[Porfolio] - breakneck

breakneck

Hey everyone, here is my game art portfolio:

www.durbin3d.com

I will be graduating in 2 weeks from Ai San Diego, and I'm out into the real world! I am currently looking for a job so any critiques on my work or my site would be great. Also any suggestions to types of projects that I could do to really show off my skills would be helpful.
-anyways, thanks for looking and enjoy!

Microneezia

cool man I really like how you solved the corrugated roofing in the shanty town domicile, I think I remember a thread on that.... looks great and pretty cheap too. at 3k tris that looks really great.

Good luck man! you look employable to me, but I has no jobs for you

your skills are in environment for sure, so Id do props and environment in a different style... or try larger landscape outdoor environment rather than decorative props.. just suggestion. also get stuff in a game engine should help.

BradMyers82

Hey man, a really nice start you have here. The website looks great, I don't think you have to change anything there. Also, I'm really impressed by your work, my only suggestion is to possibly cut the xray dentist chair and possibly the art tests, just because its not quite as impressive as the rest. Nice job and good luck!

breakneck

Microneezia: cool thanks, I wasn't sure if i should just bake down the roofing, but the poly count wasn't to bad so I left them as is. I am working complete environments as we speak, but they are both indoors so I might try something outdoor style. thanks for the comments!

BradMyers: I agree about the xray machine and chair, I will probably remove that as well as the chinese food stand. they are older projects that just don't really hold up compared to my newer stuff.

Microneezia

I suggested doing an outdoor scene cause in enviroment work I see some major areas of pidgeon holing, of which 1 person would be required to deliver on all supposedly.... 1. indoor 2. outdoor 3. props (which is huge) then sub catagorized from there generally like: organic / hard surface..ect so if all you are worried about is working, id try to hit all those major areas in some capacity and in different styles, which is obviously insanely daunting. but anyway your stuff is really good so dont listen to me, just keep it up.

Microneezia

Hey man,

I took an even closer look at your site and I just noticed that everything is uniquely unwrapped cept for, ironically, it looks like the organic tree might be tiling? Id like to see the UVs from that tree man, it looks phenomenal. Its my favorite piece actually. Id love to see an outdoor area in that style.

You have a really good grasp of both hand painted and photo sourced texture creation, im jealous.

You could very easily have used tiling textures on your shanty town though. I would look into that soon and get a large piece done with a tiling texture. Its pretty necessary from what I hear, plus its much faster..

breakneck

Microneezia:
yea the tree is tiled something crazy like. its not perfect by any means but it got the job done in the required time to make it:



I have been looking at some concepts over on the freakygames web site for some good stylized outdoor evironments to pratice on. I know tiling textures is my weakest point at this time because I'm stuck between unique normal mapping vs. uv space optimization.

Microneezia

haha, nice tiling! I was right, the organic piece is tiling and the structures are unique. You may want to reverse that in the future from what ive seen usually organic shapes (with rocks/mountain walls and other exceptions) are unique and manmade structures are tiling.

I hear ya, I havent tried to put unique normal maps on a seperate channel from my tiling diffuse yet either... its something I need to get used to, mapping on multiple channels... like a lot things its out of my comfort zone... but starting out, I dont really have a comfort zone anyway

Cojax

Looking good man. You are off to a great start. Remember you are only as good as your weakest piece. Take out your weakest pieces and challenge your self you go beyond your current skill set. You might be surprised at what comes out.

You are showing a wide variety of styles in your portfolio. Some might think this isn't a bad thing, I tend to feel it weakens your portfolio. Ask your self what studio you really want to work for (with in reason), look at an artists portfolio that works at that studio and try your damnest to copy his or hers quality of work.

Good luck

breakneck

I need some fresh eyes on this:
is it portfolio worthy? or is it as crappy as i think it is?

also, DAMN it looks way more saturated in the post than it does in photoshop.
does it look any different than this one to anyone else?:
(click on this link for a less saturated version) http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j298/breakneck_rust/?action=view&current=senproj.jpg

breakneck

update:
took out the xray/chinese food stand
added a marmoset render to the bungie test page

Pope Adam

dammit i wrote a long post and it got erased on accident lol!

short version:

it doesn't look too saturated
if you dont like it, keep messing with it (try new lighting)
your portfolio doesnt have any "environments" so put your damn environment in it!!

your bungie test is badass

adam

breakneck

Pope: yes sir, will make environment!
updated the building - fixed brick color and made it a marmoset render

Spug

I second that adam...THAT ART TEST FOR BUNGIE ROCKS!!!!! I assume you did not get it, would you mind telling us folks why, and what they said?

breakneck

Spug: all i got was a "thanks but no thanks". But I've got a friend that works there that said they are/or were in a hiring freeze so I don't know if that made any difference. However there are enough "problem areas" in that project that could of been the deciding factors of why they didn't want to hire me. for example I could of used my UV space way better - my texture is pretty muddy. Ya live and learn!

TheMadArtist

I really dig your work. And you've got it laid out very nicely on your site. The bungie test and the shanty buildings turned out great.

Ajax

Digging that tree and crane assembly man

breakneck

TheMadArtist: thanks for the comments, glad you like the layout and my work!

Ajax: glad you like!

breakneck

are these environment pieces something I should put into my portfolio or is the bloody mess thing a turn off for portfolio stuff?

gamedev

are these environment pieces something I should put into my portfolio or is the bloody mess thing a turn off for portfolio stuff?

No idea what I'm looking at.

I'd say your stuff (both hand painted and photosourced) is nice for a grad. Now I'd say focus on more high quality assets for your portfolio. You've got just enough to show you can do the stuff, but need more examples to show you've nailed your workflow and would be an asset to company.

Best of luck.

-Tyler

breakneck

Tyler:
thanks for the advice, if it doesn't really read well then I won't put it up on my site.
-its a futuristic/mechanical sacrificial altar designed to look like a vag/speculum.

I'll try to knock out 1 maybe 2 more solid assets before GDC.

Rory_M

hey breakneck, I like you site, pretty easy to navigate. Also I hafta agree that your bungie test looks shweet. As far as the bloody altar and whether it would offend anyone, I guess it would depend on which company your applying for and if that style would be relevant to what they are woking on.

Good luck and happy hunting at GDC.

breakneck

well, I updated the site with the 2 complete environments that I have now. I added all the concept stuff to the bloody altar page so hopefully it will read better.
* also changed the order of the images on the crane page so that the finished piece is the first image, not the last.
moar critz plz!!!

ImSlightlyBored

breakneck wrote: »

Tyler:
thanks for the advice, if it doesn't really read well then I won't put it up on my site.
-its a futuristic/mechanical sacrificial altar designed to look like a vag/speculum.

I'll try to knock out 1 maybe 2 more solid assets before GDC.

just think that if it was in, you'd have to explain to people who interview you what it is meant to be, conceptually. Would you be comfortable explaining that? I wouldn't, and even if they hired you (and your work is solid enough man) you'd be long known as the bloody, vaginal obsessed artist...

just food for thought.
But I also stopped by to say your work is great man, really nice! I think your prop work is better than your environment/scenes though, as you need a defined point of interest really in these, and lighting is a bit flat. I don't wish to be harsh, just want you to know that because your prop work is really, really good. Really liked the eastern house thing, is there a chance you could split that down in to modular pieces to show more relevance in today's pipelines? Also, showing high poly source for that... hmm. I'm not 100% sold on that, just because the high poly isn't anything major, and most of that would normally be produced in crazybump to save time.

Again some of what I say is quite subjective so take as you will, but I'll reiterate for one last time that your work is really impressive.

whats_true

I didn't think that your mechanical room was completed because the grey you choose is so close to the default grey in Max

I would strongly suggest adding some other color to it so it doesn't look like so.

Tumerboy

ImSlightlyBored wrote: »

just think that if it was in, you'd have to explain to people who interview you what it is meant to be, conceptually. Would you be comfortable explaining that? I wouldn't, and even if they hired you (and your work is solid enough man) you'd be long known as the bloody, vaginal obsessed artist...

just food for thought.
But I also stopped by to say your work is great man, really nice! I think your prop work is better than your environment/scenes though, as you need a defined point of interest really in these, and lighting is a bit flat. I don't wish to be harsh, just want you to know that because your prop work is really, really good. Really liked the eastern house thing, is there a chance you could split that down in to modular pieces to show more relevance in today's pipelines? Also, showing high poly source for that... hmm. I'm not 100% sold on that, just because the high poly isn't anything major, and most of that would normally be produced in crazybump to save time.

Again some of what I say is quite subjective so take as you will, but I'll reiterate for one last time that your work is really impressive.

What he said. You've got some great work, but the mechanical altar is not your best. Aside from any subtext, it's hard to tell what's what, or what it's supposed to be. I'd drop it and let your portfolio be concentrated awesomeness (The crane, shanty buildings, and generator are all tits)

breakneck

alright: bloody mess removed

OldKid

Tumerboy wrote: »

What he said. You've got some great work, but the mechanical altar is not your best. Aside from any subtext, it's hard to tell what's what, or what it's supposed to be. I'd drop it and let your portfolio be concentrated awesomeness (The crane, shanty buildings, and generator are all tits)

TITS Hahaaa

Wells

ImSlightlyBored wrote: »

just think that if it was in, you'd have to explain to people who interview you what it is meant to be, conceptually. Would you be comfortable explaining that? I wouldn't, and even if they hired you (and your work is solid enough man) you'd be long known as the bloody, vaginal obsessed artist...

really? are you twelve? does the word vagina make you squirm? They're all adults, and they're all artists. They've seen mature-themed art before.

I don't think the piece is good enough to warrant going in - it's too confusing and not visually interesting. But I think the concept has merit, and you shouldn't ever balk at using art you've made if you're proud of it, regardless of theme.

I reeeeeeally like the tree. seems a bit on the heavy side, polycount-wise, but I love the shape and the texture treatment on it.

Good luck

Tumerboy

fair enough, but we once got a demo reel which was an animation of a giant penis monster raping and eating a woman. . . that person was not hired.

brokendragon

breakneck-

portfolio looks good. One thing though: Is there a way to look through the pieces of your work via a slideshow, rather than having to go back and choosing a new piece each time? If you do I missed how to do it. If you don't, I think that would be a great little addition.

Loren Broach

Hey Lawrence,

Duude, I love that wrench and that tree. Really awesome style.

Glad you got your portfolio up! Good luck on the job search.

breakneck

thanks for the comments folks,
I personally took the altar off the site because i felt it wasn't good enough. I didn't think I would be explaining it as a vag that eats people but its funny none the less.
Sectaurs: the tree tri count limit given was 2000 so I didn't attempt to optimize too much.
Tumerboy: wow- now a penis monster animation is a little overboard. That just screams unprofessional.

Brokendragon: do you mean like a next button function? if so no I don't have that but that is a good idea and I could add that pretty easily. Or are you talking about the lightbox style?

Keen: Whats up bro? yea, what has it been, like a year and a half later?? took me a while to start making things I felt portfolio worthy. glad you like it! means I'm getting better.

Wells

Tumerboy wrote: »

fair enough, but we once got a demo reel which was an animation of a giant penis monster raping and eating a woman. . . that person was not hired.

hahaha. but was it well done?

t4paN

The vag stays.

./edit your surreal 2d pieces are great btw, love them!