[Portfolio] EricChadwick

Eric Chadwick

2013 update:
Completely restructured my portfolio, looking for feedback.
http://ericchadwick.com/


The new layout


the old one

---

2008:

I'm redesigning and updating my site, looking for site design critiques mostly. Content is minimal at this point, but the site code is fairly complete.

I am looking for work as a game dev Art Director in the Boston area, but I'm not pursuing it actively yet. I need to finish posting my art on the site first.

Comments/critiques welcome.

Update: site updated, looking for work as a Lead Artist in the Boston area.

Farfarer

Nice looking site. Only comment is that on my screen the prev/index/next buttons are miles away on the right hand side, they're kind of out of the way. A max-width in the container div's css might help keep it all together.

Eric Chadwick

OK, easy enough. Thanks.

Eric Chadwick

Huh. If I set a 800px width for the containing block, then the buttons don't move to the left if the browser window is smaller than that width. Is there some CSS magic for floating right, but only maxing to that value, not fixed there?

Farfarer

Hmm, max-width: 800px; should mean that should mean that the div doesn't get bigger than 800px, but it should be able to get smaller than that. Although I think IE7 ignores it.

Maybe try setting buttons' parent div to be float: right; ?

StJoris

Nice stuff Eric, only crit I have is on the UI-design; the text you added is pretty unreadable, the green is doable in some way but the red is killing me.

Eric Chadwick

Ah I was using width: not max-width:
It works great now, thanks for this!

StJoris, sorry yeah that's the half-size resize causing this, original is 1600x. Not meant to be readable at web size, but will change those colors. Thanks.

Eric Chadwick

OK, changes made and uploaded. Those were great suggestions.

PolyHertz

Nice layout Eric. One thing I noticed though when looking at the pages source was that you have a reference to a favicon, though It's not appearing in firefox or IE6. No html expert, but this works for me:

<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="favicon.png">

Nice thing about this method is you don't have to export to an ico format, and can use a more standard ones like png (from example), jpeg, etc. instead.

Eric Chadwick

Thanks, I forgot about this. Well, it's in there now, but it seems IE7 doesn't want to show it. Oh well, very minor thing.

I wonder how this looks in Safari? Any mac users?

Tumerboy

Hey good site Eric. My only critique is uh. . . Boston!?

Come on out to sunny CA! We've got fires AND earthquakes!

Stubbs

Hi Eric,

Nice site design. It's simple and easy to navigate. One minor suggestion would be to put your contact info on the side menu bar, underneath where it says "Erik Chadwick Veteran Game Artist", rather than give it its own section. The site would be that much more simple and it would be one less thing the viewer/employer would have to think about.

Also, when browsing through the content, I keep accidentally clicking on your name in the top left-hand corner in order to go back to the index page. It just seems like it should do that to me. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make your name in the corner a link to the index page.

Eric Chadwick

Heh, I was born & raised in CA. Great state. Family's here now though, and we love the seasons.

Thanks Stubbs, I'll look into those.

pior

Hey Eric,

I would suggest picking either yellow or blue, but not both. At the moment it looks a bit like two websites stitched together because of that.

Can't wait to see it all filled up!

Eric Chadwick

Good suggestion, fixed the colors.

I nixed the idea of adding my contact info to the menu, I want to keep that area clean and simple.

Farfarer

Another neat CSS trick for hover images is to create one image that contains both states of the hover, set it as the background image of the tag. Then with the :hover class for the tag, you tell the background image to raise up by half it's height, so it exposes the hovered state bit of the image.

It stops that pause while it loads up the hover image because the whole thing's already loaded up

Eric Chadwick

Sounds cool. How does one img tag store two bitmaps?

Farfarer

The image is just double height with both states in it. In this example, it's side by side rather than stacked on top, but the principal's the same.

http://www.hull-breach.com/Talon/img/menu_title.png

The normal state sets the link to be 162px wide, so you can only see the first half of the image (the other half being hidden because it extends beyond the bounds of the link).

#menu a.title {
	width: 162px;
	height: 75px;
	display: block;
	float: left;
	background: url("img/menu_title.png") no-repeat;
}

And the hover state moves the background 162px to the left, so that the hovered state is revealed.

#menu a.title:hover {
	background-position: -162px 0px;
}

BoBo_the_seal

looks great Eric and good luck!

- BoBo

Eric Chadwick

Oooh, thanks Talon. Yeah I remember seeing this trick somewhere else too, nice one.

Thanks too BoBo.

Eric Chadwick

Added some more things.

Eric Chadwick

More things. Curious if people find any bugs or broken links. Also open to feedback about the content itself.

http://www.ericchadwick.com/redesign/

MoP

Hey Eric, cool to see your site put together. Good luck with the job search

A couple of crits from me:
This page probably could do without the pencil sketch of the alien thing. It's not a great drawing by any means, and I don't think it's adding anything to the page - would probably be better off without it.

The images at the top of this page would probably work better with a light grey background rather than pure white. The white background is making it quite hard to read the text labels, and actually drawing attention away from the GUI itself.

All in all, a nice set of pages though. The site loads fast and is easy to use/read, I like that.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of some of the visual styles; the GUIs seem bevel/emboss heavy, and the underwater game has very garish colours, but I assume some of that came from client requests or time constraints rather than your own direction?.

Either way, it's solid stuff, and I can only offer very minor critiques in general

Eric Chadwick

Thanks MoP, good feedback.

Yeah, we had some disagreements with some of the direction the clients wanted for those games, but you also have to be a bit flexible when you have someone else footing the bill...

More pages on the way when I can get to it.

CrazyButcher

agreeing with mop on the sketch. And eventhough the models morph well in the video, the video itself is not the best presentation of the models. Ie without background and just the models morphing would be better imo.

very good job on their documentation so, you are really good at making that well structured.

Eric Chadwick

Thanks guys. I also gave the color concepts dark bkgs. Good call.

I agree, it's pretty muddy. I'll get a better vid up there.

Eric Chadwick

Adding some concept art, both some scans of older stuff and some new things.

Made this one earlier today.


Some sketches from an earlier project.

Eric Chadwick

Another concept added. The basic idea is the environments morph between each other as the characters morph.

Eric Chadwick

Ok, I think the site is done.
http://www.ericchadwick.com
I added a lot of content, removed the old portfolio, added references, etc.

I'd appreciate any feedback, also if you find typos or broken links.

Snowfly

I'm still going through the pages Eric, but what I see so far...is pretty damn impressive. What an art lead's portfolio should comprise of, in my opinion. Great problem solving skills, resourcefulness, and solid artwork to boot. Great stuff, a happy new job can't be far off.

Eric Chadwick

Thanks Chris! I'm off and running...

kary

Thats well presented and educational Eric The modifier handling on the palm fronds makes immediate sense and looks efficient.


On the resume I wonder about a style issue:
"[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,SansSerif]Worked with small art and programming team..."
versus,
"[/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,SansSerif]Worked with a small art and programming team..."

Minor style issue, but is there a reason for few "an's and a's"? It reads a touch choppy because of that to me, but with a resume that long you might want to save space where you can

[/FONT]Good luck, looks like the portfolio is in great shape. [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,SansSerif] [/FONT]

Eric Chadwick

Thanks kary. Yeah typical resume style, keep it as short as possible but sprinkle with the right search-query buzzwords.

Stubbs

Whoa, that's cool you worked on environments for Blade Runner. That's awesome, I love that game. Especially the environments in it.

JoshF

Hey, Eric

thanks for the great crits on my demo reel and site by the way. I like you site... it's straight forward and gets right to the point. I think i'd mess around with hierarchy still. Right now my attention is driven all over the page. Play around with the size and/or color of the navigation menu and titles so that the user can more clearly know what they're looking at. The index navigation buttons to the left are neat but I don't think they're necessary because you already have a navigation menu on the left. It's always easier for people to have one way of navigating rather then several. I can see what you mean about the bigger thumbnails... that's certianly a good idea.. .i'll implement that in my own site soon.

josh

Eric Chadwick

Thanks Josh. Yeah, focus might be a problem. I was thinking about implementing some kind of text label floating over each thumb (like the <> buttons use), and using a rollover state to uncover the clean thumb image. But I'm not sure it'll be worth the effort.

Eric Chadwick

Added some text to the buttons, makes it easier to find what you want, I think.

Also removed the upper-right buttons from the main pages, so they're only on the content pages. Much cleaner now. Thanks for the input Josh.

Stubbs, thanks. It was a fun project, got a trip to Vegas out of it too. Strictly business of course.

Eric Chadwick

I added game-logos to the thumbnails on the index page, I think it's a bit too busy, what do you guys think? I think it definitely helps advertise the games I've worked on though.

Eric Chadwick

I made a new Protean video so it's easier to see the transformation, old video was very dark and shadowy.
http://www.ericchadwick.com/img/protean_transform.html

I'm also playing around with a timeline. Thoughts?

Without timeline:


With timeline:


I think it's kind of a nice feature.

JoshF

Sites looking lots better... good job.

Farfarer

Site's looking pretty slick. I don't think you'd need a timeline, it seems a little overkill.

One thing you might want to think about is sub-headings for your thumbnail gallery.

Just now there's tech demos and game art and animation and interface design... all sorts jumbled together. I might be easier to browse if you give it a broad grouping, even something as simple as "Art" and "Tech". It'll help people know what to expect from each bit, too (e.g. people can tell which ones are a focus on your tech skills and which focus on your art skills - it's hard to tell exactly which is which at the moment).

Eric Chadwick

OK, thanks, I'll look into this.

I killed the timeline anyhow, CSS was getting ornery.

_Shimmer

interesting stuff man! I like some of your workflow techniques.
And whoo, I dig Blade runner still, loved the backdrops. inspired me a long long time ago!

you saw this?
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=55129
??

Eric Chadwick

Good suggestion on breaking it up into sections, did it and it looks good I think.

Yeah, thanks _Shimmer.

seanv

Wanted to say thanks for the info on free CSS template site.
It had a template that solved a problem I've had with thumbnails and text displaying correctly.

Congrats on your new site!

Nysuatro

Its more a personal taste but I think it will look better and will be better to read if you add some margin-bottom under every topic in your resume. This will create some space and can give a positive effect on the design.

Eric Chadwick

Thanks for the feedback.

Hmmm. The resume fills two pages as it is, so extra space would have to be for the online one only. I don't think I'll do that, though I do think I could simplify the Skills section, a bit wordy in there.

Eric Chadwick

No new art up yet, but re-organized the resume based on some feedback... I emphasized that I didn't constantly jump from job to job, made it clearer that all those projects were done while at Mondo Media. Also clarified the Skills section, simplified my LinkedIn profile, and added some references.

Thanks again for everyone's feedback, it's been very helpful to see from others' eyes.

Talbot

Looking good!

Eric Chadwick

Added new content to the site today, updated the resume, etc. And converted the wmv videos into flash video.

Feedback welcome.

System

Very nice Eric, especially like the Blade Runner visuals, it stood out quite magnificently
Only thing I can say is it would be nice to see some personal stuff on there too.