[Portfolio] Daryl Smout
polycounter lvl 12
Hello all, this is my portfolio of best work so far. I'm currently in my second year of a BA Digital Arts at University of Huddersfield.
The work is hosted by the standard Deviant Art portfolio, so I'm not really seeking feedback on the layout/design itself as I will be in the near future creating my own site/page. What I'm looking for is feedback on my work so far...
... what's my weakest piece? is there anything glaringly obviously wrong? is the work of a standard yet that may get me interviews?
any feedback you guys give would be greatly appreciated a million times over
darylsmout.daportfolio.com
The work is hosted by the standard Deviant Art portfolio, so I'm not really seeking feedback on the layout/design itself as I will be in the near future creating my own site/page. What I'm looking for is feedback on my work so far...
... what's my weakest piece? is there anything glaringly obviously wrong? is the work of a standard yet that may get me interviews?
any feedback you guys give would be greatly appreciated a million times over
darylsmout.daportfolio.com
Replies
Your church scene, the lighting is absolutely horrible, and honestly looks unfinished because of it. So, either ditch the whole thing, or light it better. The obelisk is cool, but needs to be displayed better. use marmoset or something.
the sci-fi tileable. It looks decent enough, but there's no clutter, and the red tint, i really dont like.
Six sections, repetitive content, no resume/CV
Homepage be gone!
Replace Bio with Resume
Sci-Fi Tile able. I'm going to be outright with it; this scene is bullshit. No composition, no focal point, no light sources. Its box rooms with random tiling textures on. Only a few other shapes here and there, again with just random tiling textures, yellow fog for some reason?.
Get some concept art to build off of as concept/design is your weak points here.
Church: renders are just too dark, lighting too harsh (solid black background, solid black shadows). This overall, it's as bad as its presentation. It needs to be re-rendered, preferably in UDK, Cry3 or Unity (anything real-time)
Concept art: none is really professional level. Lots of inconsistency, wonky/distorted anatomy, etc. Not sure any of this is helping.
Characters: Lots of repeats from the concept section. Only one actual, finished game character and its anatomy is blobby and strange. Again, dark background, odd presentation. The bust doesn't seem to have any anatomy so much as a rough shape of a head with a texture on it.
Obviously you're learning and have a long way to go. So here's what I'd do. Delete this portfolio. Make a new one with a simple gallery and resume/CV pages. Make a new Sci-fi scene based on a solid concept, re-present the church, and put the concept/character work on the backburner until you can get a solid portfolio together. This can get your foot in the door while you train up on character work if it's something you're passionate about.
- TRAPS. The traps from the side are too thick and jut too far out to the back.
- BUTT. This was clearly done very quickly without much regard for how the muscles back there work together and fit.
- FRONT OF KNEE: the muscle attachment at the front of the knee is pretty bad. If he bends his knee, most of the muscles in his calf separate from the bone and would snap it in half.
- BACK OF KNEE: The fat tube thing behind the knees would only let them bend 45 degrees if he tried to bend them at all.
- ARMS: They're really short and stubby.
- BACK: the back torso has 2x the detail of the front. The abs are flat and featureless, and are a great opportunity for more interesting details. Overall, the distribution of detail is uneven.
- MUSCLES: The anatomy of the abs, biceps, triceps and quads are pretty far off. I'd suggest reading Bridgman's The Human Machine, which is the best book on functional anatomy and how the muscles work together that I've ever read: [ame="http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1466311649?tag=adapas02-20"]Amazon.com: The Human Machine (9781466311640): George B. Bridgman: Books[/ame]
It's super cheap on Amazon, and I still refer to it today just because it's awesome.
Hopefully none of this comes off as being too harsh. You're further along than many and you're putting yourself out there and improving yourself. Definitely keep it up.
@choldo
The scene is from a book by Alastair Reynolds and is about a ring of space stations around the planet Yellowstone. I'm yet to add a large cargo shuttle suspended over the large airlock, hopefully this will provide a focal point and variety in shapes. I was also intending to add in lots of props like machinery on the walls, so the walls themselves will be merely background stuff, does that make sense?
The yellow fog is to enhance the yellowish light reflected up from the planet, its not very realistic i know but I thought it might help capture the atmosphere of an old station around the planet which is very yellowish according to the book.
@Jon Jones
Cheers matey, I appreciate that although I'm not too bothered about doing character art, I think at this stage I would like to simply become a prop artist but it never hurts to improve in all areas and I am thankful for you pointing me in the right direction.
i find my best work comes from a solid concept. also my quickest work (i get lost in the small things if im going at it on my own) so find a sick piece of concept that you love and think will stand out as a bad ass portfolio piece find other reference images to support it and go at it hard ! ...best of luck man : )
To be honest, I actually like your characters. I think you're stronger as a concept artist from what I've seen on your portfolio. I'd stick with that and take what Jon Jones mentioned and use it to improve more. Good luck!
What exactly will you be working on out of curiosity? Props? Characters? Concept Art?