Portfolio - Neil Gowland - Environment Artist

Grimmstrom

Hey Guys

I've been working on my website and blog over the past few weeks and I think its got to the point where there both ready for some external input.

Feel free to critique everything you see

http://www.neilgowland.com
http://grimmstrom.blogspot.com

Also I've noticed that the tutorial page doesn't display properly in Internet Explorer but works fine in Chrome and Firefox. Does anyone have a solution? I'd hate to redesign because of a simple problem.

Thank you in advance

danshewan

Needs more work. The way the site is designed suggests that you have more, or are leaving space for later work, but right now there's way too much empty space and your thumbnails are really difficult to read considering there's only three pieces. I wouldn't worry about the tutorial page at this stage, either.

Your work is okay, but the interior texture of the far right side building in your city block model is really off. The perspective is very strong in the texture, but look how it aligns (or doesn't) to the actual geometry of the building.

Also, the Tokyo barrier model is pretty weak. I don't know why so many people insist on modeling such mundane objects (particularly these), but even though I'm sure you used reference, it still doesn't look finished or especially interesting aside from the bold color. Might help to add a reference image to the page to give something to compare your model to, but this won't do much to make the prop itself more interesting.

Not to nit-pick, but so many people market themselves as environment artists without actually showing any. Right now, we've got two props and a larger environment element, but no finished scenes or environments. Maybe think about tackling a scene that could demonstrate things like lighting, composition, a larger overall color scheme etc.

Shiniku

The website seems like it would serve it's purpose, and I like how you've laid out the thumbnails, though I agree it's not really working with just 3 samples, it's just too empty. You may be getting a bit ahead of yourself.

Your examples are nice, though really simple, you should work on some unique assets and environments to really 'wow' people. Right now you've got two, nice looking, yet very simple assets, and a very photosourced looking row of buildings, and though it shows promise, I'm not 'wow'ed.

BlvdNights

Your building scene is atrocious. You need to learn to rely less on just straight photos and actually put textures together using painting, photo editing, layers, blending, masking, etc. No one is gonna hire an environment artist who doesn't know at least these basic skills.

PixelMasher

BlvdNights wrote: »

Your building scene is atrocious. You need to learn to rely less on just straight photos and actually put textures together using painting, photo editing, layers, blending, masking, etc. No one is gonna hire an environment artist who doesn't know at least these basic skills.

hahah i dont know about that, I think it looks fine, infact it looks pretty much like most of the building models/textures I have seen in NFS, gran turisomo, and project gotham, their textures are almost 100% photosource. we used the same style when I was working on true crime hong kong.

he has removed most of the lighting information and reflections, if those were in UDK or cryengine or any racing game engine I bet it would look ace. right now the lack of lighting is what is killing it.

yes being able to do ll that stuff you mentioned is required obviously , but if I was looking to hire for the next NFS or PGR game thats the exact kind of work I would be looking for. calling it atrocious is pretty ridiculous when a ton of the time in production you have to use photos to get the work done on time and in the style.

I agree abot the lack of work thougha couple more full, properly lit scenes and you will be well on the way to having a pretty solid folio.

BlvdNights

PixelMasher wrote: »

hahah i dont know about that, I think it looks fine, infact it looks pretty much like most of the building models/textures I have seen in NFS, gran turisomo, and project gotham, their textures are almost 100% photosource. we used the same style when I was working on true crime hong kong.

he has removed most of the lighting information and reflections, if those were in UDK or cryengine or any racing game engine I bet it would look ace. right now the lack of lighting is what is killing it.

yes being able to do ll that stuff you mentioned is required obviously , but if I was looking to hire for the next NFS or PGR game thats the exact kind of work I would be looking for. calling it atrocious is pretty ridiculous when a ton of the time in production you have to use photos to get the work done on time and in the style.

I agree abot the lack of work thougha couple more full, properly lit scenes and you will be well on the way to having a pretty solid folio.

yeah ,but would you really put that in your portfolio and expect to get a job? I do the same for scenes that have background pieces obviously, but not as foreground elements.

bgoodsell

So i checked out most of what you have and so far by biggest complaint is that your blog uses a different site than the rest of your content. The continuity is good between the style of the two sites, but offer a way to get back to your main site.

Also, I see you've worked on some shipped titles. Is there anything that prevents you from showing off what you contributed?

Your stuff looks legit so far. I agree with the others that you just need to populate the site with more stuff.

Alberto Rdrgz

I won't be a dick and say it looks atrocious but it does need some work.

PredatorGSR

For an artist with 4 years of production experience, you don't really have any work to show. That is a huge red flag to me. Your portfolio feels like a student who just graduated because of the reliance on straight photo textures, and the very small amount of work. Why don't you have any work to show?

Progg

For one thing, I wouldn't put 3 thumbnails and 7-8 blank ones as that is just further illustrating the lack of work. Just make it so your site has 3 thumbnails, if that is all you have, and leave it at that. Since you do have only photosource texturing shown, maybe spend a bit of time and work on some more stylized painted texturing. Good texturing always helps if you are an environment artist. I understand your motive behind putting the tutorial section, but to be honest they are very basic hints and most of the people in the industry that will be reviewing your portfolio are going to find it more of a nuisance than something substantial. As far as the amount of work, like the others have said.. it is really lacking. Take some time now to beef it up by doing a full scale environment. Get involved in a mod or participate in a contest if you cant get motivated, but bottom line is, you really, need more substance to your portfolio.

Also, why don't you have any cars or more racing based assets shown in your portfolio if that is the primary genre of games you have been working on?

*EDIT* Just read the above posts and realized all of what I said has been covered... but you get the idea now when multiple people say it without seeing each others comments.

danshewan

PredatorGSR wrote: »

For an artist with 4 years of production experience, you don't really have any work to show. That is a huge red flag to me. Your portfolio feels like a student who just graduated because of the reliance on straight photo textures, and the very small amount of work. Why don't you have any work to show?

Until I read this comment and bgoodsell's, I had absolutely no idea that you have production experience by looking at your work, especially on four shipped titles.

Considering this fact, I agree with Konrad - the complete lack of published work examples and personal work that reflects your years of experience seems really suspect.

I don't want to appear rude, but your personal work doesn't match what your CV is telling us at all.

Delerium

You def need some more content but the stuff you got look nice, the "Japan Night Scene" that you have in your blog look very promising, finish a block in that style !

Grimmstrom

I must admit, I hadn't braced myself for as much negative comments but thanks everyone that has commented. I agree with most of what people are saying, it just took someone else to say it for me to realize. I'll try and give a reply to everyone about what they said:

You def need some more content but the stuff you got look nice, the "Japan Night Scene" that you have in your blog look very promising, finish a block in that style !

Thanks although this is done in a very similar manner to the New York scene. Only difference is its in UDK

For an artist with 4 years of production experience, you don't really have any work to show. That is a huge red flag to me. Your portfolio feels like a student who just graduated because of the reliance on straight photo textures, and the very small amount of work. Why don't you have any work to show?

I completely get what your saying. I have plenty of professional work to be showing but as I've never seen anyone from my company post any of there professional work I don't really want to complicate things at work if they don't want these things to be released. I do however have all this work ready and presentable and I would obviously include it in my portfolio if I went for another job. (Currently I'm not really looking)

Another reason for me not having a lot of work to show is our company runs differently to most other companies that I know of. We own a Hong Kong studio which pretty much do all the artwork in bulk except for one track / level which we do in house so we can set the style. This normally equals to us getting to do about 6 assets over the course of the project. The environment artists at the UK studio are normally responible for the polish / lighting etc and making sure the quality is up to scratch. By the time one of our games is released, an asset is likely to have passed through a dozen peoples hands.

All this has changed with Ride to Hell and I have been constantly producing assets for over a year but the game is still under NDA. I wish I could show some of my work from that project

The continuity is good between the style of the two sites, but offer a way to get back to your main site.

I will do this, thanks for the advice

hahah i dont know about that, I think it looks fine, infact it looks pretty much like most of the building models/textures I have seen in NFS, gran turisomo, and project gotham, their textures are almost 100% photosource. we used the same style when I was working on true crime hong kong.

he has removed most of the lighting information and reflections, if those were in UDK or cryengine or any racing game engine I bet it would look ace. right now the lack of lighting is what is killing it.

yes being able to do ll that stuff you mentioned is required obviously , but if I was looking to hire for the next NFS or PGR game thats the exact kind of work I would be looking for. calling it atrocious is pretty ridiculous when a ton of the time in production you have to use photos to get the work done on time and in the style.

Thank you for explaining this before me, its exactly what I was going too say. I should have have said this on the website (my bad) but this is a bizarre creations art test so it was to be done in the style of PGR, this is exactly how they produce there buildings. Although I should have probably sorted out the perspective on the windows

Not to nit-pick, but so many people market themselves as environment artists without actually showing any. Right now, we've got two props and a larger environment element, but no finished scenes or environments. Maybe think about tackling a scene that could demonstrate things like lighting, composition, a larger overall color scheme etc.

I kind of agree with what your saying and I should produce a finished environment, however because I'm a family man and have other responsibilities it is likely to take me months on my own which is why I generally stick to single assets in my spare time. I still might start production on one though.

I don't really agree with what you said about environment artists though. I know plenty of companies where the look of the level etc is down to the level designers and the environment artist purely concentrate on producing modular assets.

Anyway thanks everyone, I will look into implementing everyones feedback.

Thewiruz

very nice!Is the building masular design ?Looks great