[Portfolio] Kyle Parsons/Frump, Character Artist
polycounter lvl 12
Hey guys.
I started working on this a couple months back but some unfinished projects were keeping me from finishing it off. Last night I did some work to finish it and make it live.
The layout and design is mostly final, but there's some bugs with the site I still need to fix. Feel free to crit that kind of stuff, it's great to hear user feedback and most of it can be easily changed.
On the content side, a lot of it is old and I would like to go back to to touch up, but I don't know how productive that would be. For some things I need to provide wires and more interesting presentation shots. As a note, there's two space marines because the newer one was for a freelance contract that didn't work out. They saw my first space marine and wanted me to do another one.
link:
http://kyleparsons3d.com/
Things to change:
I started working on this a couple months back but some unfinished projects were keeping me from finishing it off. Last night I did some work to finish it and make it live.
The layout and design is mostly final, but there's some bugs with the site I still need to fix. Feel free to crit that kind of stuff, it's great to hear user feedback and most of it can be easily changed.
On the content side, a lot of it is old and I would like to go back to to touch up, but I don't know how productive that would be. For some things I need to provide wires and more interesting presentation shots. As a note, there's two space marines because the newer one was for a freelance contract that didn't work out. They saw my first space marine and wanted me to do another one.
link:
http://kyleparsons3d.com/
Things to change:
- Get wireframe shots of TF2 items
- Make more interesting presentation sheets with less repetitive background textures.
- Make more interesting gallery thumbnails for various
- Make Resume in html and not just an image
- Add contact page
- Add blog page (maybe)
- Fix main border issue
- Mobile version (?)
- Once I have enough content, make the next/prev buttons load new thumbnails into the content area without leaving the page
Okay, take a look and tell me what you think. I'm accepting crits on all fronts.:)
Replies
Other than that, nice site. I do like the NES controller, but it does feel like filler considering you're promoting yourself as a character artist. Scarlet is my favorite of your characters, though Gwendolyn is nice, too, even though the placement of her wings seems a bit low.
I'd maybe have a look at the pose of your marine character - his right arm doesn't seem to be positioned very naturally, and his hand / wrist look really wrong in relation to the rest of his arm. Cool armor, though, I actually prefer the rear view.
I like how you've presented the silhouette alongside the rest of the presentation views, too - very clean, displays your models nicely and it's a good recurring pattern.
Great stuff!
On a design side, your footer doesn't line up with the content box on the main page and on the gallery pages.
Danshewan: Arg, great point about the blood, wish I had addressed that before making all of these images and things. I'll definitely try to change that for the next iteration. Gwen is based on an existing character from a game, so the wings are where they are on the character. The space marine, yeah, that is one of the things I want to go back and fix; give that guy a decent pose as the current one makes no sense. As I said just above this, the nes pad is basically filler but I don't think it detracts. Thanks!
Mr Bear: Yup, that's what I was referring to in my to do list as "fix main border issue". the footer image lines up with the background image but when the content on the pages expands down further than the background image, it leaves a blank space. The way the site is set up has made it tricky to put a repeating part in between. Gonna keep working on it.:)
Cheers guys, keep it coming. I will hopefully have time soon to address most of this stuff.
Changes:
Since I'm not getting much specific feedback on the site or content here's some questions.
What do you think my portfolio is lacking right now? What kinds of pieces should I add to improve it?
What looks like my weakest area and what should I focus on improving?
Is the quality consistent between the characters?
Are the presentation images clear and interesting?
Does the portfolio seem strong enough for junior/entry-level?
Does it seem like I would be proficient at Environments and/or props as well as characters?
Of course anything else you think is great too. I'm really interested to hear your feedback.:)
Thanks to everyone who has or will comment.
I think you could benefit from another finished character or two, especially ones demonstrating complex cloth folds and different clothing materials like lace and fine fabrics like silk. Right now, the sculpts of existing characters do seem to be there to add more thumbnails. The way you've presented Zoey seems like it's unfinished, especially as you've chosen not to show a frontal view of the textured model. If you want to add some sculpts, why not add some classical anatomy studies or
Its' not so much about filling up the home page as it is showing the work that I have. Might as well include it if it doesn't hurt anything. The Space Marine high poly is definitely unfinished, and Zoey was just an unsuccessful model. They used to be tagged as WIP, might still be.
Anatomy sculpts are definitely something I feel is lacking in my portfolio. I'll aim to do more of that stuff but I don't just want to have an anatomy sculpt for the sake of an anatomy sculpt. I might anyway though, I want to do some studies. In fact, I just had a cool idea of how I could incorporate more anatomy into the HP space marine character.
I only asked about the environments because I've heard of people getting those jobs with character portfolios. I know it's silly to think you can demonstrate the skills without examples. I was just wondering more if it seems like I know what I'm doing, I guess. I never had any plans to break away and do environments.
I could use those side links to switch between a props page and a characters page. Good idea, I'll see about doing that.
It's already set to not repeat, so that might not be the problem. What browser are you using? Could you take a screenshot?
If it's IE6, it's probably an IE related bug that I will have to get around. It's tested fine so far in Chrome, Firefox and IE8 on my home and work PCs.