6 has a nice highlight on the nose, but not the lips or cheeks.

Great work man. Keep it up.

Ruz

I think your stuff is top draw. nice to seee a distinct hand painted style

Technobabel

Thanks for the comments! Your definately right that I need more variety, thats why I joined the Dominance War (albeit for the other side because I wasn't aware of polycount at the time). After that I'll probably do a creature and something hi poly to round things out.
Thanks for pointing out the flat facial textures, I'll go in and touch that up.

Tully

Your models seem quite well proportioned, though I'm not one to critique on their construction. The texturing skills could probably use some work. They're quite good with helping the form and detail of the model, but the colours seem very patchy and seperate. As well as a bit of "white for highlights, black for shadows" going on. Not so good an idea, as it leads to a great deal of flatness and boring.

A shadow for red isn't necessarily dark red or brown.. it might be bluish, purple or even a little greenish. It will also be affected by what's around it. If a character is wearing a blue shirt, the shadows cast by that shirt will have a great deal of blue in them. If white fur is next to orange skin (like in your thundercats model) there should be orange light in the shadows of that white fur. The amount that these colours affect other colours will depend on the reflective nature of the object, but even totally matte objects will reflect light. It's a matter of degrees.

Also a little dodgey-burny. I'd try to avoid using it for the most part, except maybe for things like metal, because they really do a horrible job at creating natural highlights/shadows most times. For skin, you probably want to steer clear of it, unless it's really subtle. It's not that you absolutely shouldn't use it, but be very sparing with it so people can't look at it and say "oh, you used dodge/burn!"

Skin tones are very complex too. Yours are looking sort of sallow. Linda Bergkvist has a very nice little tutorial about skin tones here

And were you in san fran for the CA.org workshop? I seem to remember the Technobabel name from there. I think I might've met you standing in a line, waiting for crits from Jon Foster.

Technobabel

Wow, thanks for the great comments Tully! Just the kind of thing I was looking for. After the Dominance War I think I'll do a bunch of studies to try and capture what your talking about.
And yeah, I was at the CA.org workshop. Were you one of the group of like 3 or 4 polycounters I was talking to for a while? Good to talk to you again, and thanks!

Tully

Dunno, it was probably that I was that tall, red-haired haired girl who was hanging out with the 3-4 polycounters.

And you're quite welcome Good to see you here!

Technobabel

Yep, I remember now.

SkullboX

The models look very solid, but they're a bit boring to look at in such production poses, not to mention they don't show any deformation. I'd rig them, or at least the ones you like best, and give potential employers something interesting to look at, especially considering not everybody reviewing portfolio's will have the technical knowledge people on this board have.

Good luck!

Technobabel

Great idea skullbox, thanks!

fritz

i'm not going to repeat anything that has been said. but i noticed on, for example, the girl w/the pink hoodie you broke the UVs right on the back of the legs. i would put the seam on the inside of the legs. not only would nobody see them, but you have a texture for the seam of the jeans right there anyways...perfect place to hide UV seams.