Portfolio Critique

GlenGramling

Hi everyone!

I was hoping i could get some quick critiques on my website and its content. I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible and easy to use.

www.glenwarp.com

Thanks!

Joshflighter

Your second/third works are redirecting to your first piece.
E/Btw, I love the simplicity of your site!

GlenGramling

Shame on me for not checking my links, but thanks so much fro the input.

megalmn2000

Would be nice if you can put your title (environment, character, etc...) under your name somewhere so I can know which kind of 3D artist you are.

Howl

The simplicity of your site is much appreciated. It really does well to showcase your work.

I have two points of advice though. Your resume is completely centered aligned, which makes it very hard to read. The bullet points especially since the bullets are no longer aligned.

Secondly your About page leads to an empty page with almost a copyright footer. Unless you plan to fill it with a little section about who you are I think its actually taking away from your site.

tristamus

Looks good!

Could use the aforementioned fixes, and here is my suggestion as well...

Add the ability to click THROUGH all your images, instead of having to click my back button in my browser to get back to your main Portfolio page. Make me do as least work as possible to see your images.

That's about it, otherwise, great site. Simplicity is key.

Broken_Lawnmower

Nice site, man. I'd say move those 2d pics at the bottom to a different page or divide them from the 3d somehow (maybe with a divider). Right now they either get lost in the shuffle or jar the viewer abit, like:

3d, nice

3d, nice

3d, nice

suddenly 2d, omgwtfclose

Other than though (plus everything else everyone else said), nice site, man.

Der Hollander

I'm finding your lack of consistency in your presentation a little jarring, and all your render sizes are different, including some sizes that cause me to have to scroll left to right to see it all. Having it too tall to fit on a monitor is fine as long as your beauty shot fits, then I don't mind scrolling to see your breakdowns.

I would also hazard to say that your zSculpts should be presented with a single material for all of them and for Christ's sake, do a render. seeing the janky default zBrush gradient in the background just makes your presentation for those pieces look lazy.

Last, but most important to my own personal views, all of your characters are bald. Again, it makes your presentation look unfinished and lazy to me.

GlenGramling

Thanks guys Great input!


megalmn2000,
I've thought about this, but seeing how i'm truly a generalist would this be a good thing to corn-hole myself in to one position. Lately I've been leaning towards environment/prop modeling though so i think your right.

Howl,
Yep I'm fixing this ASAP

tristamus,
I had hoped that just being able to click the portfolio button again would suffice. I think your right though I was just trying to get out of doing more html than i had to.

Broken_Lawnmower,
LOL! I will probably just get rid of those.

Der Hollander,
I really do need to sit down one day and make everything more consistent, as far as presentation goes.

I know my one major flaw is having allot of "un-finished" work (bald characters) and such. I guess I'm some what proud of them so i feel the need to show them off a little, but hopefully once i get a good cohesive body a work i can exclude them. Your absolutely correct though, and you hit the nail on the head as far as how i feel about my own body of work.

jsargent

The main advice I would give is to start with your best work, you want to make that the first thing people see. I don't mean to sound horrible (really!! ) but I almost closed your site after looking at the first 2 pics (the gun and the door/gate) because I thought they were quite weak and not very well presented. HOWEVER I thought I'd have a quick look down and noticed you actually have some much better stuff there. My favourites are the child's head (could do with finishing but its lovely), the crazy octopus thing, the Great Dane and the stylised weapons (these are really nice!). I would consider these all to be far better pieces of work. If I was an art director of looking to hire you probably wouldn't have been so lucky and I would have just closed your site and moved on.

So, in short only use your best work!! Its really nice and that's what you should be showing off straight away!

Frankie

I'd say put all the full images at the bottom of the first webpage so I can scroll down and see them all without having to click anything and wait for it to load. It would probably take a bit of fiddling but worth considering.

SamboMambo

you've got some nice stuff there but you should really decide if you want to be an environment or character artist. I would recommend that you concentrate on your env work, as while your characters arnt bad, you pretty much have to be Michelangelo these days to make it as a character artist in the industry.

I would remove the tank and the alien dude next to it as they stand out as much weaker than your other work and you should only show your best.

I would also recommend creating a whole finished scene in UDK as you have a couple of scenes that are half way there.

Sandro

Yeah, website layout itself is very nice, but content is confusing.

Proper way to do this for env artist would be having 2-3 finished environments with dedicated pages where you show beauty shots, breakdowns, props, textures and shaders you made for that particular environment.

As for character art, pretty much the same - finished characters with texture sheets, beauty shots, wireframe overlays per character. I'd compile studies and speed sculpts on a single sheet/page.

As for generalist thing - it's common with general vfx/motion graphics stuff but game industry positions tend to be pretty focused.

l.croxton

I don't have any professional experince nor do I have any weight in crit'ing your work asside from what I think "looks good". However I have picked up a few points from professionals one being the head guy from a big UK studio and he said be specific when you give stuff in of what you want to do. Obviously while I think your work is awesome you have a bit of everything in there which if you apply for a job as enviroment artist or character or whatever having lots of different things will look messy.

Still put them on show if you want but maybe put them in catogries .

GlenGramling

Thanks guys,

You've given me some pretty good ideas on how to improve.

Frankie,
This actually gives me a great idea that will make things allot easier on me in the long run.

SamboMambo,
Most of that UDK stuff was done as a teaching demo for my students on how to use the kit, but I'm working on a full UDK scene now that will hopefully be the highlight of my portfolio.

Sandro,
I think you misunderstood me about the generalist thing. I'm in no way looking for a job as a generalist, i know that's a pipe dream. I want a website that doesn't single me out as being only one thing, so if i apply for a job as a character artist they don't just open the page and close it because it says environment artist.

Your right about the fact that i need more "finished" better categorized work though. As a teacher I'm always being pulled in different directions, because i need to teach all subjects. So its really difficult to specialize and actually finish stuff, but that's just something personal i need to work on and the exact reason I'm trying to find an industry job; because i want to be more focused and specialized.

Mute

The artwork looks fairly decent. The only thing I really don't like about the site is the fact that I have to keep hitting the back button to see another render. Consider making it possible for someone to go from one piece of work to the next directly from on place instead of always going back to the homepage.

GlenGramling

Thanks Mute,

I'm going to fix that soon. I'm not sure if it would be better to have everything on separate pages like it is now but with a next and previous button. Or put everything on that main portfolio page so you can either click the thumbnail and shoot to that image, or just scroll down and look at them all. The scrolling down option would definitely make it easier on me but i feel like the other would look better.

Mute

The new web site I'm working on for myself will have the main stage on the page with the tumbnails underneath it so you can click or hover over the thumbnail to show it in the stage. Might be a good way to go for you. But it's totally your call. Nice work nonetheless.