Lamb to the Slaughter
So I'm remaking my portfolio website. Anyone wanna take some cheap shots at areas I can improve? What I should focus on? How I should present myself? etc?
http://www.jasonseabaugh.com
http://www.jasonseabaugh.com
Replies
http://www.saturnite.50megs.com/freerider.jpg
http://www.saturnite.50megs.com/Nadal.jpg
before, done better. I haven't been around that long, so I dunno how many else are in there, but I don't see how letting everyone know you've failed two art tests will work in your favor.
That might sound mean, but you're gonna get judged much more harshly looking for work -- if you show that other people won't hire you, why would company x want to?
Drop the enter page and main page. The first thing an employer should see is your portfolio and link to resume (unless you can fit both on one page). The less clicks people have to make to see your work, the better your chances are. Anyway, there's no way (other than back) to return to those two start pages, so I reckon you see them as useless as I do.
Old Work
It's good for your personal records, but bad for a portfolio. You may have heard the phrase "you're only as good as your worst piece."
Focus
What exactly do you want to be? In my opinion, your 2d work stands out as your strongest point. A concept artist might be the right direction, but your portfolio also features environments, characters, and animation. It's great that you have the ability. Unfortunately, most jobs are focused into concept art, environments, characters, or animation.
If it's actual game art you're looking to make, environments are the way to go because studios tend to have more environment artist than characters. That said, if you were up against someone of the same 3d skill level, your good 2d ability would probably put you ahead of them in the stack.
Now if you're really into making 3d game art, start working on some good, full portfolio pieces that are IN A GAME (unreal engine is great for this). If it's concept work, focus your portfolio more towards that instead.
In conclusion, I'd change your index page to two (2) rows of four (4) thumbnails. Four of your BEST 3d works (env and/or character is ok for now) in one row, and four of your best 2d works in the other row. Include your name, contact information and link to resume. If you can tighten it up to one page with resume and no scroll bar, rats off to you, sir.
If you haven't read it:
http://www.thejonjones.com/2005/10/07/your-portfolio-repels-jobs/
As SupRore pointed out, a failed art test should never be in a portfolio. If you pass, no need to put it in as you'll be making much more great work for that company of the same style.
As for actual art critiquing. Right away I noticed how clean your environments were. And I mean clean in an unnatural way. There didn't appear to be any dirt or grime collected anywhere. It's like the entire city was just washed with some soap and water and is completely squeaky clean. Even very well maintained areas will still have weathering, stains, and other junk building up all around. There are also no props, no trash, just nothing around. It's quite boring. There's a lot of things you could do to spice up the scenes. For example, a way to make the road more interesting would be to throw a pothole decal here and there, a sewer lid, some patches where maybe the road crews patched up an old pothole. Make your environment have a history. It could tell you a story explaining why it looks the way it does now. LoL I know this is probably a little over kill, but really thinking about that stuff can help you come up with some great ideas.
Next - Shaders. Did you use any in the city shot? it looks like every material in the scene is just a diffuse map (windows excluded). You'd be hard pressed to find a game studio that doesn't use Normal/Bump maps, spec maps, emmissive maps, etc. etc. (except for maybe on handheld titles). So I would certainly look into that.
And lastly, you have super harsh edged shadows (particularly in the city again). Although the sun can cast some really hard shadows, all in all, the shadows that are casted from the sun will most likely be a lot softer/fuzzier than that. Especially if it were a cloudy day, you can have almost no hard shadows at all. Just seeing the really hard shadows like that always (in my opinion) screams out "I'm a 3d scene" which you want to do your best to get people so immersed in your scene that they don't have that thought in their head (quite so much anyway
Sorry to ramble on, hopefully it was helpful.
J
For your concept pieces you may want to think about having some more styles in your work. All of the first works that I see seem to be fairly underdetailed anime-esque stuff. Anime is not the best of styles to get a job with. Also, in general I find that it seems like your work tends to be cartoony, which is fine, but it seems to generally lack detail.
Also, your texturing is in need of some work. There is very little detail shown in any of your textures (Environments or characters).
And, just a thought, but it may be a good idea not to advertise in your resume that you've done erotic furry art. Especially when you have a theme of furries throughout your art. It may not matter for every company, but it could be a deterrent to hiring you for some places. Say that you were a comic book artist, just leave out the bits about bunnylove and erotica and such.