Portfolio critique http://rashadmadison.com/index.html
Alright come one come all, I am a graduate that works hard and has strong Traditional art skills. I want to get hired but think my work needs to get to the next level. I will be posting different works in progress before putting them on my site http://rashadmadison.com/index.html Dont worry harsh criticism is wanted(dont be mean, be honest)
I will put some photos up of my WIP soon but first please give my site a look and tell me what you think of the work there:\
http://rashadmadison.com/index.html
I will put some photos up of my WIP soon but first please give my site a look and tell me what you think of the work there:\
http://rashadmadison.com/index.html
Replies
You don't need anything fancy. You are trying to sell yourself as a game artist, not a web designer. Get rid of the cheesy fonts, reflections, blurred background, ugly colors, animated roll over. Your website really just needs to be images of your work.
Tell me what u think
I think many people here would prefer you just add the intro in plain text at the top and then spam a bunch of full sized images below to scroll through.
There's no point putting a "links" page on your portfolio, especially if you are using it to look for a job. That's what blogs and social-networking sites are for, this is your portfolio, not your blog.
Small tip about giving website links; the index file is generally the one the server loads by default (unless you specify it not to), so you don't actually have to include the "/index.html" bit in your URL.
Most of the textures on your 3d assets look rushed. It looks like you use some kind of auto UV unwrapper and then slapped on some textures from cg textures in each uv shell, and then crazybumped the diffuse for the spec/normal maps with zero tweaking and called it done.
Your CV is probably the best looking thing on the site. Apart from the "awards" bit. If the art on the portfolio isn't enough to impress me, no amount of awards is going to make up for that. If the art is impressive, then there's no need for awards to justify anything.
Simply put, the art speaks for itself.
And whats the point of putting "etc" on your interests? I'd personally take the interests section down too, especially when it looks like the one you have.
And above all, don't get discouraged. Good luck!
That level you posted here looks really neat, I like the lighting.
The main issue I see though is its probably too creative. I don't understand what any of those objects are really. This is a really bad thing if you are looking for work in the games industry I am affraid. If employers see it and can't really relate to the material at all, then they can't really say if its good or bad.
In the end, they will pass you by for someone who clearly shows there skill level with more traditional style environment art. After all, you will likely NOT be doing work that is extrememly creative right off the bat.
That said, I think you have the skills to make a really awesome environment. I think it was especially smart of you to go the traditional art route first. Often time the best 3d artists come from traditional art backgrounds. My suggestion is to start a proper WIP thread here on polycount. Get crits as you go, and in the end you will have an environment that far exceeds anything you have done before. Gather good concept art before you start, and get advice on the concepts you are planning BEFORE you start. This way you don't start off in the wrong direction and waste valuable time.
Trust me, with good crits you will do awesome! I know its tough starting from square one again, I have been there myself. But like I said you will greatly benifit from it if you do. Good Luck!
[edit] and those options at the top for the survey suck, LOL. I wish you had consitant responses to choose from, because I really didn't want to choose any of those options. A simple scale of 1-10 would be better. Only reason I mention is I think you will only receive negitive feedback with those options, when really there are many positive things I could say about your work as well.
I can't really tell what anything does in your non-referenced environments, especially the latest one. This is really important. You should have some plan as to how your non decorative forms are following a function. Those conveyor belts, the big fan thing out in the open, those tubes going from the ground to the wall, I have no idea what purpose any of that serves. It's also not designed well enough to trick me into thinking it serves a purpose even if it doesn't, like lots of other sci-fi clutter.
Use source texture images! It's fine to hand-paint things here and there, but unless you end up at one of a handful of studios that does stylized painted textures you'll be using images. There's no reason to avoid it. Learn to combine painting and reference, sure, but you're only hurting yourself by avoiding it altogether given the style of your work.
Your resource management is bad. Your UVs don't appear to be all that efficient and I don't think you're sharing UV space where you should be. Your texture density is all over the place in some cases too. This part is a big, big deal for an environment artist, and you should take the advice of making a new WIP thread here and following people's suggestions throughout. You'll definitely end up with something better than any of your current work, as Brad pointed out.
Some of your stuff is actually way too low poly for the scenes your building, and there are big texture seams all over the place.
In my opinion, you should stop on the environment you're working on now, find some concept art you really like (don't do it yourself), collect as much real-world and concept reference as possible for what's in the scene you want to do, and start a WIP thread. Watch other WIP environment threads, and take the advice you get in yours.
Don't take this as being overly harsh, but I don't think you'll get much interest from employers with what you have now. It seems that you work a lot so you'll be fine in the long term as long as you start approaching things a better way.
problem is, you created a portfolio thread. if you want feedback about the level, start a wip thread for it, and provide some more breakdowns, wires, etc
You defiantly need a lot more completed environment work. And you really need to work on your lighting and displaying of your assets. Some of the assets look pretty good but are lit horribly and just give off an amateurish impression. When displaying your textures, lose the specular maps, and even the normal maps unless they are from a really cool high poly bake. I would say focus on created really solid environments and don't get caught up in the little design stuff.
http://philipk.net/
http://magnarj.net/
The cathedral thing looked interesting, but I had to squint to see anything.
As for the criticisms on your work, I'd listen to these guys. They know what they're talking about. =]
Yeah your right. Thanks, I will think about displaying my work when Its worth displaying. I will put up my wips as i go. Dont worry i can take it. In the end its just about getting that job
P.S. i looked at that site those boxes with the painted textures was a great idea. Instead of making complex models, and texturing them, he painted simple boxes with nice textures, smart, but that means i cant do it lol