z0rR: portfolio C&C

El Z0rR

http://benweatherall.wordpress.com/

I think what I have at the moment it a lot of works in progress and nothing really "....WOW AMAZING!!"

I'm wondering what I should focus on in particular, what pieces are better, If I should add drawings and whatnot, or just any thoughts about it you have in general.

joe gracey

You have more character art than environment art so it looks like you wanna do that more. I would get rid of the dumpster then.

Cojax

If you are aiming for an environments position you need high poly work in there. If you want a character position you need some high poly work. Its all depends where you want to work I guess. Looking at your portfolio It looks like you want to work on DS / circa 1998 games?

Wilex

I think you should finish off your projects or remove them if you don't want to finish them, keep unfinished work out of your Portfolio and don't put it in until its finished.

Moving on I think you should start a new project or make one of your projects a real show piece. Put a good ammount of time into something from concept to completion. Show your concept drawings and designs then create it but make it elaborate something to really show off your talents wether it be enviornment or character based.

Another thing to consider is what you would like to specialize in characters or enviornments. Character art is very competitive because there arn't as many positions available compared to enviornment and prop artists. Either way really challenge yourself and create something impressive. Also consider you piece with current generation game specs Xbox 360, PS3, PC or if your really enjoy lower polly work go for something geared towards the Wii and post your progress for critiques.

Good Luck

El Z0rR

Thanks guys.

Yeah a lot of the game companys around Melbourne where I live seem to do quite a lot of DS / PSP type stuff and I find it fun to try and make those kinda models so that's why I have all the low poly stuff in there.

Though I realise that eventually I'll have to get better at next gen stuff anyway and I haven't really done a lot of high poly normal map type stuff. that's why I'm working on the wheelie bin.

as for specialization my problem is (at the moment);
I like making non human characters like animals (i'm still working on my figure drawing skills in the mean time though), but I understand that most characters are human/realistic and everyone seems to want to be a character artist these days.

Also I like making props a lot but not so much making whole environments.

Do you think that's a bad thing? or do you think I should just go "i shall be an environment artist!" and just go all out making different scenes.

JasonLavoie

Ha ha El Zorr you sound exactly like I did when I was trying to figure out where to focus. I loved working on Handheld spec characters, but knew that the industry required high res modeling to even get looked at twice.

So I made the switch over to environment artist, knowing that once you get comfortable with high res modeling, I can progressively make the jump back to character modeling. Sounds like though you do have some local studios that focus on handheld games which is a plus for you if you want to focus on that area.

The one thing that I was told is try not to back myself into a corner... Yes its great to do the lower poly stuff, but you should still have the skills (if needed) to deliver high poly assets if asked.

So I say try and contact some of these companies and ask what they are looking for in a character artist (or 3D artist in general because you may have more roles then just modeling Characters... possibly props - lighting etc.) and tailer your portfolio to that.

Or you can quietly slip into the environment artist role and pump out some awesome props / little scenes to show that you are capable modeler / texture artist... or as others would say, show that you are a "valuable" artist.

You defiantly have a nice style that would fit stylized handheld / Wii games (texture wise) and it looks like you're comfortable with lower poly modeling which is good to see. If you're getting into that mindset about getting a job, then I say buckle down and start focusing on either Character Art (remember to e-mail the companies) or switch over to environment work to help get your foot in the door.

Good luck buddy

LEViATHAN

I think you should get rid of that pop-up thing when you hover over the images, it's terribly annoying.

El Z0rR

Thanks JasonLavoie

LEViATHAN wrote: »

I think you should get rid of that pop-up thing when you hover over the images, it's terribly annoying.

A pop up thing? I didn't notice, but probably because I have a firefox script blockerer plugin thing. I'll look into it, thanks for letting me know . I'm more focused on the content at the moment, I can fix the presentation when I decide what pieces to put up/ what i'm doing.

LEViATHAN

Well it looks like this.

JasonLavoie

Yeh.. for some reason wordpress does that, and I don't know if you have to manually turn off that stupid pop up crap (I didn't see if because I turned it off awhile ago).

Zorr check wordpress's options, see if you can turn it off