Preparing my site portfolio for gamejob search

Arlington_Cruz

Hi all
I am an entry level animation graduate and want to return to my animation and game job search. I created my portfolio website over a year ago and it needs a lot of work.
Here is my site:
http://www.abcanimation.org/

Thanks for reading and any feedback would greatly be appreciated.

p.s. And yes I am another indecisive one who likes a lot of things (Backgrounds, characters,modeling,texturing,animation,concept art, storyboards, etc).

TWilson

I like the way you edited your reel stories together.

The bottom right girl in the gallery section is rad.

I think you should work on your html layout ..the first page you see has strange spacing.

I also can't help wonder if there isn't a forum that would better serve you. Perhaps there actually isn't much else out there. One that comes to mind though is conceptart.org. There must be others.

Arlington_Cruz

Thank you so much for your feedback. I am going to work on the site this weekend. I Hope to have an update ready by Sunday night. By the way you have some really awesome characters on your site.

Thegodzero

I agree, i really see nothing thats game art. Have any game textures, props, or anything game art related?

Arlington_Cruz

Yes, I agree I do need to add 3d props, environments and game art related pieces on my site. I will be adding some 3d props, hopefully by this weekend and over the course of this week. Thank you guys, I am a rookie, but I definitely want to improve.

KonamiCode

I would have to echo Thegodzero's comments. Target what it is that you'd like to do at a game company, and focus your portfolio towards that. Do you want to animate? Your reel doesn't really show anything that a game company might be looking for in an animator, character motion cycles, player actions, etc. Do you want to model? Then focus on showing those pieces. Do you want to do character design? Then build a strong portfolio of a wide variety and styles of characters.

I've definitely been in the same position where you can't decide what you want to focus on/want to do it all. But deciding now and focusing on making a strong portfolio in what you want to do is worth the effort. Job Hunting/interviewing is difficult enough without the stress of sitting through a bad interview because your portfolio isn't clear.

Cody

It looks like you want to be an animator? Do some 3d animations. Here is a sweet commonly used free rig:
http://www.3dluvr.com/clisk3d/

Arlington_Cruz

Thank you guys, It's true that the point is getting started as a professional. Therefore, it is best to focus on one thing. My strengths have been backgrounds and props, therefore, I am going to try and focus on that for the moment. However, I am still learning to map textures in 3d models.
For 3d character animation, I just downloaded the low max rig. I want to still play with it and try it out after I upload new stuff to the site (aiming to finish by Sunday night. (I hope I can make it this time and not out talk myself with false promises and then feel bad later).

Arlington_Cruz

Ok It's Sunday night, So far I have only been able to update my site's layout a bit. I am going to be adding some 3d models of props and 3d backgrounds through the course of the week. Also I still want to try animating the low max character. Unfortunately, I have only been able to work doing 3d models in Maya on a friend's computer for the time being due to a post office shipping accident with my machine. I have had some issues installing 3ds Max on his Vista Os.

Sage

Nice 2d animation and drawings. I liked your enviornments as well.

Alex

Emil Mujanovic

Regarding the turn around of your ship... At what point did you think it was a good idea to put in the animated background when switching to the textured version of the ship? I personally would have left it as the flat gray you had the whole way through. At that stage I stopped looking at the ship and paid more attention trying to figure out what was going on with the background.
I also watched your animation reel, which isn't too bad. Some of the weight distribution in the walk cycles seem a little off (leaning too far forward, not leaning enough) and a bunch of it seems very rigid. But with time and more practice you'll nail those things.
Sorry if I sounded harsh with my crits, but these are important if you want to improve and/or get a job in the games industry.

-caseyjones

Arlington_Cruz

On the contrary, I appreciate all of your feedback. and am grateful to have serious experienced artists give me their honest opinion and critique my work as a rookie. This really helps me get better. Also thanks for the compliment Sage, although I still need to learn to map textures on models like you and the rest of the members have on your sites. I will attempt to upload some 3d models on Wednesday late night and the rest by the weekend Saturday and Sunday night. I'll also fix that issue with the background on the ship. Thank you again guys. I'll do my best to keep my promise on updates.

Sage

Not sure how much how help you need to get up to speed with the low poly work but here are a few sites that might help. Just look at then as idea generators though and try to develop your own method. By the way you have broken link on your image, file name smp03. It's point to your hardrive instead of your online directory. It's the second image in the middle row of the 2d section.

http://lounge.ego-farms.com/

http://www.twisted-strand.com/ut_tutorials/text_tut/index.html

www.poopinmymouth.com

Alex

Arlington_Cruz

Thanks a lot for those resources Sage. That really helps,it's all a matter of planning and time management. I was playing with a small reject prop I did for a freelance project a few months ago. However, I see that I am supposed to render with default lights and show wireframe. This was a cheesy lawnmower piece, But I need to look at real life objects to make things more convincing. Also I had been using Maya 64 since I am still having problems with 3ds max 9 on vista. Either way I am going to keep on working on this and render with wireframes and default lights .

Arlington_Cruz

Ok it's Wednesday night. I was unable to get any new updates tonight. Will attempt to work on fixing based on the feedback I have received through this weekend, but I don't want to make false promises. Thank you all for the input and help I have received to improve my work.