[Portfolio] – Kris Fancsali, Character Artist

Turret

Hello everyone, I am 21 and graduated with a degree in computer animation from Full Sail back in 2009. My portfolio was honestly not as robust as I would have wished it were after graduation or as focused on games. My demo was geared towards film more then anything else so I have been planning and working on my gallery to show off work that fits for video games. I tend to get distracted while working on my own with ideas for other models, which has lead me to having more half finished models then finished. I am taking steps to kick this habit, like entering the Brawl contest, and want to be moving forward with a strong plan so I can churn out model after model.

I need my portfolio torn apart. Let me know what is good, what studios like to see, so I can make more, and what is bad so I can stop wasting time on that type of work and take it down. I have been working on making a varied body of work. Work ranges from low poly models with only a diffuse and spec, like in World of Warcraft, to models with normal maps sculpted using Zbrush.

Be as honest and as brutal as you need to be, I can take it. Here is the link to my gallery on my website and I attached a couple models to let you know what your getting into. Thanks for spending the time to check out my portfolio and giving it a critic.

http://www.krisf3d.com/gallery.html

snow

Haha conehead zombie is great, I have no idea with characters but looks like you're doing well .

megalmn2000

Love your conehead zombie!
Ok, seriously, here's my suggestions for your portfolio:
- You don't need to write "Finished 3D models", a portfolio should only contains finish 3D models and no wip works (so I would get rid of it or maybe put them on a blog).
- I don't think you'll need a link section, people are going to hire you, not the others
- For the title at the top, instead of "3D modeler", "character modeler" will be more precise for recruiters
- Not sure if it's a good idea to put a home section, since your home section is the gallery. Also, your demo reel is already at the bottom of the gallery so I don't think you'll need the home page.
- Your wip works doesn't look bad at all, you should consider to finish them.

Turret

Thanks for the comments. I just finished the conehead zombie for an art test, still waiting to hear back about that. *cross fingers* Regarding the WIP section I have been getting the vibe that I should maybe remove it but like you said some of the stuff in there looks good and I am attached to it. I will look at which models I could finish quickly and then move them to a blog. As for the links page and home page those were all made to follow the guidelines of our class. I had a friend code my website so I will talk to him about redoing some of it.

SarahFaber

ooo... I like the shield. I don't know if I would get rid of the 3d sculpts altogether, there is some good stuff in there. I'd really like to see some of it completed. Also i don't know if its a big deal, but i wouldn't mind a "next" button when viewing the images instead of closing the image to look at the next one. Viewing your resume on the screen as well as having a download option would be better. Nice stuff and a good, clean website.

Turret

Hehe, a next button is something I have been asking my friend for for a long time. I might just have to break down and spend a month learning how to make a nice flash website. In the long run it would be worth it.

DDuckworth

Hey turret about making flash websites you may not be so right about it being worth it, I very much believe in what cholden mentions here in this quote from this thread

cholden wrote: »

Just for good times, I'll give you guys a heads up on the types of applicants I commonly see.

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.

The biggest thing out of that would be the flash site part of it, but I felt it could help for you to see the whole thing anyways. Your lightbox application is way too slow for me, try to display the images away from this, there are other versions of lightbox which run MUCH faster than this one, this one resizes then loads and it is just taking so long to look at your images that i find myself closing out before even taking a glance. Check out fancybox and some other variations on lightbox, try searching "fast lightbox" in google and see what you can come across. If you don't want that then perhaps try out a solution which doesn't require this type of gallery at all, simpleviewer is nice too though because it preloads all of the images for extremely fast browsing of pieces.

TLDR; don't spend a month learning to make flash websites, i learned and have now found that knowledge to be useless - or at least for folio sites in most cases.

Slipstream

^ Pretty much what DDuckworth posted

As far as the work goes, the largest thing I see wrong with your portfolio is that alot of it seems like padding.

Outside the anatomy drawings and self portrait, you can safely get rid of most of the 2d stuff. And then work on replacing them with further studies in the same vein, or in zbrush.
The ones you have show you have a pretty good starting understanding of anatomy and proportion, it just needs some refinement

I would also get rid of most your environment models, as I'm assuming you want to be more of a character artist. At most I'd keep the Chinatown and/or the Hangar, as Chinatown shows off your lighting and texturing abilities, and the Hangar is a good example of your modeling.

I think your character and creature stuff is good, but not quite professional level yet. I think your strongest pieces are your mage (which shows off some pretty good hand painting skills), the lich, and your gladiator helmet (even though it's unfinished, it still looks great, and that thumbnail is deceptive on what you'll be seeing.)

For most everything else, I think you'd benefit from posting the project you're most excited about finishing on some forums for critiques

Turret

Thanks DDuckworth and slipstream for the comments. I will look into finding a lightbox that is faster, doesn't resize and has a next picture feature. Good thing I started using marmoset for all my renders since showing the models in real time is very important. There is definitely some padding since I don't have a large body of work yet, but it looks like a smaller portfolio with higher quality of work will be better then a larger one with a wider range of quality. I will cut more work that isn't up to snuff. Also with the 2d section I want to show not only some traditional art skills but concept work, I have just been busy with modeling and need to practice my digital painting a lot more.