[Portfolio] – Mark Verkerk, 3D/ Environment artist

MR_Verkerk

Hey guys,

I used to have a portfolio blog, but since I was posting all the stuff I created over there I guess I needed a dedicated page that acts out as a dedicated portfolio. This is for people who are only interested in my best works, instead of all the canon fodder that is found on my blog

I would like to hear all the critz and comments on my site. Since im using it to find a new job in the industry I can really use the feedback! Feedback is welcome on both the site and her content.

Link to website
Link to webblog (former portfolio site)

Yours sincerely,

Mark Verkerk

ricolas71

I like the girl XD!

The first thing iv got in mind is why did you put Environment Artist as you portfolio shows character and rigs?

You have to define wheter you would like to work in charac modelling Environment modelling or animation and then shape you skills and portfolio in that direction.

Also, Try to model and texture some realistic stuffs. Your images already shows that you are pretty good as making expressive cartoon assests. Try to have pieces of various genre just to show to a potential employer that you can also do it

Nice style

MR_Verkerk

Yeah I guess your right about the environment artist point. The thing is that Id rather be a gerenalist like I was on my last job. There I did it all, character/ prop modeling, rigging, skinning, texturing and a bit of technical artist stuff aswell ect and was just called a 3D artist, instead of all the sub terms

So im also having a bit of a hard time figuring out what to actually call myself
I also dont mind working as an 3D artist, environment artist, technical artist ect as long as the job is competetive and will learn me lots of new stuff!

ricolas71

Fair enough

Maybe organize it a bit more in categories in your portfolio once you've got more things. So if you apply in one for charac and in another for environment they'll just go in the category they want.

It also depend of the type of game, support and company you want to work for. I remember and interview i had for a company making DS games and they asked their artist to do everyting

For my own point of view (i don't says it's the rules) I use to like doing animation charac and environment. I appeared to be a waekness for me as i was behind specializes peoples in each categories. So i specialized in enviroment and i got a job.

If you are working on a big console game chances are that you are going to be asked to do one task

Nysuatro

I am not a fan of the scaling that flash does. it makes the reso of the pictures ugly
The usability of your site is good. Structurered and clean. I know you got a linkedin so that could always be helpfull to put it on your portfolio.

Snader

Dont use a flash file at 100% of the screen size, it screws up the images.

Set the flash to a fixed size (framed in center) or better yet ditch flash as it doesn't really do anyhting. No animation etc.

Also the rightmost 2 colums are confusing because they look connected to the PDF and other tab

MR_Verkerk

Ok, I removed the flash file scaling due to many requests. Later today I will add a linkedin button, aswell as a button to my blog. Thanks for the feedback so far:)

vofff

Your website is very clean I like it, but rename your spec to 3D artist or Game Artist.

Swizzle

Your work looks good and the layout of the website itself is nice, but for the love of god, ditch Flash and go with straight HTML/CSS. It took forever to load the page and the images looked jaggy and awful.

The only time you should use Flash is when you're displaying your experience with it as part of your skillset. Flash sucks for portfolios.

Saman

ricolas71 wrote: »

Fair enough

Maybe organize it a bit more in categories in your portfolio once you've got more things. So if you apply in one for charac and in another for environment they'll just go in the category they want.

It also depend of the type of game, support and company you want to work for. I remember and interview i had for a company making DS games and they asked their artist to do everyting

For my own point of view (i don't says it's the rules) I use to like doing animation charac and environment. I appeared to be a waekness for me as i was behind specializes peoples in each categories. So i specialized in enviroment and i got a job.

If you are working on a big console game chances are that you are going to be asked to do one task

Focusing on one thing in order to get good at it is a good idea, I agree on that but I don't think he should skip any of the non-environment artist stuff on the webpage because of that(such as the cool rigs). IF however the non-environment stuff's quality is bringing the overall quality down it's a different matter. Being multi-talented is a very good quality in my opinion
Cool webpage btw.

MR_Verkerk

Thanks for the feedback so far:) I removed the flash scaling and made sure the CV and recommendations buttons belong a bit more to the page header. I also centered the text in the header, making it look less chaotic.

About the loading of the page, I guessed most companies have a solid internet connection, I mean even most people at home have like at least a 512kb connection and the page is less than 700kbs large. I will add a preloader, but I guess the site isnt that heavy altogether.

About the content itself, what do you guys think of the overall presentations or the given information? Is it enough, or are you guys missing something?

Dis

It wasn't all that clear to me that you could click on the image to get back to the thumbnails (I tried clicking outside the image as it's what I'm used to with flash image viewers).

The thumbnails just become white squares when viewing an image but you can still click them to change to another model so I'd suggest you let them show what work it is you click on, even when in the image viewer.

I also think you should let people click the presentation images to get a higher resolution, this is especially true for the environment where you cannot see much of it at all.

This is just nitpicking and streamlining, otherwise it looks great imo.