First online portfolio

Enix

Just made my first online portfolio the other day and I think I need some crits on how to make it more accessable and all around sexier. So let me know if you have any ideas.

http://brentjc.info/

Basically, nothing is complete. I haven't added all of my work or my resume and contact info yet.

Also, should I add a w.i.p. section?

Wilex

It looks alright to me. Sometimes less is more. Just add the rest of your work and resume/contact info. Maybe a PDF download version of your resume. I would keep the WIP on a different page than the rest of you gallery. Also all the work you have posted looks like fan art maybe try some of your own character designs. Show your concepts with the final product.

Nice texture painting.

dippingsauce

Personally, I don't like the dark desaturated thumbs, especially against your dark bg... Your texture work is lovely and vibrant but the thumbnails don't give me an idea of that straight away~

But yes, apart from a bit of a dreary colour scheme, I really like your work, Vivi and Ichigo particularly

Enix

Yea, I will have the wip section as a different page, just wasn't sure if i should put one in.

and yea, most of my work is basically fanart . I do have a few commercial pieces I will put up soon to balance things out a little.

I do agree that the desaturated thumbs don't really work, I will change that. Glad you guys like my work ^_^.

One thing I wanted to ask is do you think I should bother adding the numerous props I've done for various mods? Maybe have all the props I've done as one page or something.

Wilex

Yes add your props but keep everything on the gallery page. You don't want to have your work buried in your website.

Generalvivi

You made a vivi model.... soooo... yeah..... I'm sold love it!

Enix

I'm mostly done with it, changed it up a bit, added a navigation bar.

Richard Kain

I like the structural changes you made. On the one hand, you can't see as many of the models at one time now. On the other hand, you can see a lot more of each individual model. And this format seems to be much less cluttered than the previous one. The preview pics at the top are also a very nice size. Just large enough to give you an idea of what they are.

Slainean

I agree you should change the thumbs to be more colorful. I think it would look nicer if you flipped their functionality so that they become grey when you mouse over them instead. Same for the navigation buttons. You have a generally neutral color scheme, so the extra color will help it look nice and be more eye catching.

I think you picked a nice clean layout for presenting your work, so I think the layout's a keeper. However, there is some visual conflict because the thumbs are centered, the buttons and images are left-aligned, and the banner graphic is right aligned. I would probably keep everything centered except the banner text, and make the banner images stretch all the way across.

Anyway, the work itself is pretty solid. You can see quite a bit of progression in your texture work especially. I would also like to see you do some original pieces, too.

JasonLavoie

Enix much better buddy, much better

Personally I would take out a couple of pieces though, Gir, Nobody Character, Grey fox and the Frog, not that they aren't good, but judging from your other pieces, the texturing and appeal seems to be a bit lower.

Another thing I gotta say is your texturing has a great clean stylized feel to it, the Pokemon character is brilliant man. The only issue I have right now is to try not to back yourself into a corner. It shows in your current work that you are great with lower res modeling / texturing, now its time to spread those artistic wings and challenge yourself to more high res modeling... current / next gen. This will show to potential employers that you are comfortable with both low and high modeling and texturing

Just remember to be diverse with your work and always aim for the best buddy. I'll make sure to follow your progress

Enix

@Richard Kain: Those navigation thumbnails were sooooo much fun to make too XD.

@Splainean: Well the reason behind the desaturated thumbnails is to not divert attention from the content below them, so having them in color only when you mouse over is perfect. But I do agree with the thumbnails being centered does look kind of wierd, I will fix that. I only have one original piece up there atm, the frog. Its kinda sad because its probably the worst model up there. I do have an original piece in the works (not my concept but was made for me to model), you can see it's silhouette on the WIP page.

@JasonLavoie: The only reason I kept a few of those pieces up is because I plan on applying at companies that do DS and PSP spec stuff, I love doing that kind of stuff but I don't have a lot of it to show. I kept nobody up there because it's my only attempt at realism that I thought went kind of right.

I would honestly love to get into high res and normal mapping stuff but I'm clueless on how to generate normal maps and how to do high res stuff in max, without zbrush. But, I'm glad you liked my stuff, and I put a lot of love into that pokemon .

nitzmoff

Some other folks have mentioned this but I'll toss my cents in all the same. As someone that goes through dozens of portfolios every week I'll say that having almost nothing but fan art is going to hurt you some. A well rounded character artist can come up with creative stuff on their own. Try some original concepts.

Remember that the more original the concept, the less I can compare it something I already know. Take your Sonic model for example. When I see it I immediately compare it to the Sonic I see in my head and it almost by default is not yours. The Sora model is another example. There you have a nearly PS2 spec Sora- so I'll usually ask 'what's the point?' If I want to see that I'll play the game and see the perfect version of it. Again, it's perfect because it's the original.

I can't stress enough how much a cool style and original work goes in judging a portfolio. I personally groan every time I click on a thumb and am greeted with a bald space marine, SWAT dude, Nazi, dumpster, crate, futuristic crate, etc. Your interests clearly are elsewhere, so go nuts with some new stuff.

D4V1DC

Just an idea if you don't want to get rid of the work from your site make a new button and call it something like old/past work just incase they want to see your progression with your newer (original) art and you still want to post all your completed work.

All your art Looks nice as well as the site.

kinikuR6

I don't mind seeing a model of Sonic or Sora as long as YOU put your own creative spin on it. Nitzmoff is right in that seeing a clone of these models just doesn't make much sense.

Don't get me wrong...your modeling and texturing is great! You definitely have skills to be an artist for DS/PSP titles. Adding in a few original characters would be a good idea and personally I think you would do a great job of it.