Portfolio - Jake Steininger (Character Artist)
Hey everyone! 
This is my first post on this forum (on any forum, really). I received my Bachelor's in Game Art from Full Sail University back in July, and am currently on the hunt for that first gig. I've applied to many places and am keeping up the pace, but I decided that joining a forum would be a good extra step to take.
So with that, here's a link to my portfolio site. Critiques are always welcome (my site, my art, anything); I'm really trying to improve my skills so I can become a great character artist, so please don't hold back!
Thanks all, looking forward to your replies!
http://www.jakesteininger.com/
This is my first post on this forum (on any forum, really). I received my Bachelor's in Game Art from Full Sail University back in July, and am currently on the hunt for that first gig. I've applied to many places and am keeping up the pace, but I decided that joining a forum would be a good extra step to take.
So with that, here's a link to my portfolio site. Critiques are always welcome (my site, my art, anything); I'm really trying to improve my skills so I can become a great character artist, so please don't hold back!
Thanks all, looking forward to your replies!
http://www.jakesteininger.com/
Replies
Good luck!
I would recommend scrapping this format for your site all together and going with something more simple. The pictures take forever to load and the thumbnails are so blurry and compressed looking that it makes it kind of rough.
Keep a simple site and spend the time on focusing on your art
I'd say the scorpion guy is your strongest model, but don't render in Mental Ray. If you're making game res characters show them in a game engine like udk or marmoset.
Seriously though, having to wait for every image to load was a pain.
As for the work itself, its a solid start. I think that some of your characters are a little unimaginative....I looked at the thumbnails on the main page...and was just kinda...meh. The alien dude was really the only interesting thing, but your thumbnail didn't really get me excited to click, if that makes sense.
Your thumbnails could be bigger.
When you are updating, consider some character ideas that would really stand out. You want an employer to remember your work..come up with something that will stick in their minds. It will help you get noticed better.
You could stand to lose the about me page. Employers are going to be focused on your work anyways...if they want to know about you, theyll bring ya in for an interview
Also, you need a resume page.
Remake it in Frontpage or Microsoft Word if you have to.
Keep in mind, some people might want to DL your images.
Do yourself a huge favour, and make yourself a gallery on CGhub and CGsociety, and use those instead of this website.
(Plenty of artists do this, and IMHO it's a totally acceptable option).
Thank you buddikaman for the carbonmade suggestion; I've been looking into wordpress as well (as a lot of people I know have success w/ that as well).
In terms of getting your portfolio to where it needs to be to get hired as a character artist, I have doubts. The unfortunate thing is that the industry is not very welcoming to entry level character artists. Even veterans have difficulty becoming character artists. Games typically don't require an amount of character art that will keep a small army of artists busy for the length of a production cycle - (unlike environment art). So basically, you need to be in the top 30% or so of character artists to be considered for triple-A game studios, and still outrageously good for studios working on other types of games. (I'm assuming that AAA games are your goal since your characters are high-poly). Marketing yourself exclusively as a character artist is the wrong approach for you right now in my opinion. It may even come across as selfish since it makes it appear as if you have purposefully pigeon-holed your skill-set. I apologize if this sounds harsh, but I feel like more often I am seeing schools with game programs failing to deliver this information to their students. They continue to take your money without giving you any idea of what level of work you need to be producing to get hired in this industry.
What I would suggest is that you broaden your skill-set. Don't focus so heavily on characters until you have developed more of a critical eye. I have not worked with one professional who only produced characters. You should be focused on asset production - developing props using a specific pipeline. Your primary objective should be to get a job in the industry producing a type of art that you can master, then consider dictating what work you wish to focus on after you have experience.
I am very curious to know what other professionals have seen, do my observations line up? I have witnessed brilliant student character artists struggle and fail at finding character art positions.
An actual critique of your work: Oddly enough, your vehicle assets are higher quality than your characters. The texturing is very effective. The textures on your characters however, are not working very well at all. The anatomy feels incorrect as well. Also, I would render any isolated assets in the marmoset toolbag (including your characters). The pre-built lighting environments are invaluable to new artists who are production focused.
My intention is not to discourage you from pursuing a career doing what you love, but that you broaden the elements of your portfolio in a way that will result in employment.
Currently your flash site looks something that could've done with html/css, so flash doesn't really add anything to the mix
Well, Flash is cool but you can have some issues with portfolios.
- Search engine have issues with embedding texts and images from Flash sites, which isn't good for SEO
- Upgrade version. Some people, like recruiters, maybe they don't have the lastest version of Flash and your Flash website is last generation, and they need to download the player in order to see it. Not a good idea.
- HTML is much more easier to modify the content. Flash need to be rebuild everytime you make a changement.
I agree that your vehicles look a lot better than your characters. I didn't even click it until JTerry mentioned, because I ignored the squished image.
@9skulls: It wasn't as much a choice to go w/ a flash website as it was just trying to get a website going. I had never made a website before (I made the current one back in June) so I went with a site-builder (Wix.com) so I could just drop my assets into. I've been looking at WordPress themes the last day or so; it looks like a pretty simple setup. But I have to ask: is it just a matter of setting up a wordpress account, choosing a theme, paying the annual fee, and then tailoring it for my portfolio? Or do I have input my own code of some kind from scratch? Editing HTML is not difficult, but I ask because I'm not the most code-savvy person on the planet. I'm all for customizing, but I like to know what I'm getting into before I dive right in
As far as Wordpress goes it is pretty much select a format and it generates code for you. There are places that if you want something special you can google the code really quickly. The problem with Wordpress is its a blog type system and there are only so many variations you can do. Personally I would recommend you hit up Elegant Themes like I did when I got Wordpress. This enhances Wordpress and allows for a lot more creativity, I am currently using the Nova theme myself makes updating a breeze. It does cost a little bit of money, but for the time saver it more then pays for itself. Also just a quick thing, depending on your website provider it is free. I am using GoDaddy and I found out it was free for me to add besides the ElegantThemes subscription and the yearly internet service fee.
http://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/
Hope that helps man!
Alex
Lastly, make sure that the potential employer doesn't have to go through too many clicks to actually see your artwork. Flash is seldom a good idea. A direct, clean layouy won't repel art directors and portfolio reviewers.
There are plenty of examples of simple clean portfolios already mentioned in another thread but here are some examples
http://adambromell.com/
http://www.peperaart.com/
If you want to become a character artist this place is a great measuring stick
Good luck! Keep at it.
The fact that you do not keep your software up to date should already ring alarm bells, because fact 1: it tells a little something about your attitude of keeping your apps 'n' tools sharp to meet the requirements of the industry, and fact 2: it's plain inconsiderate. And for gods sakes its only a web pluging that even notifies you with a simple window with only 2 buttons when a new update has arrived, and the only thing you'd have to do is just to press the one correct button. If you don't want to do it "because it is way too much of a work", then the hell I want to work with that kind of ppl
Not true. In fact you can make it as dynamic as you ever wanted (XML anyone?) + add some additional functionality you wouldn't get with plain html.
Lawyered. *kaboosch*
EDIT
@Fuse Ugh, you call those good examples? It's like all the content was just vomitted onto a one single page which takes forever to load and which you have to scroll like hell :x That is so 90s. The only thing missing from those pages is the the purple background.
And no, no art director or recruiter wants to download any plugins or make additional clicks to view your work. Its in your best interest to make the process of quickly reviewing your art as painless and as fast as possible.
i looked at your site and saw what i needed to see pretty easily, i would not have skipped over it. to be honest id worry less about your site and more about making kick ass work. if you're good, you're site wont matter too much. a link to a cghub profile can be enough. just keep on making art ~
I'm not sure I understand your stance on adding environment assets to my portfolio; why wouldn't it be a good impression to employers? Wouldn't it be beneficial to show I can wear multiple hats in a studio if it were necessary?
You have a valid opposing point, but only if you're amazing at both and not everyone is. The other school of thought is just showing character art shows you are decisive and focused on that one discipline, instead of spreading your time/resources mastering multiple fields. Employers are then under no uncertainty as to who you are and what you want to be.
On topic, I would also recommend Carbonmade, looks simple and clean ^^
one of my teachers used this site, his name was robert brown, http://www.robertakbrown.com/
Others have already pointed out the flash stuff so I'll skip that and pass on some advice that was given to me:
Make it as easy and as fast as possible to see your work. (fewer clicks the better)
Combine all the different angles of the same asset into one larger image. (you can even include the texture sheet) If someone wants to save your images to pass around the office this makes it a lot easier.
A friend of mine also said that having a bunch of shots of the same asset can look like your trying to inflate your portfolio. Better to leave them wanting more.
Showcase your best stuff first and cut out everything you feel isn't your strongest work. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. The man bear isn't at the same level as your scorpion monster so if you really like it then do some more work to bring him up to snuff. Otherwise id suggest giving it the axe. Even the blizzard cinematic team scrapped 2 versions of Azmodan before they did the version we see in the black soul stone cinematic.
Hope it helps man! Goodluck!
agree