What should go in my demo reel?

Dack19877

I'm starting new work for a new demo reel because I need to land a job in a video game company with in a year. I'm aiming for Austin Texas because its close and there are a lot of great companies over there. My current demo reel inst cutting it and I was wondering if I could get some advice for what to make in my new demo reel.

http://www.dackss.com/3d
(This is my current demo reel.)
-Thanks for any input
-Dack Gutierrez

CrackRockSteady

First off, i'm not a character artist, so I'll just give some general presentation advice.

first, your demo reel didn't play on the website for me (not sure if that's just me though). I'm using IE. The download link worked fine though, so I just downloaded it.

As far as the reel itself, I would say get more finished models on there. The first character looked pretty good, but I'd like to see it finished. The other models you have all look very flat, you should get a nice lighting setup going and really present them as well as you can. You want people to see your work and be wowed.

Also, sloowwwwww down those turnarounds. It's very hard for people to really get a good look at your work with the models spinning so fast. People want to get a good close look at your models and textures, but right now everything spins by too fast to get more than just a brief impression.

I'm sure other people can give more in-depth feedback, but those are my first impressions.

af3d

A demo reel is nice to have, but most studios don't require one for application. For character art stills are actually a better way to present because you can view the character from top to bottom in a few seconds and your eye can focus on the details. Producers and HR employees typically don't have time to sift through a single applicant's work for more than minute. So take your finished models and give them a nice pose, a good lighting setup, and render them out in a game engine. If your work doesn't immediately impress you are probably not going to get a job. Avoid having more than one unfinished work in your portfolio. Your work should also be seen the second someone navigates to your site in the form of a thumbnail, a banner, etc.