[Portfolio] - Victor Cortis, Modeler
polycounter lvl 9
http://victorcortis.com
Hey, I'm an aspiring Character/Environment modeler graduating in one semester from Purdue University. I just returned from Siggraph 2009 and after talking to Sam from Insomniac games learned of this forum.
I'm looking for critiques on absolutley everything on my website from demo reel, to portfolio page, to resume, etc.
I'd also love to hear any advice you can give me on modeling.
I'm very concious of my poly counts as of lately, but have been hearing that poly counts DO NOT matter in demo reels, that just showing your ability to model the object with correct edge flow is what matters.
Thank you.
Hey, I'm an aspiring Character/Environment modeler graduating in one semester from Purdue University. I just returned from Siggraph 2009 and after talking to Sam from Insomniac games learned of this forum.
I'm looking for critiques on absolutley everything on my website from demo reel, to portfolio page, to resume, etc.
I'd also love to hear any advice you can give me on modeling.
I'm very concious of my poly counts as of lately, but have been hearing that poly counts DO NOT matter in demo reels, that just showing your ability to model the object with correct edge flow is what matters.
Thank you.
Replies
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=39516
EDIT:
So far my biggest critique of your site is that it's way too hard to get to any artwork, I've been clicking and waiting and so far nothing... dumping the flash plugins would be the first order of business.
It would be best to just put all your artwork right in my face as soon as your page loads.
Hope that helps at least a little
Don't split your portfolio in too much subsections. Maybejust differ between Modelling, Drawing and Digital Painting.
To your work:
Nice drawings. Akthough I don't like the Digital Panitngs. Those pieces are much weaker compared to your drawings. I'd suggest to get rid of the fantasy Environment and the "Death is upon him" Image. They don't benefit your Portfolio imo.
If you are aiming for an charakter-artist position then this field should be the main part in your Portfolio. At the moment there are just three Charakters. Three Charakters will be enough if they are really over the top and outstanding. So maybe pimp the charakters you already have or do additional stuff.
The textures of your charakters leave much room for improvement. The goblin's Skin is pretty flat with few details. Look at different kind of Snakeskin, Dinosaurs or what ever. Thiose references will help you to get it more interesting.
ALso you should document your charakter-workflow a little more: Show some wires, show some textures. Give a polycount (maybe I just didn't see it?) Show some highpoly-meshes.
The Environment-Assets:
Besides the jungle-Scene they are unfinsched. Post wires, textures and polycount of the jungle scene. Finish the others.
Edit_ I think polycounts do matter. It shows what you can achieve under a certain restriction. It's the same with Texture-resolutions. When working in the industry you will always have to do your work with a triangle-limit and a textur-resolution-limit.
I think it's an important to show that you can achieve great results although there are tight limitations.
I'm in the process of creating all new characters/environments to showcase my skills better. The 3 characters you see are the only 3 I've ever done, with the two humans being stylized.
I do have all my progress saved for every project I've ever done, so I'll upload some pictures of my workflow and give polycounts.
As far as polycounts go you make a great point. As soon as I get the chance I'll try to create a character with some heavy poly/texture resolution restrictions.
The goblin was my first attempt at that with 12k tris and a 2kx2k texture resolution.
Thanks for all the comments/critiques so far. (it'll take me a while to update the site though)
- The banner thing on the homepage that switches between images went faster than the pictures could load, though that could just be a side-effect of my connection.
- It took two clicks before I could access any of the content on your site. That should be zero clicks. Get your work all up in people's grills. Get rid of your home page and put your best work there. Make accessing any content on your site require a single click.
- When I went to open one of your images, I got a loading screen. That sucks. I want pictures and I want them now. If that means directly linking to the image instead of using some sort of Lightbox-type arrangement, that's fine. You could try putting all the images of a piece on a single page and then have the thumbnails link to anchors on that page.
- Bright colors on black backgrounds hurt my eyes because of the contrast. Fairly light or neutral cholor schemes make Mr. Eyeball happy.
And do some color correcion on those. They look a bit washed and they're TOO big. I'm on a 1920x1200 monitor and they show up too damn big, and when it's that big, you start to notice lack of detail in some areas.
And make sure to make your art as easy as possible to see. When someone is reviewing portfolios for a job opening, they do it by the hundreds, so please, don't make them wait for yor art to load up. Prioritize. They want to see your work FIRST, then if they like it, they'll want to learn about you. I'm on 2mb/s cable and it takes a lil while for your pictures to load. Not a problem for me, but definately a problem for someone who still has 50 portfolios to look at in an hour.
Now about the work itself - The fight sequence, even though you modelled all those props, it just looks like you ripped them off Mirror's Edge. Make it stand out as your own work!
And a problem that I see with all your stuff - It's all too soft. The stone wall is just a visual mess because they're all too shiny and the rendering could've been better. They have no hard edges at all! And since it was built by men, that's a big problem. Even though it could've been worn down by centuries of rain, it'd still retain some hard edges.
The "tile" wall, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have been worn down at all. It has no stains, no moss, just a green noisy and shiny thing. Natural environments are way too hard to make, so get some really good reference, like the Uncharted environments.
The vault door has barely any differente between the first and second pictures. If it's animated, you should show a video of it. Why not start your reel with the door opening? You'd be both making a transition effect and showing work.
The characters also looks too round and soft and cartoonish and generic. There's nothing visually interesting with them. No beard, no funny hat, no pipe, no scars, no big belly or ripped jeans. If you didn't tell me it was a crooked cop, I could never have guessed. He doesn't look crooked, he looks like the friendly bald next door.
Try to put some personality on those. Criminals live in vice. They might be heavy drinkers, drug users, overweight, have terrible taste on clothing or wear excessively shiny accessories. They tend to exagerate on something.
Sorry if I'm being too harsh, but these are things that I think you should really work on. You obviously have a lot of potential, I just feel that you need more references. Make yourself a folder and save all the work that you like on it. You'll soon notice why you like it and get ideas on how to make your work better.
The characters unfortunately had to be modeled that way, since they were animated with motion capture (we had the rigs first, and I had to model around the rigs). They're based on the exact proportions of the actors who were in the capture sequence.
I'll keep that in mind for my future models though.
Big thanks to everyone again for giving me these critiques. I can't tell you how invaluable it is to have an outside perspective on this. Your friends, family, and colleagues are seldom willing to give you the cold hard critique. They also are a bit jaded to the University World, and not the real world.
Thanks again!