[Portfolio] Ben Apuna, Environment|Props Artist
Hey all you awesome Polycounters out there.
I've just finished the first phase of updating my portfolio after three years of neglect and could use some critiques, comments, and general feedback on everything. Thanks in advance for your time
I think I've got all the portfolio basics covered. Not being a great graphic designer I stole a few ideas from killingpeople's amazing portfolio site and attempted to put my own spin on things hopefully he doesn't mind.
I am aware that if an image doesn't fit the browser window horizontally it appears to stick out of the page border on the right. I've tested it in IE 8 and Firefox 3.0
In the long run I'll be adding some environments up at the top but I need to finish those off first.
As for the work that's on there now, I think it's a bit too much and redundant so I need to cut it down to the best of the best. The big question is what to cut? Probably the Dragon Age Bookshelf, and Pitch Black Doors, but what else?
With all that said, LET THE PURGE BEGIN! :poly127:
www.benapuna.com
I've just finished the first phase of updating my portfolio after three years of neglect and could use some critiques, comments, and general feedback on everything. Thanks in advance for your time
I think I've got all the portfolio basics covered. Not being a great graphic designer I stole a few ideas from killingpeople's amazing portfolio site and attempted to put my own spin on things hopefully he doesn't mind.
I am aware that if an image doesn't fit the browser window horizontally it appears to stick out of the page border on the right. I've tested it in IE 8 and Firefox 3.0
In the long run I'll be adding some environments up at the top but I need to finish those off first.
As for the work that's on there now, I think it's a bit too much and redundant so I need to cut it down to the best of the best. The big question is what to cut? Probably the Dragon Age Bookshelf, and Pitch Black Doors, but what else?
With all that said, LET THE PURGE BEGIN! :poly127:
www.benapuna.com
Replies
Palm tree looks great.
Not sure about the pinkish tree.
Some extra unneeded edges on the top of the selves (and cabinet thing).
Bed looks too hard.
Cutting board should just be removed, its better to have a few really strong items than random junk.
Probably same thing with the little box. Too low rez for the big pics
You need work on your sculpting.
The red glass doesn't look good.
The wood guys look good.
Stone face thing looks bad.
Remove the weird plant dead centerpiece thing.
I'd like to see the 2nd high poly thing textured.
Remove unfinished stuff.
Just my thoughts! Good luck.
I'd drop the pink tree, or rework it - it doesn't stand up well next to the palm tree. As Zac said, the bed looks a little sharp, but I like the cutting board. Just because it's not a 'hero' piece doesn't mean it's not interesting. I like the wood grain texture on the box next to it, too. One of my favorite pieces is the large vase - very nice.
I'd definitely focus on texturing the hi-poly assets towards the end and getting them updated - they're pretty nice meshes, and with some texturing they could be really strong pieces.
Overall, pretty good. Maybe tidy up a few assets and think about the order they're presented in.
Overall it's a pretty solid portfolio, I think the site is fine, thumbnails are clear and it all loads fast. A painless browsing experience, which is always nice
The pinkish tree should definitely be cut or heavily re-worked, it's nowhere near the quality of the palm tree.
I agree that the bed looks sharp, but oh well, I guess it's done now. I'd have liked to see more interesting folds in the cloth, and a more subtly rumpled look to the lowpoly instead of just a big flat box essentially. I'd maybe remove the bed for this reason, it just doesn't add anything compared to the other work you show alongside it, in fact it's a little lower quality IMHO.
I'd leave the chopping board in, I think that's a decent quality asset and while it's not a hugely interesting design, it's well executed.
I'd also remove the dead plant "centrepiece" thing, your planter boxes looked way better and showcase the same skills in a more favourable light.
I'd agree with danshewan that your focus should be on highpoly stuff, IMHO that was the weakest part of your folio. In the places you show highpoly work it tends to be competent but not especially amazing or detailed.
The stone face thing, for example, had a fairly poor highpoly, I reckon. It just looked weirdly smooth and stretched, I'm sure you could do a lot better if you spent half a day or so making a new one from a more interesting concept.
I was also a bit confused by the large vase highpoly - while the end asset looked good, the highpoly appeared to be very lowpoly in silhoutte, and the shading was weird around it. Not sure what was going on there.
In general though it's good work and I think with a bit of pruning and reorganisation this portfolio could present a better impression of your work. I also think that if you get some newer stuff in with more interesting / detailed highpoly work (and maybe some nicer renders of that with a cool lighting setup) then that would really round out your portfolio.
Yeah I was just barely learning how to do high poly stuff on Dragon Age and Silent Hill, much of this stuff is from back in 2007 early 2008. Dragon Age had this mandate that everything had to look pretty much the same with and without normal maps because they would get dropped during tactical mode, so I ended up just modeling high poly models to get surface details + edge highlights and letting the shading of the low poly models take care of everything else. A bad habit I carried over to the Large Vase and other assets for Silent Hill.
I would have loved to deform the cloth on the beds sadly they had to conform to some pretty tight dimensions for character animation purposes, thus the flat surface.
For now I'll go drop out the Manzanita (pink tree), centerpiece, beds, and Demon Sconce (stone face). The funny thing about the Demon Sconce is that I did it in like 6 hours total from start to finish yet it was one of the few items I was ever complimented on by the client, lol
Newer stuff is definitely on the agenda, and I certainly do need to get better at sculpting and high poly modeling.
I'll keep plugging away at the Pitch Black stuff. I've been working those items along with others for quite some time in an attempt recreate a full level in Unreal (I'll be pimping it sooner or later). I guess I should just go ahead and complete some of those pieces rather than wait until all of them are ready to go, up to now I've been doing everything in stages.
Thanks again for the comments everyone, they have been very helpful