[Portfolio] - George Cochrane, Prop & Environment Artist

Gcochrane

Hi Polycounters,

This is my portfolio: http://www.george-cochrane.com

I'd love to get some critiques on the site and the content as I'll soon be looking for a job as a prop & environment artist. Thanks!

Slipstream

You're work's really amazing looking; your website is easy to navigate and presents your work quickly . . . The only thing I can say, and it's honestly more of a nitpick than anything, is that you use blue in your header and nowhere else
Everything else is dark and white. The blue does attract the eye to the header, but I think you could incorporate a darker, greyscale version of one your textures to do that instead to greater impact.

mLink

Really nice work.
Good luck with the job hunt.

urgaffel

You've got nice work on there but one thing that made me do a double take was that you have written "3 x 2048" on your dragon prop. At first I thought you meant that you had use 3 2k sets (diff, spec, norm). Then I realised that you meant all 3 textures. I think in most cases people say that they use 1 2k texture and it's understood that it means 1 2k set (diff, norm, spec). If someone says they used 2 1k textures, I assume they mean 2 sets of 1k textures, not just two single sheets. See what I mean? I'd like to see the chinese garden a bit more, one or two more images and maybe a breakdown with a few textures as well. The prop images suffer from low resolution too, I can barely see the wire of the dragon for example. Slightly larger images would be good. For wires, gif or png format is good to get good detail and low file sizes.

Gcochrane

Thanks for the c&c!

@urgaffel: I see what you mean about the confusing map usage text - fixed!
I'll get some more shots of the garden and a better breakdown of what asset is where and using which texture. Also, better res wires coming!

P442

The chinese garden looks really nice. I also really like the dragon statue, but where is the spec map for it? Did you use the diffuse as spec?

Zack Fowler

Nice work here. My only crits at the moment are that it would be good to have a second angle for beauty shots of your scenes, and that there is a distracting issue with the underside of the roof of the Forsaken House. It looks like there are UV problems on that, and also that you rendered with some really intense shadow or something. That type of art style doesn't usually get a sharp shadow effect, if any shadow at all.

Gcochrane

@P442: Thanks I'll have some more renders of the garden soon, baking light maps is eating up a lot of time! Dragon maps updated - I normally just include the diffuse to show UV usage but it does look more complete with all of them out there. The dragon uses a combination of the spec and diffuse for it's spec / spec power.

@ZackF: Good catch on the house roof, I was missing a texture there. I re-rendered with more subtle shadows, just to keep it from flattening completely.

Updated with larger wires and clearer map usage for props. Updates for scenes coming soon. I'd especially like any input on improvement for the props (tri count / map space / etc) - all critiques welcome!

Shogun3d

Site looks good George. I'd recommend adding a link for potential employers to download a zip file that contains all of your work.

Cojax

You have some good stuff. Your low poly and texture work is nice. I might add some high poly to your portfolio. Also I wanted to see the textures you painted for the WoW building. Looks like old AI-SD is still pumping out good talent from time to time. Good stuff man, best of luck with the job hunt.

toren3d

<borat>Vary Nice!</borat>

Awesome site, great work. I'm sure you'll have a job in no time.

ZacD

Needs some lighting on the Forsaken House, its kinda hard to read right now.

AlanSMitchell

love it all but I think your cherry blossom tree could use a little more work.
but really everything else looks great
Good luck dude.

Jeremy Lindstrom

agreed with all the above also your logo image http://www.george-cochrane.com/banner_logo_highlight.jpg is a little different color then your background on my monitor.

Your image background color is 1a1a1a
and your webpage background is 141414

Gcochrane

More crits more crits! Tell me what you hate

kaburan: thanks i obviously aped your site layout (only BETTER) but you can't beat clear and clean, right? Going to bulk out the site a little more and get that download on there.

Cojax: Cheers working on some high poly stuff right now! The forsaken house is one of the few survivors of a hd meltdown and I'm still picking through the wreckage. I found a roof:



toren3d: Thanks!

ZacD: I actually nerfed the lighting on the house as ZackF pointed out hand painted stuff doesn't usually get such dramatic lighting - too much?

dudealan2001: It really could. Right now it's the trunk and some support branches floating in a foliage volume to fill it out, but I'm not completely happy with the random result so back to work on that one.

Dekard: I can't seem to reproduce this? I sampled both the logo and the highlight images in PS and still get 141414.

ZacD

it doesn't need harsh shadows, but even the wow screen shot has some lighting going on.

Jeremy Lindstrom

cool, yeah tis odd I get the different colors on all your images, that you have text on.

here's a screenie on my monitor.

vj_box

Nice one Gcochrane,the scholar's Garden looks ace!

Gcochrane

That's weird Dekard can I ask what browser you're using? Are you on a mac? Can't figure out if it's something in my html or what exactly.

Thanks VJ! Working on an update with some new angles and different sky.

Jeremy Lindstrom

firefox 3.5.5 on winxp 32

Zack Fowler

Yeah, as ZacD said, I didn't mean to imply that you should weaken all of the lighting, just the shadows. It does look fairly flat with the lighting as subtle as it is now. I would say to take the shadows out (Torchlight, for example, doesn't have shadows on the environment) but bump up the contrast of the lighting itself.

achillesian

i think you should post concept art of the house, instead of an ingame shot, to make it look like you worked from something 2d.