Should portfolios demonstrate versatility?
polycounter lvl 9
Hi everyone,
Been considering revamping my whole portfolio, and I wanted to get some advice. I remember going through school, we were encouraged to only show pieces that directly corresponded with what we wanted to do. For example, if you wanted to be an environment or prop artist, do not display characters. If you want to model realistically, do not include stylized or cartoony models.
What is your advice? I want to create an appealing portfolio, but I don't want it to be boring with a bunch of same-old, same-old kind of models. Is showing versatility a good thing, or would it only hurt me in the long run?
Been considering revamping my whole portfolio, and I wanted to get some advice. I remember going through school, we were encouraged to only show pieces that directly corresponded with what we wanted to do. For example, if you wanted to be an environment or prop artist, do not display characters. If you want to model realistically, do not include stylized or cartoony models.
What is your advice? I want to create an appealing portfolio, but I don't want it to be boring with a bunch of same-old, same-old kind of models. Is showing versatility a good thing, or would it only hurt me in the long run?
Replies
Cholden, should we include these 'odd things out' in our portfolio? When you said you build specific galleries, do you mean galleries all on one website but with different lined sections? Or did you have to hide stuff from employers in order to avoid looking like a generalist?
I have a Deviant Art account that I put everything on. Would you recommend that we put our non-specialist work on such websites while only putting our specialist work in the portfolio website?
I'm the same way. I apply for environment and prop modeling jobs, but my passion is modeling and sculpting characters. So therefore, when I try to make something for my portfolio, I'm more inclined to try to do characters because I have a harder time deciding which environments I want to do.
I'd say keep at least an equal balance. Maybe make some cool environments with some nice statues in it - that would show your character modeling skills as an asset.
this is a general observation I am making, not pertaining to anyone's folio directly, just something I have noticed from looking at tons of student portfolios where schools make you do everything instead of letting you choose what you enjoy doing.
When you are applying for a job you only want to put your best foot forward, so if you have some wicked environment pieces and some meh characters, drop the characters from your folio. or vice versa.
If you really want to be making characters and that's what you truly enjoy, then focus on perfecting your character creation skill set. I know a lot of students think that getting an environment art position is easier than a character one, but I think if you don't enjoy environment work that much you will be miserable making it all day, and have no time to work on becoming a character artist. Its easy to get stuck in the job you took to get into the industry and have a hard time attaining the one you really want.
showing versatility in styles is a good thing though, showing you can do kick ass photoreal or styleized textures will make you a greater asset to any team regardless if its enviro or characters.
so to sum it up, if you want to be am environment artist, focus on making the highest quality environments you can, if characters is your passion then pour all your efforts into making wicked characters and nailing anatomy and form. if you try to do it all its almost like slowly progressing in either skillset instead of hitting the turbo button on one of them.
We receive up to a dozen job spams a day. About 90% of those are people that write a lovely email, but include NOTHING. No portfolio, resume or anything linked, attach, or whatever. Really, THIS is most applicants. These also include the "hey I can't do anything, but I'm willing to learn. Hire me!" types. These emails are all deleted.
The next step up is people that do include some work, but are applying for the wrong job. For example, artists applying specifically to open programmer positions. These are deleted because people this dumb never have competent work. I kind of included this in good humor, but seriously, it happens a lot.
Somewhere between there are shitty flash sites or anything with a "loading" bar. These are almost always overlooked because we have too many applicants to wait on one.
Continuing on that path is people that apply with work samples for the right job, but their work is a random mish-mash of wtf. Like a zbrush head sculpt and a jeep. These folks usually don't know what they want to do or aren't good at what they do. These are, at best, intern or junior position folks. This is the transitional phase for artists. They can either be trained up and good, learn to present themselves and be good or simply never make it.
Closing in on what’s right is the applicants that apply for a specific position, and all of their work represents said position IN REALTIME GAME ASSETS. When I can be choosy, I pay no attention to any submission below this level. If I don't see characters or environments inside of a game engine, I don't care.
Finally, industry veterans. These guys are usually always good for the job. Only red flags I watch out for are company hopping resume padders and/or dated skill sets. Both of which are rare as this industry is small, and if you're a fuck-up, we probably already know.
trancerobot; 'odd' things are just that. Some shit nobody cares about but you the artist because you made it. To elaborate on "I'd assemble specific galleries", I mean a separate either zip of images or html gallery page. If you're applying for env work, then I should see environments in a game. Renders from max/maya or whatever, characters, etc. don't care. That said, if I were you, trancerobot, I'd finish some characters. I mean a beleivable male and hot female characters. Critter portfolio won't get you far.
BUT, and this is very important, if you're AMAZING, I throw most the rules out. What I mean by this is, if an environment artist applied, had all these lovely worlds, but also happened to win the dominance war so that character is there too. And does NOT mean a character you think you did well.
Anyway, there's plenty of text for you nerds to scrutinize.
So do you think having an extra page on your website for misc work is okay? As long as there is just 1 area dedicated to the job their applying for?
Personally, I have a gallery page that includes tons of silly things I made over the years. It is not linked from my portfolio as it should not be. I keep it because it's fun for me.
Youch! After reading that I feel like I shouldn't even have a portfolio website yet, nor should I show anything anywhere but Deviant Art.
But hey, that's why I joined this community. I absolutely love it when people get right to the point instead of tip-toeing around people's fragile egos or feelings. You've answered all of my questions. Thanks.
Completely agree with this. Finding the right job isnt just about the work you have on your folio but its how well your market yourself for the job you want. That isnt to say the quality of work isnt important.
Some employers will be willing to over look some technical/artistic short comings for some who is extreamly passionate about there work, the job they are applying for and show technical and artistic potential to be a great artist.
A lot of things just come from experience that you cant get on your own and require a production environment.
Almost every company is looking for someone that can emulate their style, and hit the ground running without much rampup time.
Places like Blizzard, Infinity Ward, Naughty Dog, Bungie, Epic, Id, etc. want to see that you can completely emulate THEIR style, before they even send you a TEST to demonstrate how well you can emulate their style.
....Sorry, that's a bit long winded, but that's my dilemma, if you want to even call it that.
As Jacque Choi mentioned, it's good to show you can latch onto a given style and run with it without any fuss.
As for different disciplines... if you want to be a character artist, it's good to show only character art and so on. That said, you might be needed to work on other things (a character artist might need to make some props, for example) so it can be handy to show you understand what's required. I don't think it often goes the other way, though (i.e. env artists being moved onto characters).
My 2c.
Having more low quality won't make up the difference. It's better to be a master of one than a master of none. Of course after you master one thing you feel like tackling something else then go light the world on fire.
This is a large part of why I stopped pursuing a position at a game development studio. My talents lean much more heavily toward generalization than specialization. I've never been fantastic at any one thing, but I tend to be good at almost everything.
Sadly, if your objective is simply to find fresh employment, advertising a broad talent offering is not the way to go.
When it comes to pieces in a portfolio, what does a studio find more value in: Strong personal work, or having finished assets in a shipped title?
Lets say the assets in the title fit the art style, are optimized correctly but are not off the wall amazing.
I would assume both types of work showcased together would be strongest. But in regards to being a newer game artist with a decent skill set, would one recommend that they spend their time honing personal pieces or working as a volunteer on community projects that have potential to be released?
Lets also say this newer game artist only has so much time to do either A) or
Cheers!
Never put in weak pieces for the sake of versatility though.
I think there are a couple exceptions to this. For example, I ended up with a test for Overwatch with 0 stylized pieces in my portfolio. I also know of another artist at a huge sci-fi oriented studio who was asked as well.
Obviously Overwatch's style is a bit of a mid ground between realism and stylized. I feel though overall if you have a ton of realistic pieces, you're probably not going to work on a handpainted game anytime soon.
I don't got the numbers but I'm confident there are more realistic games being made in the AAA space than stylized. And when you talk stylized, it's a very diverse and different set of artstyles whereas realism has a lot of overlaps.