[Portfolio] Matt Link, Character Artist

mLink

I just recently re-designed my site and got some of my more recent work up there.
Feel free to critique the site, models/textures, or whatever you want.
I'd like to know what everyone thinks about my stuff, and if it's up to standards.

I'm currently looking for employment as a Character Artist.

MattLink3d.com


Thanks

StJoris

Awesome work, really polished stuff.
Tiny crit, there is some colour banding in thumbs and backgrounds of pictures showing here, intentional?

Tumerboy

good work, and nicely laid out portfolio.

Loren Broach

NICE! I really like your stuff man, good luck finding a job!

whats_true

Good stuff man. Really nice site!

achillesian

id's hiring

Bjoz

I liked the lot of your stuff man! Only thing I can think of was the showreel, it felt a little slow. But good content.

BradMyers82

mLink: Great job with the new portfolio site! It's way better than the previous one I saw a while back.

My only crit is the the gladiator guys robe looks too intense.

By this I mean, it just doesn't fit with the rest of the character, probably because you have so much lighting detail painted in the diffuse and specuar for the robe area.

I believe in this case, if you let the normals handle that area more, and less highlights on the robe, it would read a little better.

This is really the only thing I can think of to crit, so great job man! I'm sure it won't take long for you to land a job.

kies.matt

that sculpt of Robin Williams is sweeeeeeeeet
nice portfolio man

konstruct

Oh my God- I want to put my dick in your demo reel :P
the sea Shepard has some really nice character too!

Noia

Didn't check out your reel, but your portfolio looks great! I love the layout of the site too. Very easy to find everything. Nice to be able to download your resume in several formats. Your rocketbike should stick out more than the crate and nuke. Best of luck to you in the job market. I heard Bethesda's looking for a character artist and their requirements weren't hell bent on someone with an uber amount of experience like many tend to be.

Ged

really good stuff, how come the stuff in your real has no colour?

woogity

realy nice work man im a little curious on the pcounts of some of the stuff in your reel, a few of the pieces seemed just a little dense, that said, very clean and well modeled work

-woog

mLink

Thank you everyone that's taken the time to look at my stuff.
It's very encouraging

StJoris: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. I knew there was some banding in the thumbs (because of the great .gif format they're in), I'll go back and check the backgrounds though..I definitely don't want it in there.

Bjoz & Ged: I would say I'd go back and fix it being slow, but it's my reel from 2008, when I graduated school.

Brad: Thanks! I might go back and tone that down a little bit, I don't want it to be distracting from the rest of the character.

konstruct: Hey man, if you can get your dick into my demo reel, have at it. haha

jaball

excellent work! well done

b1ll

i like it!

Jeremy Lindstrom

Not sure about having the images scrollable, I had no idea there was more then one image on this page..

http://mattlink3d.com/galleryCharacters_doomRails.html

I clicked next and missed all the good work underneath the first image..

SubPablo

Good stuff man, but I think you should move the top two sections to the bottom. They aren't as strong as your creatures. I'd reorder the Characters in the Doom rails section by quality as well. Start with the redhead kid, he's the most polished looking. I'd actually consider removing the rest, but reworking them to better match the style of the kid could really pay off if you're up for the extra work. As is, they seem stylistically haphazard and in some cases unfinished.
Nice creatures, I'd order them: slasher>shepard>demon just like you have them, just at the top of the page.
I agree with the above that the cloth on the gladiator needs more subtlety, and the drapery on the back of the body looks a unnatural. The pose isn't deforming well on the lower body. He's getting a little bit of the tubey leg syndrome in the front view, but that could probably be fixed by just showing a shot rotated to either side a bit to see more bend in the leg. The waist seems a little awkward to me as well from the front view. It looks like his hips are square to the ground, which doesn't fit with the pose. overall, the pose feels good from the back, but awkward from the front.

Site-wise, I'd remove the prev. and next buttons like Dekard mentioned. That makes it too easy to miss the stacked images and you really don't want any potential employers missing some of your work.

-Good stuff man!

t4paN

Wow, this is a pretty much perfect portfolio imo. Great work, neat layout, nice. Also, like STJoris said, everythings polished to a T, which really brings the pieces out.

Quick tech question, which shader are you using that supports opacity?

mLink

jaball: thanks

b1ll: Thank you, that means a lot coming from you, your work is amazing!

dekard: I definitely see what you're talking about, I'll look into changing that up so people either know to scroll down, or something.

subpablo: thanks. a lot of the models from the first thumbnail were textured by different people, unfortunately the texture styles vary. I will probably go back and texture them myself at some point, just to make sure they all fit together. I'll probably re-order the models, it should be pretty easy to do.

t4pan: heh, thanks man. =] Most of the models were rendered in the Marmoset engine, for the characters I used the skin material, switch the blending mode to alpha, and move the alpha threshold slider at the bottom if necessary. In maya, I'm pretty sure this shader will do it.

t4paN

mLink wrote: »

j


t4pan: heh, thanks man. =] Most of the models were rendered in the Marmoset engine, for the characters I used the skin material, switch the blending mode to alpha, and move the alpha threshold slider at the bottom if necessary. In maya, I'm pretty sure this shader will do it.

Ah thanks. I'm using marmoset too, but brdf is not available for max. I should have looked at your resume it says there you work in maya heh.

Anyway yeah, I didn't even realize there were more assets in the first page for some reason as well like dekard said.

mLink

I'm back again with some updated images on my site.
I just added shots of my high res models on most of the character assets.
Looking for some more feedback on my work.. gotta step my shit up so some companies will actually be interested in hiring me.

Whatever suggestions/ideas you guys have are much appreciated.
I'm in the process of posing/giving a weapon to the biker character at the top of the page.

Thanks in advance



MattLink3d.com

NoChance

mLink wrote: »

I'm back again with some updated images on my site.
I just added shots of my high res models on most of the character assets.
Looking for some more feedback on my work.. gotta step my shit up so some companies will actually be interested in hiring me.

Whatever suggestions/ideas you guys have are much appreciated.
I'm in the process of posing/giving a weapon to the biker character at the top of the page.

Thanks in advance



MattLink3d.com

2 things

1. I hate you

2. How do you not have a job yet!?!?!?!

vcortis

Hey nice work, your portfolio looks good. If I had to say one thing that really stood out to me it would be that the silhouette on the gladiator is very weak for something that is 12000 tris.

I'd see if you can't make it a little bit more interesting... other than that awesome!

raul

besides your work being awesome, i was more interested looking at your presentation. On that i think you did outstanding. Very clean website! Good job showing the breakdowns.

keizza

awesome. i agree w/the gladiator comments above. the leg coming forward needs some more shape to it. and it seems that that same leg is not coming out of the hip properly? maybe?

that's RIGHT where my eye went when i opened that image up.....right to the front leg.
anyways......that's nitpicky. super aweseom work man.

mLichy

Yeah, awesome stuff man, great texture work . 2048's are pretty big though... not sure u'd get away with that, but that's not a big deal. You've definitely got the skills to get a job at most any game studio I would say.

mLink

NoChance- thanks, I think. I'm guessing it has a bit to do the job market right now, there are an abundance of environment artist job openings so I might be doing a few scenes to try and land one of those.. Though I'd obviously prefer a character job.

Vcortis- great suggestion, once I get back home after this week I'll Push the silhouette and do some optimizing on the models

Raul- thanks. . I went through a few preliminary ideas before sticking to that one. Gotta say a lot of it came from reading "your portfolio repels jobs". That such an amazingly helpful article.

Keizza- I'll shift that leg around and see if I can figure out what's wrong with it, you're right though, there's something that's off about it. Possibly adjusting the silhouette will help too.

Mlichy- Thanks man, nice to hear you like it and the encouraging words. haha, yeah 2ks are big.. Did a test and dropped them to 1k, and they still hold the detail even when zoomed in fairly close. I will go ahead and drop the sizes down, wouldn't want potential employers to think that I need that high of a resolution for my characters.

OrganizedChaos

Full Sail, eh? I've heard so many anti-full sail rants that it's great to see this kind of quality. I went through UCF and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Although the FIEA program seems to be getting a lot of praise.
It's kind of disheartening to see you've been looking for a position since September, I hope you manage to find something soon

Lee3dee

Awesome portfolio!

Sputch

Sweet!
That biker is excellent, really nice face. The gladiator is also pretty cool. I agree about the cloth and perhaps a bit heavy on the painted shadows (gives a bit of a previous-gen feel). Super cool critters too.
Some things I'd like to say about your site:
-Get some stills of the stuff from your reel in as quick as you can. (Not everyone will bother to wait for the download.)
-Upgrade that Dreamforge stuff quickly too. I understand the need to show professional work, but it is pretty weak right now and is hurting the overall impression. I'd be tempted to remove it till then.
-Ditch the cartoon bird and worm or seriously improve them. I got the rest of our character team to check out your site. When we saw those guys we started discussing this syndrome of wanting to show style variety, but not executing it well enough to make it worth it. Ultimately it ends up being a buzz kill after all the great stuff at the top of your site.

Anyway, I can see that you are very skilled, make sure everyone else can too.

mLink

OrganizedChaos - yep, went to fullsail. It was alright, while I was going through that school the only people complaining were the ones that didn't make any attempts to improve their skills on their own time. It was alright in my experience. Being in/near orlando was nice. I miss that for sure. Sorry to hear UCF wasn't too good

Lee3dee - thanks

Sputch - thank you. I really appreciate it, you have some really great suggestions. Definitely going to remove the weaker pieces, I don't want my other stuff to be reflected in a negative light because of it. Someti
es I forget that I have those models that are on my reel, because that was my college work. I will probably take the time to go back and texture them and optimize the models too, assuming I still have all the files. :poly122: