[Portfolio] – Sander de Laat, Environment Artist

SanderDL

Hey polycounters!

It's internship time for me and I've updated my portfolio accordingly:

Portfolio

Just so you know, the top two pieces are made especially for an internship as I've talked with a few companies and they all adviced to have atleast some characters in there.

Cheers!

Neox

Hm it says "Sander de Lat - Environment artist", why is the first thing i see a character?

I think your strongest work is the last piece you show, besides some strange pixelation and why didn't you mirror the carpet twice so you gain 4x the resolution? otherwise i think this should be the first thing you show

Alex3d

Hey, cool environments. The "advice" you got is probably targeted for generalist interns NOT Environment artists(Any company that tells an enviro guy to do characters is probably a warning sign that its not a good place to work). Besides, characters are not your strongest point, pour gasoline on them and set them on fire... Only show your strongest work in your portfolio. As mentioned above, last piece is your strongest. The reason is, other environments feel rather empty, make more assets...

SanderDL

You guys make good points. All the different adavice I get is confusing me a little. I think I'll remove them, or atleast move to the bottom of the page. They were a nice experience to make though.

I don't know about the interior. I can't look at it and agree it's the strongest piece. Maybe because I know how it was made lol.

Which order do you guys suggest?

megalmn2000

Hum....what's the meaning of "0031 0620291206" at the top of the page?

Rick_D

The goal was to create a scene based on the famous phrase by Jessica Rabbit:
"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.". To Live up to this phrase I decided to do an abandoned factory.

haha genius

Santhem

I actually think the abandoned factory is your strongest piece. But (and this goes for almost all pieces) you don't have alot of contrast in your pieces. Try tweaking the lighting a bit more. An abandoned factory should have dark corners. Yours is a little too happy, imo. However, it does have a good quality, which especially this shot shows: http://www.inserttalent.nl/~gm10860/images/urban_render5.jpg

As for the interior, you might want to look at the texture of the carpet. That scene has the most contrast in light/dark, but imo still not enough. Though that, and the nicely matching colours make why most ppl see it as your strongest piece.

The factory shows a skybox in the textures-used part, but theyr rendered against a grey background? (Also, make the textures clickable to high-res, and if possible put the normal maps under the diffuse maps, that way we dont have to search which matches which).

Other than that i agree with the rest, move your characters down. You'v got some good stuff that should defently help get you an internship somewhere, but the characters on top arent helping that much.

SanderDL

megalmn2000 wrote: »

Hum....what's the meaning of "0031 0620291206" at the top of the page?

That's my mobile phonenumber. If you have Skype installed it recognizes the number and you can call directly. If it's not clear that it is suppose to be a phone number, perhaps I could add Tel: in front of it.

@Rick_D:

You are such a joker, I'm not really sure when you are serious lol. If meant as a serious critic, please explain further.

@Santhem:

I'll put the things you've mentioned on my to-do list. The factory does infact use a skybox, but the texture is very small and the depth of field blurs it. I'll try to make the texture maps full res, might make things more clear like that anyway.

Darkmaster

One thing that I noticed is that in the environment that you did for the "Phrase Challenge", you have a brick texture that is in every screen shot of this page... The thing is, that the brick texture doesn't tile! As an environment artist, employers will NAIL you for not being able to tile textures. It is absolutely essential, and without that skill, you will not be taken as seriously by game companies.

Another thing that I keep hearing from hiring managers is that they want to see environments rendered in game. UDK is very easy to learn, and in most cases here will really help your presentation. If you are going to be applying to more game companies, then they will be much more impressed if you put in the time to throw your environment in game. Keep pluggin away man!

Isaiah Sherman

Get rid of the two bottom ones, the buff character and the fox with the environment. Those look severely outdated and do not represent the skill level of your other projects.

You will always be remembered for your worst art.

As for the design of the website, I like it. It's simple and easy. Good luck!

SanderDL

@Darkmaster:

Well spotted! It really doesn't tile well. Can't believe I didn't see that myself. I do know how to tile textures, as you can see from the other pieces. I'll fix this as soon as possible.

I was quite surprised at your other comment. I always present my work in realtime. Especially that you mention UDK as nearly all the work is presented in UDK. The other two are in Unity and with 3point shader. But I guess it couldn't hurt to make it more clear what I used to present it in.

@Haiasi:

I do agree with you on the characters. But I think the environment the wolf is in does show that I can do a different style aswell.

Isaiah Sherman

I might suggest getting rid of the concept art & model of the wolf, then. It's no where near the level of your other work. It'd be fine to keep the shots of the environments with the wolf in it.