Mazvix: That's all well and good, but LoM Chaos has repeatedly been warned about spamming / flaming / unnecessary posts and generally being an ass to everyone who tries to help him. If he keeps it up much longer he's looking at a temporary ban.
He's already got more infractions than anyone else on the forums, and we don't just hand those out for nothing. He's also had several nicely-worded, friendly warnings to get his act together and he seems to ignore every single one.
Aside from the attitude thing, you are on the right track! Your work is technically pretty good! You wont get a job with this, but I do think you could get an intern position as an env artist with a little more content(a finished scene) in your portfolio.
I think you should work on a completed environment, join the Unearthly Challenge!
Maybe make a scene that doesnt have that grungy tech look, challenge yourself with new kinds of textures(I say this because I noticed all of your texture have grungy/noisy overlays).
It also seems the CCTV and LocalGov signs have the same lowpoly model, I can tell because there is one corner on it that isnt as round as the others. Perhaps you should put them in one image, its not the amount of work but the quality of them. To me this comes over as ' hmmm lets spend another hour on this so Ill have an extra piece on my portfolio'.
So in short my advice would be: Complete a scene, it shows determination, teaches you a lot of new tricks and you end up with a cool portfolio piece!
The work on your site isn't bad. You're clearly picking this stuff up. Stick to it. Keep at it. Do more, do better. As valuable as critiques can be for helping you improve your work, you should never take them personally and unless you have a really really good reason (and most of the time no one ever does) you shouldn't even try to defend your work. If someone has something negative to say about it, regardless of whether they can offer any helpful advice for improvement, then that's their opinion. They didn't like it. Nothing you say will change that. (Possible exceptions being things like misunderstandings in the general purpose of the work being critiqued-- like if you had to do something a certain way because it was a requirement of a school project or an engine limitation or something.) If they didn't like it, and you care what they think, then keep it in mind and try to do better.
It's an important point for the whole college thing (which I advise against anyway, personally-- but I'm nobody and it seems to work for some people) because college art courses that are worth taking will include a lot of critiques, and they're going to be harsh. The first college I went to was an uppity art school that liked the idea of getting as many freshmen as possible to quit. They scored with me because I wasn't ready for it. Don't let them do that shit. When they tell you you're not good enough in general and you have no future in art and they laugh at your career goals and try to get you to believe you're wasting your time-- my suggestion is to punch them in the face if possible*, but otherwise respectfully disregard their bullshit and keep trying to improve by doing whatever useful stuff they said and not doing whatever they didn't like. Just giving you a heads up, because I hate that style of teaching.
Don't post when you're unhappy or volunteer information about yourself or your opinions online either. I make that mistake all the time and it's lame. Don't do it.
*Don't punch faces either. I do not condone facepunching.
Uhm, wow, sorry. I had an extremley bad day yesterday and as I sit in school with a laptop I'm reading these posts. I realise how much I actually like you guys and how much you help. Darn this school! I wanna come talk to polycount some more.
You're not the first person to arrive at Polycount with an attitude. However, quite a few of the guys that did withstood all the pictures of cats, sloths etc, changed their posting style and have gone on to really improve. Some of them even landed a job in the end as a result.
I'm not a prolific poster here, but I am a long-time member and check the forums daily. It's an easy mistake to get overly familiar with people you might feel you know well from reading all their threads. Generally, it's best to stay objectively distant, until you HAVE actually worked with someone, then you can let rip. Of course, Per is the exception that proves the rule.
Guys, chill out. LoM Chaos. I'm guessing you're 16 from the information on your website but you're acting like a 12 year old. We're just trying to help.
I think your art is fine, although you really could work on the presentation. Try and make some decent viewport shots without the grids or anything else getting in the view. I'm not a fan of the in-game screenshots.
All the things about your attitude have already been said, and teenager-to-teenager; it's probably best if you don't list your age. All that's going to happen is you're going to lose some freelance work and people will end up incorrectly thinking that you are immature. Besides, age really doesn't matter here.
As for the portfolio itself, you have a few decent bits in there but it's just a couple props, and you really need some more complex stuff in there than just signs. Challenge yourself- find some complex concepts out there and go model them! Barrels and signs don't really show off your talent as well as a full vehicle or some other larger prop would.
Making something for the Unearthly Challenge would be a great educational experience and would give you a full scene to add to your portfolio. Don't say you can't because you "aren't good enough" or something, because you'd be doing it to improve your art skills.
You're also missing wireframes and tricounts from your presentation. Texture sheets are nice too. Another thing I would suggest is to put your name, email, and portfolio URL on all the images so that when employers save images, they can easily track down the artist who made them.
At polycount we have artists with varying degrees of proficiency. Pro, hobbyist? Young, old? Doesn't really matter. We're all in one big pool, held to the same standards.
Most people (myself included) don't care if you're 7 or 70 you're art will be evaluated on an equal level, regardless of any handicaps you might place on yourself. Same goes for your attitude.
I only bring up your age on occasion because you make such a big deal about it. Like we should somehow treat you differently or water down our critique because you're special?
Don't take too much pride in your age, its a pretty meaningless number that quickly grows once you leave high school. If that's all you're holding onto, it won't be worth much in a VERY short time.
I would remove the knife from the site being as its from a tutorial, use the same technique but use a different reference. Instead of having lots of little models why dont you wait for abit and build up an entire scene with break down pictures of all the models involved?
First of all I must say that its probably not comfortable situation for any of us, also if I were Chaos I would be mad and red like hell after reading so much pointers, so here at this moment I like to excuse for what I need to say.
Maybe it is not important how old is Chaos, but experience come with age. I always compered myself with other artists like so "ok I am bad right now, but I am young, when I will be old like they are now I will be better, or close to their level", but in the end those artist with age also improved so its like never stopping wheel You just need to spend plenty of time on making some tutorials, and chose those, which are most difficult, so you will learn faster. I try to explain your attitude to myself... and I cant, people on polycount are realy to soft on criticism, they don't tell you "your art is a bunch of crap" even if it would be, so you should be thankful for that. Stop for a moment, lower your head than rise again and be a new man. Its stupid, but maybe you should create new account, that would be easier way to stay clean and start everything one more time, and remember quality over quantity, say few but wise words, than many without sense
Once more time I would like to soory all of you wo tried to read and understand this post
konras I dont think making a new account is really the way forward, people at pc are pretty easy going and will wipe the slate clean if his attitude improved and took the crits constructively
Just hope you can clean your act up and really start to show respect for other artists, It's a small industry man - word gets around so easily so if you're an asshole to some people, other people will know about it.
Replies
He's already got more infractions than anyone else on the forums, and we don't just hand those out for nothing. He's also had several nicely-worded, friendly warnings to get his act together and he seems to ignore every single one.
I think you should work on a completed environment, join the Unearthly Challenge!
Maybe make a scene that doesnt have that grungy tech look, challenge yourself with new kinds of textures(I say this because I noticed all of your texture have grungy/noisy overlays).
It also seems the CCTV and LocalGov signs have the same lowpoly model, I can tell because there is one corner on it that isnt as round as the others. Perhaps you should put them in one image, its not the amount of work but the quality of them. To me this comes over as ' hmmm lets spend another hour on this so Ill have an extra piece on my portfolio'.
So in short my advice would be: Complete a scene, it shows determination, teaches you a lot of new tricks and you end up with a cool portfolio piece!
ps: finish the knife! You're almost there!
It's an important point for the whole college thing (which I advise against anyway, personally-- but I'm nobody and it seems to work for some people) because college art courses that are worth taking will include a lot of critiques, and they're going to be harsh. The first college I went to was an uppity art school that liked the idea of getting as many freshmen as possible to quit. They scored with me because I wasn't ready for it. Don't let them do that shit. When they tell you you're not good enough in general and you have no future in art and they laugh at your career goals and try to get you to believe you're wasting your time-- my suggestion is to punch them in the face if possible*, but otherwise respectfully disregard their bullshit and keep trying to improve by doing whatever useful stuff they said and not doing whatever they didn't like. Just giving you a heads up, because I hate that style of teaching.
Don't post when you're unhappy or volunteer information about yourself or your opinions online either. I make that mistake all the time and it's lame. Don't do it.
*Don't punch faces either. I do not condone facepunching.
Later guys, thanks for the crits.
I'm not a prolific poster here, but I am a long-time member and check the forums daily. It's an easy mistake to get overly familiar with people you might feel you know well from reading all their threads. Generally, it's best to stay objectively distant, until you HAVE actually worked with someone, then you can let rip. Of course, Per is the exception that proves the rule.
I think your art is fine, although you really could work on the presentation. Try and make some decent viewport shots without the grids or anything else getting in the view. I'm not a fan of the in-game screenshots.
why ?
All the things about your attitude have already been said, and teenager-to-teenager; it's probably best if you don't list your age. All that's going to happen is you're going to lose some freelance work and people will end up incorrectly thinking that you are immature. Besides, age really doesn't matter here.
As for the portfolio itself, you have a few decent bits in there but it's just a couple props, and you really need some more complex stuff in there than just signs. Challenge yourself- find some complex concepts out there and go model them! Barrels and signs don't really show off your talent as well as a full vehicle or some other larger prop would.
Making something for the Unearthly Challenge would be a great educational experience and would give you a full scene to add to your portfolio. Don't say you can't because you "aren't good enough" or something, because you'd be doing it to improve your art skills.
You're also missing wireframes and tricounts from your presentation. Texture sheets are nice too. Another thing I would suggest is to put your name, email, and portfolio URL on all the images so that when employers save images, they can easily track down the artist who made them.
Most people (myself included) don't care if you're 7 or 70 you're art will be evaluated on an equal level, regardless of any handicaps you might place on yourself. Same goes for your attitude.
I only bring up your age on occasion because you make such a big deal about it. Like we should somehow treat you differently or water down our critique because you're special?
Don't take too much pride in your age, its a pretty meaningless number that quickly grows once you leave high school. If that's all you're holding onto, it won't be worth much in a VERY short time.
No
[IMAGE REMOVED]
Dont try and jump the gun on a portfolio
Maybe it is not important how old is Chaos, but experience come with age. I always compered myself with other artists like so "ok I am bad right now, but I am young, when I will be old like they are now I will be better, or close to their level", but in the end those artist with age also improved so its like never stopping wheel
Once more time I would like to soory all of you wo tried to read and understand this post
Lets put he past behind us and move forward.