[Portfolio] David Lyons

David Lyons

www.davidscottlyons.com

Hey everyone, I'm looking for critiques on both the website design / presentation and the content itself. I'm graduating in December and I'll be applying for jobs soon.

Thanks!

Habboi

Oh God no. That was the first reaction when I saw flash being used on your website. Using flash on a portfolio is like the first rule of never from what I've read. The overall design is nice though and plain but when I look at new portfolio's I want to jump straight in and choose what to view. Instead I'm having to guess what your images are from really small thumbnails.

So really my answer to all this is...

Keep the overall look but put all your best work on the very first page and let me choose to view your demo reel. Don't force it on me. So large images or large thumbnails all neatly lined up and BAM in my face. Hope that helps.

There's some good work on there.

Edit: Another look over. What exactly do you want to be? 3D artist? CG artist? Drawer? Animator? Judging from the reel I assume animator?

PredatorGSR

I think you should focus on what you want to do and work on that for a while. Your portfolio looks like a lot of student portfolios in that you have your assignments from every class, and it obvious that it is the first time you were doing it. Honestly, there wasn't a piece that jumped out to me as being close to industry level, and they do need to be at that level.

I would recommend throwing out everything in your portfolio and spend a year or so working on just the aspect you want to work on. Post your work for crits so that people can help you improve. To be blunt, your portfolio isn't good enough to get a job as a 3d artist and I think it will take some time and hard work to get it to that level. Don't fall into the trap of thinking because you graduated you will get a job, sending out your portfolio when it isn't ready and then giving up when you don't receive any responses.

Also, if you want to work in games (since this is a game art forum), none of your work is game art, so you would need to address that.

Btw, your animation reel is misleading, I didn't realize it was just mocap cleanup until I watched it the 2nd time.

roosterMAP

the video takes too long to load. employers (most of which dont even have the time to look at resume's and such) wont take the time to let it load. either make it lower res or use only pictures. HTML is way more reliable than flash.

tda

After checking through most of your work the most important thing im thinking is i don't know at all what kind of job you are pitching yourself for. It's pretty vague based on your work and your work experience, and you don't specify anywhere. If someone stumbles into your site and they like your work, they have no idea what you do or if you're even available for work.

I'm going to echo PredatorGSR and say you definitely need more work that looks less like uni assignments. Other than that, the biggest thing i can add to what's already been said is that a portfolio should be your best work only. Nobody likes looking at bad art, and even if you specify like "this is an old piece" or "i drew this when i was 7 years old" they are still going to associate you with that crappy drawing. That is bad. Get rid of the junk, post only what you are most proud of. Everything else can go on your blog.

David Lyons

My primary interest is modeling. While I am interested in working in games, I think I've been leaning more towards modeling for animation. I labeled my demo reel as "Modeling Demo Reel", but I guess that wasn't clear enough just because the rest of the website isn't very focused?

@Habboi - The idea was to put my best work in my demo reel which is why I have that on the first page. But your comment about the small/large thumbnails definitely makes sense.

@Predator - I think I'd have to agree with everything you said. I really don't feel like the quality of my work is at the level it needs to be at either. I am planning on spending a lot of my own time on models, among other things, that I can post here for crits after I graduate.

@tda - Yeah, I looked through the work in my portfolio again, and there's a lot that I'll have to take off.

Thanks for all of the feedback so far.

LRoy

I recently graduated myself and found that the level I was at was nowhere near industry ready. I think that's the case with a lot of students. What you have to do now is take what you've learned and really buckle down to improve. Figure if you were working at a studio you'd be spending at least 8 hours a day on a project and try to match that, if possible.

Snader

You have five different types of art. Pick one.

Using flash to show a video or possible a 3d model viewer(fancy!) is okay, but please don't use it for something as simple as showing images.

Your demoreel is pretty much a bunch of spinning and panning images, get some more actual animation in there.. Ditch the 2D.

The animation short is the best part but still lacking, both in content and presentation. Show the animation first, and then the character breakdown, and show his textures in the UV unwrap. On a similar note, why is he entirely unwrapped? His pants and skin seem to have no texture, and the shirt only has a reletively small decal. Your UVs are wasteful in general, actually.

Your highpolies are unfinished. The helmet lacks a bunch of holes on the back and the ribbing on the top panel, the radio misses some floral bits and some sort of power cord would've made sense, and the cat... let's forget about the cat.

Jason Young

Lots of good crits. I actually thought the website itself was good, but I don't hate flash. It loaded quickly for me and everything was easy to navigate.

You have a modeling reel and it sounds like you want to be a modeler, but there's no modeling section on the site. That seems a bit odd to me. I'll echo what Snader said about the UVs. They stuck out at me as the weakest part technically.

Rockley Bonner

It was good, I wasnt majorly impressed though.

I dont know if it was my computer but the animation with the boy in the arcade the helmet diddnt move when he grabbed it it stayed in place while the boy put on an imaginary helmet.

Could be my computer....

Habboi

Here, use this presentation to help you improve the site.

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012479/Getting_Noticed__Why_You_Need_an_Online_Portfolio_and_How_to_Make_One

SouthpawSid

Thanks for sharing that Habboi, awesome stuff. David, that ppt is VERY useful and you'd be very wise to follow it.

David Lyons

The first character model on the demo reel has separate textures for the body, hair, and shirt. I think the pants were just using a shader. I'm curious as to what some of you would have done with his UVs. Also, my group never finished the animation that he was in. The helmet actually doesn't move when he grabs it. Yet another problem area.

Thanks again for all of the replies. This is all very helpful. And thanks for sharing that powerpoint, Habboi. I will be sending that to some people at school.

Habboi

No problem. It helped me when I wanted to make sure I wasn't pushing away my viwers. It's very useful and fun to read. Good luck improving your site!