[Portfolio] Mazvix- Environment & Prop Artist
Hey guys,
I need a fresh set of eyes for my work. You know if anything needs to be re-arranged or taken out? Strengths and weaknesses you see in my work. So I know the direction I should be heading, because in all honesty after a year of soul searching I found out what I want to do- Handpainted.
What kills me though is picking the styles/Genre/Mood/Audience for planning my future projects. I want to be the best that I can be, find a job I really enjoy and grow. I realized that there is no right or wrong answer which is what makes all this even harder. From personal experience: pick top companies you want to work for and dedicate your portfolio for them. But let us say it takes a while to get that "style" down, is it worth the time you spend while still being unemployed?
Good friends of mine taught me don't take whatever comes your way because 1) it shows you are desperate 2) it shows you are not goal oriented...but at what point would you draw the line? I mean none of us can be un-employed FOREVER...lol.
Summary- what I am trying to say is how personal should you be with your work inorder to sell yourself as an artist. Because there is always a war between doing cool concepts because they are cool and you like spending time on them and then the other extreme- doing concepts that will attract employees to hire you.
It has been a year and nothing permanent yet. All I get is your work is solid and that is about it but still no employment, I do beleive greatly that everyone has his time no matter how long it takes. After sitting with myself, I was able to connect with how much I enjoyed my own personal art like I did when I was a kid, but because of that as you see in my recent environment, I am constantly pushing the challenge bar higher and higher with every environment or prop I create.
Sorry if this is a lot to read...C&C are welcome, please be honest. Thanks!
!!
I need a fresh set of eyes for my work. You know if anything needs to be re-arranged or taken out? Strengths and weaknesses you see in my work. So I know the direction I should be heading, because in all honesty after a year of soul searching I found out what I want to do- Handpainted.
What kills me though is picking the styles/Genre/Mood/Audience for planning my future projects. I want to be the best that I can be, find a job I really enjoy and grow. I realized that there is no right or wrong answer which is what makes all this even harder. From personal experience: pick top companies you want to work for and dedicate your portfolio for them. But let us say it takes a while to get that "style" down, is it worth the time you spend while still being unemployed?
Good friends of mine taught me don't take whatever comes your way because 1) it shows you are desperate 2) it shows you are not goal oriented...but at what point would you draw the line? I mean none of us can be un-employed FOREVER...lol.
Summary- what I am trying to say is how personal should you be with your work inorder to sell yourself as an artist. Because there is always a war between doing cool concepts because they are cool and you like spending time on them and then the other extreme- doing concepts that will attract employees to hire you.
It has been a year and nothing permanent yet. All I get is your work is solid and that is about it but still no employment, I do beleive greatly that everyone has his time no matter how long it takes. After sitting with myself, I was able to connect with how much I enjoyed my own personal art like I did when I was a kid, but because of that as you see in my recent environment, I am constantly pushing the challenge bar higher and higher with every environment or prop I create.
Sorry if this is a lot to read...C&C are welcome, please be honest. Thanks!
!!
Replies
I can't really comment on the employment thing since I'm not there yet, but I really like the fact you're choosing a style you truly enjoy and sticking with it. I think it shows, you can see in your work you've spent a lot of time and really got into it which strengthens it. I think you can sometimes tell when someones heart isn't in a project and the results suffer.
Very inspirational stuff.
I linked your portfolio here, that way peeps don't have to go digging to find it.
I think you've got a great feel to your work. Though I'd like to see what you could do in a semi-hyper real style. I say semi-hyper real, because of some of the stuff like Dragon Age. Its semi-realistic, but there's still hand paintery going on there. I think it could be a cool compromise between your apparent core style and something closer to the majority of games these days.
Like your Mars facility is a step in the direction I'm talking about. Buff up the realism to around 65-75% and you'd have a great array of pimptastic work in an array of styles, while maintaining your hand painted awesomeness.
Of course I'm not employed I.I., so~
@Grimm: I did have environments when I graduated like what you are talking about- I knew they weren't as good as I intended, not sure if you saw my hospital scene. A lot of peeps told me that it isn't fully realistic or if you saw my arabian props. But I get what you are saying though (maybe what I mentioned as a reference above wasn't best example).
Realistic handpainted is not a bad idea either, I know I can pull it off. Thanks for the link too, I was hoping others can just use my signature link :poly124:
If you re not gettin hired, its because now the industry is f*ckedup and overpopulated... and there many ace artists looking for work around everywhere..
Pointing your style to the companies you want to work with sounds like a good idea to me.. not necessarily copying everything, but grabing their style proves you're good for the position.
You should get something eventually, you have a very nice art style, at least for cartoon and colorful stuff.:poly121:
I really appreciate the support and the uplifting comments
Looks like you could work at pixar when your lowpolys already look like a painting.
The header looks very unappealing, and as a first representation of yourself and your aesthetic skills, could hardly be worse. Terribly gradients, bevel embossed text over some vaguely eastern print. is this how you want to present yourself? If you're going to do something other than simple text, make it count!
The text underneath that header looks like they're just titles above the images, but then, oddly aligned next to it, there's one called 'props', which is easily missed if you're focussing on the images instead.
Out of the projects themselves, I think Mushroom Town looks the most visually consistent and impressive. I like Exomars 5, but feel the spec and lighting let that piece down, personally.
The unearthly piece has cool elements, but your lighting has green, orange, purple and blue right next to eachother, especially on the skull. This has the effect of flattening your piece, and making the skull look like a clown. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but the good news is that it's all just down to lighting, and there's bound to be a lighting setup that represents your work in a more flattering way.
Your concept sheet has a few nice lighting setups, but it looks to me as if you tried to incorporate all of them.
Also, looking at your props, I'd say that first building is wonderful, and you should certainly feature it on your front page somewhere. I'd light it differently, though. the rendered shadows clash terribly with the painted ambient etc..., and I think it might be cool to stay within the realm of realtime and give it shadows/ao with vertex-colours. That way, you could also darken the bottom of the chimney to visually attach it to the roof, for instance.
Anyway, out of everything, this shows that you can texture the most. Maybe it's because of the feedback you got on it (I remember following the thread with interest).
regarding unemployment, one possible scenario is that you start freelancing for now, while working on your portfolio. You'll get contacts, experience and (hopefully!) portfolio pieces from released titles.
I really do hope my advise proves useful, rather than disheartening!
@MightyPea: No offense taken man. I am grateful you took time off your day to help point me towards a higher level of proffessionalism, thanks. I got to be honest, I see where you are coming from on everything you mentioned, I do agree on some and others not so much. I am planning on fixing the website and Unearthly challenge, decided to use UDK instead of unreal and see what I get. As for ExoMars, you are the only who objected on it, and with all due respect- you never mentioned how I could have done a better job. I do not mean to come across as defending my work, but I just want to understand so that I may improve
If anyone knows any dvds about lighting besides eat 3D I would appreciate it. Again, I want to thank everyone for their support and crits, keep 'em comin and I will keep on truckin' !
Don't be like that. Sure, most companies will take a person with experience over a "noob" like yourself but don't let that put you down. Every company I've worked for has had at least one person with no professional work experience and some were not very skilled. I haven't seen your(southpawsid's) work but with some luck and timing I'm sure you guys will find a job too. An unexperienced artist is after all considered as cheap labor in alot of companies
Good luck, guys!
That's not to say don't try to break into this field, but I don't think you should be so ignorant as to expect a job to come to you without hard work and dedication. I'd say what is more likely the case is you need to be extremely prepared and very talented with a great attitude, and also have a bit of luck and timing.
The longer this industry is around the harder and harder it will be to break into as the audience grows bigger so do the amount of people who want to be a part of it. To a certain extent there will always be growth, but I do not think there will be enough for every talented doe-eyed bushy tailed artist.
Now you can do either two things. Quit and give up on your dream because of all the obstacles, or work harder, to be better and put yourself in the best position you can be, to do what you love. If you really want to do this it won't matter what your chances are at making it in.
At least this is what I tell myself so I can sleep at night lol.
on mah way...
New Website: Mazvix's Portfolio Link
Great work though, I know what it's like to be on the hunt for a job and I wish you the best of luck. It's got to be tough looking for something when you're so focused on hand painted textures, have you considered including some of your non-stylized work or is that just out of the question?
Relit Uc09, the old one was sooo horrid...*shudders* dunno what I was thinking with the old renders lols.
Added 2 texture images at the end of ExoMars 5.
Relit WoW Gilneas building, with more vertix lighting and a subtle ambient overall.
Re-arranged the 'About' page.
Things I do plan on improving are the website bkg layout and the Header. I couldn't give myself more than 2 days fixing it. I need to keep applying to other jobs
@Nistrum: thanks, ya I always wondered that too haha.
@OrganizedChaos: Hey dude thanks for pointing out those tiny crits, I really needed them. I have been staying up late, working out late and having too much caffiene in my system X.x I agree on the same eye level, I think it is because the fonts are slightly bigger on the "gallery" area, it is an easy fix though. And yes I will give Blizzard credit- I had to re-do my entire website in just 2 days, had to get it out the door ASAP because other companies are looking through my website.
I will fix all that today, it is not a problem. Thanks again man
I have to admit, I am so pumped up to bust out more art than ever before. When you realize what you want to do and what you love to do, rather than creating specific work just to seek any job...It really puts things into prespective and it sets you free. I am always welcoming any cool realistic-style jobs offcourse, but can the companies really tell that I can do it by just the few props I have up? I had bigger plans for the next environments. I will wait and see what other's advice is; I could really use it
I hope I was clear in what I was trying to explain. Thanks again dudes!
Like the web site, I think its simple and easy to use which is perfect, don't get to nit picky about it. we are Environment artist not web designers. I think your work will shine threw any small flaws your website has. I would suggest spending more time make new content which it sounds like you are.
luck