[Portfolio] Annie Bach - Character Art

Lulu

Hello Polycount -

I recently set up my character art portfolio and am looking for crits. I tried to go with the simplest, albeit a bit boring, layout possible. I haven't applied anywhere yet since I'd like to add another character or two, and I'm not quite sure if my work is going to be competitive enough in this market. Crits and comments on my current work are greatly appreciated!

www.anniebach.com

Also, I am aware that the .doc & pdf links to my resume don't work, I'll be adding them shortly.

Thanks!

Art-Machine

Simple and functional, i think it's good. Though the .doc and .pdf links in your resume section aren't clickable for me.

Lulu

Thanks AM! I'm aware that the links to my resume aren't working at the moment (as I said in my OP) - but I'll have them up in the next week or so.

cdizzle

Hi, Annie. Cool work. Nice to see someone else go from biology undergrad to 3D art. Everyone thinks it's so weird!

SHEPEIRO

its good i think you could easily uograde it by improving your rendering technique, try some coloured lights and maybe a strong rim light and i think alot of these peices would look twice as good

NyneDown

In addition to what shepeiro suggested with the lighting, you could also bake out some ambient occlusion maps for your textures. Right now, your textures feel pretty flat and washed out. Adding an ambient occ. bake would really give it some depth and help you push your textures a bit more. I think your weakest piece is the Satyr. It does give your portfolio a piece showing male anatomy...but I dont think it's helping you any. The concepts that you modeled from (from lionhead and arena net) are pretty sick. I think you could have really pushed those models to give them more forms and a better sense of weight. Your dinobeast is awesome man...I really like those bright saturated colors.

As for your site, it's easy to navigate and functional so I likey. The colors are a bit bland but that's probably just a nitpick. Keep it up though...looking forward to seeing some more work from ya

Lulu

shepeiro/nynedown - Thank you guys for the crits. You're definitely right about my rendering and lighting, I'll be sure to go back and work on my presentation. I should also get more familiar with engines, so this is probably a good kick in the butt to get comfortable with UE or marmoset and do some rendering from there.

I also agree that the Satyr is my weakest piece, I was debating including it in my portfolio at all. I'll either pull it out, or at the very least, replace it with my next piece.

cdizzle - good to see I'm not the only bio major turned artist! People think it was an odd choice so I can definitely relate, lol

Thanks again guys I really appreciate getting some objective feedback

Art-Machine

I would suggest marmoset. Learning to set up lighting and environment stuff was a headache for me in U3, and I'm a pro that had worked with assets in U3 before.

Marmoset is pretty good for quick set up of assets that don't need anything too fancy shader wize. Plus you'll find lots of support for it on this forum.

Lulu

Thanks AM, great to know. I've been really impressed with the marmoset renders I've seen so I'm glad to hear that the learning curve isn't bad. I'll definitely check it out.

Art-Machine

Most of the challenge you will find with marmoset are the not-yet-user-friendly roughness of some of its quirks. For example you'll need to have all your files in the same folder as the program. There are several alpha and double sided / shadow problems.

But if you have a read through the marmoset thread you should be fine. Definitely easier than Unreal3 for beginners.

Slave_zero

I think the best pieces are the dino beast and the gremlin.
I would suggest to either rework the textures of the first three pieces or leave them out. With rework I mean that you have a nice painting style for the last two pieces. I would stick to this. I could imagine the first creature could be a really awesome piece of work if you put all the details and love into its textures like the gremlin or the dinobeast.

Muzzoid

They are pretty good models well done , but i would agree about the better lighting. Lighting is what can make professional work look ameturish and viceversa.
Another option that comes up pretty nice is just to use xoliul'ss shader, it has alot of really nice effects. I usually use either xoliul's or marmoset for looking at models, but it depends on what the specific model looks better in.
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=62006

Though i must say im not much of a fan of the website. Simplicity and minimalism is awesome, but when your entire gallery page minus the content is 8 words and a box i think that is too far.

Anyways they say a picture can say a thousand words... so here is a picture with words on it. I hope this helps and that the handwriting is readable . Keep in mind im not a webdesigner.





Also with thumbs, dont just default to a head shot, thats boring. Look for something a bit more intriguing and unique than a face.

pior

Hey Lulu,

You seem to have the technical sides of the workflow pretty much nailed down, so that's a good thing! Dragon beast is the best piece by far.

However I think you really need to push yourself when it comes to asset polish (lets say the last 40% of the pieces), and presentation.

Some of the sculpting feels rushed in places (I can see pinching/seams showing on the faces ...) and also, it seems like you went for a very default 'MayaLambert-ish' setup when it comes to rendering.

The texture work on your dragon shows that you have an understanding of rich colored shading. You should try to get that translated to your diffuse-only characters too (that white furry is shaded very greyish, thats a bit dull), AND, to your high spec pieces aswell.

By that I mean : avoid that black shading thingie. Have a look at some great illustrative painters. Sargent. Leyendecker. Rockwell. Brom. Kenneth Scott!! If you shade to black like that it will always look dull (except! if you have a very strong monochromatic sculpt, presented with cast shadows. In that case it can look great)

You have to prove that you painter's eye is almost as good as the one from the original artist behind the concept. See the watercolor quality of the fat whore concept? Try to get that on your model too, using extra lights, colored baked AO, messing with shader parameters ... painting over your screenshot until you get an idea of waht to aim for ... using different rendering tricks, as long as they are easy to reproduce in a real world engine.

In my opinion this is what will make you stand out.

Also, rig (or just Zbrush transpose) the models - seeing only Tposed stuff is quite a letdown when reviewing a folio.

Hope it doesn't sound too harsh! Best luck for what's up next.

P

Rens

what pior said +1


maybe see how it looks when you center your website instead of lineing it out to the left?
adding a border around the images to spice it up?

butt_sahib

Great work,
have you agree with everyone here. Great crtiz

Just to add to the polish and presentation, definitely try the marmoset engine. What i hated the most about yoiur portfolio was how you lacked the "final polish". Take your flats for eg. you didnt bother to use the magic wand. Doesnt look professional imho. Again,take some seams i see which shouldnt be there (like the nose). Thats a seam you should not have on a character.

Excellent work overall. Im sure youll find marmoset doing great things for you

BradMyers82

I also agree with all the crits so far.
Just to add, if you re-work your first creature, you might wanna strive for something like this guy recently posted: http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=64164

Lulu

I gotta say I am so glad I posted my portfolio here. You guys are invaluable, I really appreciate everyone taking the time to critique.

I definitely see what you guys mean about the final polish, it is something I struggle with (I get something most of the way done then I hit a brick wall as to exactly what I need to do to really finish it). I'm going to spend some serious time going back and polishing up my textures and working on overall presentation.

Also thank you for the website suggestions! I threw it all together pretty quickly so it looks pretty sad, lol. I really like your paintover and will probably move in that direction. I was hesitant to go with anything other than simple headshots for the thumbs though, as I'd rather they were identifiable/readable even at the cost of intrigue. I hadn't heard of Xoliul's shader but I'll definitely check it out.

pior

Good luck with it all, and keep us updated!
Also be sure to post your next creature up for critique!

P