As far as the work, looks cool, however the navigation is disorienting. Having to scroll to see images in a separate window is strange, and slightly confusing currently.
remove the character. it stands out far too much and is not as well done as the other pieces.
you are only as good as your weakest piece in your folio, and this is the weakest link. yes you did it for DW, and yes it was the lowpoly mmo pre-dom war comp, but it shadows the quality of the rest of your work and that is something you want to avoid.
if you are worried people will only think you do weapons, then work on some other hard surface pieces, but make time to texture the other assets in your folio.
i agree about the layout. while it is easy to navigate, it is not good for viewing. set up individual pages with large images. don't go throwing in an image viewer as they might not work properly for the end user and typically limit the viewable scale of your work. figure out a system that will work for 99.999% of your end users that is easy to set up and maintain and will show images at a decent size.
keep each asset as its own page instead of 1 page for high poly, 1 page for low poly, 1 page for textures, etc. it takes a long time to build a solid portfolio. you can't rush it and creating multiple pages for different views of a single asset looks more like you trying to make it look like you have a lot of work.
the weapons work is solid. just needs to be 100% complete for all of them. and again, throw in some additional larger models like planes or tanks or something that can show you can handle complex hard surface work with nice detailing. tbh, i would remove the AK. there's more than enough of those floating around.
don't get discouraged. you have really solid stuff here. keep fleshing out the textures and modeling some more assets.
EDIT: HA! I submitted my post and Firebert's popped up. Kinda have similar critiques. :P I think though you might just put your character at the end of your portfolio (in the back/in a separate catagory maybe) that way people have to try and find it....
Agreed that the scrolling is kinda weird. Aside from your website...
I think your work is pretty good though I think you should really finish up some of these models. Get some textures on those things you slacker! :P Looks like you have a bunch of WIPs on your portfolio.
You are also pigeon-holing yourself. You have all guns... and a character.
So you make it seem like you are a gun specialist in a way. Are you only interested in modeling guns and characters? Food for thought.
Lastly I think your presentation could use a bit more, maybe less, work. I don't really dig the grunge background on your first piece. It is similar in color and contrast to the gun so you kinda lose the model within the background. Have your background a bit darker maybe to pop your gun out. You could do a vignette (just a thought) and if you do decide to use a grunge as a backdrop... I shouldn't even be able to notice it unless I am just looking at your background. And actually... upon closer inspection your textures are really nice/realistic on that piece, but your presentation kills it.
Maybe try to keep your presentation consistent through your model sheets. You swap a few times...
Make everything as nice as that first gun and fix your presentations, and I think it will matter less that you have nothing but guns in your portfolio. :P
Thank you very much everybody for the constructive c&c. I agree whole-heartedly on every issue. I will address everything, and will start focusing on other kinds of assets from here on out. I've been doing weapons for mods for a while now, and I want to avoid railroading myself. I'll texture these guns, and start a vehicle or something Thanks again for all the help.
Just updated my 'folio after finishing a few projects and modifying the site's code into something a little simpler and more attractive. I figured I'd make another update to this thread, and I'd love to hear your crits if you have any. Thanks in advance.
I know everyone said to do other things besides guns, so I wanted to mention that I'm currently finishing up another character model, then plan on doing an environment and a vehicle.
I won't rehash what's already by posted above, but you really have some cool stuff here! The guns are definitely really nice pieces! One thing that I noticed is that it looks almost like some of the images were stretched to match a particular resolution. This is nitpicking obviously, but I would make sure that all of your final presentation shots are HUGE!! Other than that keep up the good work!
Replies
you are only as good as your weakest piece in your folio, and this is the weakest link. yes you did it for DW, and yes it was the lowpoly mmo pre-dom war comp, but it shadows the quality of the rest of your work and that is something you want to avoid.
if you are worried people will only think you do weapons, then work on some other hard surface pieces, but make time to texture the other assets in your folio.
i agree about the layout. while it is easy to navigate, it is not good for viewing. set up individual pages with large images. don't go throwing in an image viewer as they might not work properly for the end user and typically limit the viewable scale of your work. figure out a system that will work for 99.999% of your end users that is easy to set up and maintain and will show images at a decent size.
keep each asset as its own page instead of 1 page for high poly, 1 page for low poly, 1 page for textures, etc. it takes a long time to build a solid portfolio. you can't rush it and creating multiple pages for different views of a single asset looks more like you trying to make it look like you have a lot of work.
the weapons work is solid. just needs to be 100% complete for all of them. and again, throw in some additional larger models like planes or tanks or something that can show you can handle complex hard surface work with nice detailing. tbh, i would remove the AK. there's more than enough of those floating around.
don't get discouraged. you have really solid stuff here. keep fleshing out the textures and modeling some more assets.
Agreed that the scrolling is kinda weird. Aside from your website...
I think your work is pretty good though I think you should really finish up some of these models. Get some textures on those things you slacker! :P Looks like you have a bunch of WIPs on your portfolio.
You are also pigeon-holing yourself. You have all guns... and a character.
So you make it seem like you are a gun specialist in a way. Are you only interested in modeling guns and characters? Food for thought.
Lastly I think your presentation could use a bit more, maybe less, work. I don't really dig the grunge background on your first piece. It is similar in color and contrast to the gun so you kinda lose the model within the background. Have your background a bit darker maybe to pop your gun out. You could do a vignette (just a thought) and if you do decide to use a grunge as a backdrop... I shouldn't even be able to notice it unless I am just looking at your background. And actually... upon closer inspection your textures are really nice/realistic on that piece, but your presentation kills it.
Maybe try to keep your presentation consistent through your model sheets. You swap a few times...
Make everything as nice as that first gun and fix your presentations, and I think it will matter less that you have nothing but guns in your portfolio. :P
Nice work man!
Benjamin Leary - 3D Modeler
I know everyone said to do other things besides guns, so I wanted to mention that I'm currently finishing up another character model, then plan on doing an environment and a vehicle.