[Portfolio] – Aaron Forney,Game Artist

AaronF3D

Hey Polycount I'm looking for critique on my website and my work. I'm graduating in a couple weeks and finally got a website up, I'm looking for a 3D artist or 3D generalist type of role .

http://aaronforney.com

Once again critique is appreciated.

Note: Sorry about the title of the thread I don't know how to change it.

Jeremy Lindstrom

demo reel doesn't go anywhere..

Matroskin

congrats on soon graduation

If considering that u r looking for a game industry job, i would say that generalist is not that suitable. In the beginning I also thought why should I choose a specialization cauz it feels like with specialization u have less chances finding a job. However, it appeared to be not true :P Actually I discovered that in games employers seek for at least one of major specializations, like character artist, environment or prop artist, special effects artist and concept artist.

In my opinion, when u will be applying somewhere u need to chose what u like best and stick to it, not to mention that web-site needs to represent that particular focus.

Exception can be made for small game companies that do simple internet or hand-held games. In such case they might be more looking for a generalist since art assets are quite simple. But also in this case they might be looking for really low-poly old-school game assets.

Now regarding the works themselves that u currently have.

Drawings r good part, that never hurts, and they have nice fast and sketchy feel.

3d horse has some weird dinosaur looking head. Looks like nose and forehead are quite elevated/ovesized.

Not sure if i would put Capt. Blue there. It was not clear that it is a WIP when i checked the site. It might become a possible let down in my opinion, since its presentation looks like it is part of finished projects, and of course it does not look good for a finished character.
Jail guy is quite cool, i would keep only him as character work.

Statue has not bad texture, but somehow its head is floating... Also it could be less hi-poly - eyes definitely could go to Normal map for example.

I am not a fan of Marine cypher since it is not game asset. It is just hi-res model done with sub-div surfaces. Low poly version should not be hard to do and make normal map etc. for it.

I hope u'll find your way in the industry.

Good luck!

griffinax

Hey, not bad at all. I like how the layout of the web site is clean and easily accessible.

However, it would help if you presented bigger render sizes of your work, because, for now, I can't really analyze each of them very clearly.

Also I would like to point out some anatomical flaws in a couple of your models, for the JAILGUY model, the length of arms and the portion below the waist are too long in comparison to the torso, same goes for the Captain Blue character, even though its a stylized char, you should really pay attention to how would he be able to execute any generic action without rolling over due to his huge shoulders and arms?

For the statue, there's too much grime on it, looks very dirty, but that is still alright over all.

I am not very much into characters so I wouldn't know much about anatomy, just pointed out what I noticed

Nice job though man, keep it up!

BradMyers82

To add to what griffinax said,
The head texture does not match the body on the jail guy.
Also you could use some higher resolution links to those images.
Lastly the horse has a lot of anatomical problems. The entire bone structure and musculature is off a ways, so I think you should either re-work it or ditch it all together.
I think you have a good start though.
Also, "Game Artist" is a term not really used a lot for a professional portfolio.
If you are going for a general 3d art position, its normally called: 3d Generalist.

Anyways, I am sort of in the same dilemma as you where I have a lot of character stuff, but I don't want to just call myself a character artist and limit myself to that. My solution is to just call myself a 3d artist, which covers all my bases but doesn't say what I am specifically going for. I believe this is good because I can apply to jobs for various rolls.

Anyways, keep working on your stuff. I think its a good start but it will take a little improvement to land a gig. Good luck!

AaronF3D

Thanks guys I'm thinking I'm going to rework that horse.

I'm still working on the Demo Reel so for know that link is broken.

Matroskin- Thanks lots of good advice!

Griffinax- Yea I'm gonna take that captain Blue off because its not yet finished and I to felt it wasn't up to par with the others.

BradMyers- Yea i find myself in that predicament as well, i'm working on building more props to add as well.

More work will posted later, with updates added later.

Canadian Ink

I continue to totally disagree with this idea that somehow putting yourself out as a generalist is a negative thing. There are so many jobs that require you to be able to do a bit of everything especially if your working for a small/medium sized studio. One of the main reasons I got my last 2 jobs were because they companies new that I would be open to working on whatever aspect of the games they needed me to at that moment. I agree Brad, call youself a 3D Artist and and you really can tgo wrong.

Sirdelita

You have a good base on some stuff, but I would just get rid of anything that isn't your BEST work. It seems that you like to do more life-like stuff, I would suggest you keep studying your anatomy and keep pushing! Good luck!

PredatorGSR

Your work isn't that bad really, but nothing really stands out to me as especially good. And to get a job in the games industry, you have to be good if not great. It also kinda feels like these are just your school assignments, and you didn't do much beyond what was required by the class. Honestly, Your portfolio isn't good enough to get a job, especially in the current job climate.

The good news is that you have a solid base skillset, but it is going to take time and persistance. When I graduated from a similar school as you did (more of an trade/tech school than an art school), my portfolio was about the same as yours in terms of quality, not terrible, but not that great either. After the first round of job applications got ignored, I threw away my entire portfolio, bit the bullet and moved back home, and dedicated 50-60 hours a week to working with good mod teams on game art. After about 9 months, my portfolio was finally good enough and I got my first job as an environment artist.

It's going to take that kind of commitment to break into the games industry. I wish my teachers had been honest about that and about my portfolio, so I'm telling you what I wish I had been told so I didn't have to waste 2-3 months before I got the reality check. Good luck.

AaronF3D

Hey PredatorGSR you hit on a lot of good points. However i did go over what was required of me on my assignments. Things like the Hi-Poly sculpting and normal map techniques were things i learned by myself and by reading this website and others that were not taught or required. Unfortanetly i find myself in the financial sitatution were i cannot afford to not find some kind of job rather it be some kind of temporary job or whatever. I wish i could just lock myself in a room for a whole year and just model, but since that is unfortunately impossible I'm considering going back to school.

BradMyers82

Dude, how is going back to school going to help you?
Rack up more debt. and you will be in better standings?
The last thing you should do is go back to school imo. A degree means nothing if you want a job. I graduated from a school specializing in game design with a 4.0 gpa. 2 years later, and busting my ass every day of the week. Still no job. It's rough out here and the only way you will break in is to put the sort of time, effort and dedication needed to get yourself to a certain level. You will have to be better than the majority of people out there in most cases because without experience there will always be someone out of work that will get a job before you.
Anyways that's just my 2 cents. Listen to what Predator says. If you can't afford to just work on 3d, get a full time job (40 hours a week) and spend an extra 20 hours a week on 3d art. It is totally doable. I just don't see how goint to school will help. It will only make matters worse!

AaronF3D

I guess i was somehow thinking that another year or so of school would equal more practice time. But i totally agree with you guys I have the dedication its just time to put in even more time.

AaronF3D

Website has been updated with some of my high poly stuff. Horse still needs to be reworked, more updates to come this weekend.

AaronF3D

Oh yea, link:

http://aaronforney.com

MartinH

a lot of your images seem really squashed vertically, and you might consider focusing on just your best pieces and cut out the ones that arent on the same level of quality as the rest.

for example i'd ditch the statue head. Your 2D looks really nice, your 3D just needs to "catch up" with that.

System

Instantly looking at your site my thoughts are that the 2d painting of Jim Brown stood head and shoulders above everything else, it's a really nice piece.
Overall I feel the 2d side is the area where you have the most aptitude yet there is only really one finished example of this, I want to see more of this calibur!

[Deleted User]

You're about to graduate from the same school I did. I finished in '03, when they were still in Tempe. Congratulations, and good luck on the hard part that'll begin right after you get the piece of paper. I recommend seeking immediate employment anywhere where you can work indoors, preferably with air conditioning and as little customer service as possible. Don't allow yourself to give 2 shits about the job itself, but come home and work on the 'folio constantly until it's awesome. Whatever you do, don't go back to school and don't use your credit cards. That's how they get ya. Anyway, onto critiques...

When I roll over the images, their border color changes, but nothing happens when I click. There's a little Flash loading icon up in the left corner, just to the right of the navigation sidebar, but it never loads. I'm using Chrome.

It says "Client - Personal Improvement" next to everything. That's kind of weird and not needed.

You put a pretty big watermark over your textures. That sort of defeats the purpose of showing them. Just put a little tag in the corner or something, maybe overlapping some unimportant details. Nobody's going to steal your textures. Even if they wanted to, they wouldn't do any good without the models to put them on.

For the work itself:
-Female head's lips protrude outwards kind of strangely and her cheeks are pushed in around her nose.
-Mudbox sculpts aren't bad. The eyelids on the black dude aren't sculpted realistically. I'm not sure how much realism you were going for with him. Keep doing these and take down the old ones as you improve. You're on the right track so it shouldn't really take long.
-Jail guy's cool, but fix the stuff the others mentioned. Do some more full-body characters like this.
-Horse's hips look off, and he's got a face like Spuds MacKenzie. Other than that though, it's good. Fix it up and keep it.
-Really not feeling the statue. It looks like one of those, "I don't like how this head turned out so I'm gonna put a stony texture over it and call it a statue" statues. It floats, and it has facial topology like it was intended for animation, but it's a statue. You can do better. Scrap it.
-Jim Brown's good.
-Skull study's not good. Do more until they're awesome. Replace it with one of those.
-Other study and 5 minute poses are good. Do a bunch more (sketch people in a park or something, just be really quick about it, or maybe see if they'll let you sit in on some more figure drawing sessions at school after you graduate--you paid them enough, they ought to) and list them as one item rather than many.

Hope that helps. Stick with it.

AaronF3D

Hey thanks guys for the critiques, very helpful!

Fly_soup: Thanks i was going for a stylized look with the black guy, but i want realsitic anatomy so i will go back and fix that. Hmm I'll have to see what the problem is with Goggle Chrome.

GCMP- No doubt my first love was 2D, but i love 3D now and i plan on working at it until im good enough to get a job in this industry.