[Portfolio] - Tom Ellis
Hey everyone,
After a few 'PC is not your blog' threads, a bit of emo, some bitching, crying, and a bit of self-doubt, I've decided to redesign my website, take out the crap and leave what I think to be my best work.
I'd appreciate it if you guys could look over it, and offer any advice that jumps to mind.
Firstly, I'd like crit on the site itself. I'm by no means a web designer and I tried to keep it simple and clean. So is the layout / nav good/bad, could be improved etc?
And then my work. Now, I'm most definitely what you'd call 'entry-level'. I've been working on game art for about a year now and I'm hoping I'm approaching employable (at studio bitch, junior level) but feel free to shoot me down if you think I'm being too ambitious. I've already applied for a bunch of jobs just in the wild and crazy hope I'd get a foot in the door but no luck yet.
Blitz gave me a 'competition was very high', Playground Games gave me a 'our lead fed back positively on your work but we don't have a slot for a junior right now', and a couple other companies didn't respond. So I'm not sure how much truth there is in those responses but as it stands, I guess I have a way to go yet.
Ok, fire away!
http://www.creationtwentytwo.co.uk
After a few 'PC is not your blog' threads, a bit of emo, some bitching, crying, and a bit of self-doubt, I've decided to redesign my website, take out the crap and leave what I think to be my best work.
I'd appreciate it if you guys could look over it, and offer any advice that jumps to mind.
Firstly, I'd like crit on the site itself. I'm by no means a web designer and I tried to keep it simple and clean. So is the layout / nav good/bad, could be improved etc?
And then my work. Now, I'm most definitely what you'd call 'entry-level'. I've been working on game art for about a year now and I'm hoping I'm approaching employable (at studio bitch, junior level) but feel free to shoot me down if you think I'm being too ambitious. I've already applied for a bunch of jobs just in the wild and crazy hope I'd get a foot in the door but no luck yet.
Blitz gave me a 'competition was very high', Playground Games gave me a 'our lead fed back positively on your work but we don't have a slot for a junior right now', and a couple other companies didn't respond. So I'm not sure how much truth there is in those responses but as it stands, I guess I have a way to go yet.
Ok, fire away!
http://www.creationtwentytwo.co.uk
Replies
I would also say, it would be good to get rid of the stuff that isn't your 100% best. So for example, I would only include 1 hyper realistic environment, 1 UDK environment etc. And in job terms, specialising is your best option and I would try to find out if you want to be a character or environment artist, and gear a portfolio specifically towards that. I certainly don't know any of my colleges who do both.
Thinking about it, your non-character stuff is so much stronger (aesthetically, not technically) than your characters, I would say in pure 'I need to get a job' terms, you're really best off just focusing purely on environment and prop work.
When I say that what I mean is, you're not going to get a job as a character artist with those characters, but you could probably get a job with a slightly refined pure environment portfolio (and maybe do a new piece that really really shows off what you can do with a game environment).
Not trying to bum you out if you really want to be a character artist, but those character pieces are not going to get you interviews, and I think in a pretty short space of time, you could be getting interviews as an environment artist, but you need to retool your portfolio to that end.
I like what youve got with the texture of Chase, mostly the pants. The skin looks like its pretty much a solid color with ambient occlusion, aside from the face. same pretty much goes for the science nerd, but i think that look suits the character.
the high school bully renders seem a bit too specular, which is odd looking at the spec map. but again, there is no real texture in that character except for the clothing.
I really like the rocks, job well done on that. the bike as well. for environments however, you should invest a bit more time in lighting. the workshop is getting there, but the lighting seems very quickly done.. as if there were just a few point lights and no settings changed. if the yellow mounted lights are casting such a strong volume, there should be some yellow in the light as well.
other than that nothing really much else to say. your vray renders are awesome. you seem to have a really firm grasp at the game art side of things, but i think you should just pick out one specific thing and practice it for a while, either character sculpting.. do some speed sculpts of just different parts of the body. texturing, just practice different styles, from realistic-nextgen to toony.
keep at it.
Just my two cents.
It's funny that the recurring comments are regarding the lack of quality on my characters as after some lengthy discussions with myself (metaphorically) I think I really want to do characters more than environments.
It's odd, my talent seems to lie firmly in environment art, whereas my interests are geared heavily towards characters. If only I could switch my brain to think the opposite!
I guess that's why I left the character stuff up there, I know deep down it's not that strong.
Hmm, maybe I should explore environments some more. This is another discussion in itself and one I've mentioned here before, but I struggle hard with environments simply because of their scope. Like I started a scene for those rocks, a lakeside cabin / forest and was having a hard time focusing the thoughts of a million props / textures / scene assembly all flying round at once. Whereas characters I find I can focus in and concentrate more.
Don't give up the dream, but get your foot in the door, and there's a chance you can be doing characters for reals. I've worked with plenty of artists that jumped between character and environment work.
I think the lakeside cabin was too ambitious. With a good concept art piece you can sort of estimate how long it would take you by breaking down the elements in the scene.
You've all made some great points, it'd kinda making me rethink my entry route into the industry.
Maybe I should focus on environments then, I'll get to work!
Environment pieces like the Ramen Place look good, but perhaps build an entire environment around and add some story element, character to it would help make the work stand out some more. I think you'd turn more heads with that little extra effort.
That said, I do really enjoy looking at the rocks though, best batch I've seen so far.
~ Obviously your artistically probably not going to be on the same level as senior artists, but you should definitely be trying to be that good, and constantly comparing your stuff to current games and asking yourself; "how can i make my stuff look more like that?"
~ Instead of making a model and thinking "yeah this is good enough", you should be trying to make the most out of every section you are working on. If your making a shoe, think 'how can i make this the best shoe i can make'. Your being judged on your artistic eye, not your incalculable passion.
~ You say your more interested in characters but so far you haven't shown any real solid anatomy knowledge. Before sculpting an arm, research exactly why the muscles look that way, and try to capture the silhouette of figures before getting lost in details. Your first piece is very bad for a number of reasons. The cheekbones flow into the teeth area, the deltoids dont exist, the pecs seem to be disconnected from the arms instead of having a good flow into them, the lats don't exist and give a weird outline. Watch how your characters look in just black outlines against real human reference. Don't Guess:
~ Understanding that stylised characters should still adhere to basic anatomy laws is what your missing on your bully character. You really should be trying to show the viewer of your work that you know what muscles do, instead of just making a weird big blog for a bicep, or just giving a guy a fat round belly instead of seeing how gravity makes weighty people sag outwards in different places. These are the subtle things that sell your work:
~ Also. Learn how hands function. You have two, so analyse them. You seem to making five fingers instead of four fingers and a thumb. Imagine how difficult it would be for your characters to make the "A-Okay" sign (which in fact is actually a naturally comfortable position for our thumbs).
~ Thumbs need to be opposable to fingers, or else they are basically useless. Non opposable thumbs is clear showing that someone really has no clue about anatomy.
~ Analyse anything before making it. You have the internet so you have no excuse. These are the things employers are looking for. Especially when creating environment pieces, try to understand what materials things are made of and find a way to Sell that with the diffuse AND specular.
~ With your Ramen Shop everything looks like its made of the same dull plastic. Whereas if you was to look at for example a gas canister in real life, everything from the scratches to the shininess, to the wear and tear closer to the ground sells what it is.
~ Man I hope this helps, if you want it enough you got to get serious and work hard on your artistic eye and you'll improve tenfold! Good luck!
I'll give the secret to the lack of quality, in all my work to be honest, but most of all in my characters. Actually it's no secret really, it's quite obvious when looking at my stuff. It's that I rush.
As I said, I've been doing this for 9 months, and pretty much from the start I've just tried to blaze through as much as possible as quick as possible so I have a full portfolio, except I now have a portfolio that's full... of substandard work.
While I'm gonna sound like I'm responding to my own questions here, I think the rocks tell a great story about my attitude and work ethic. Everybody here seems to agree the rocks and the bike are pretty much the strongest pieces of my portfolio. The thing is, they are the two pieces that I focused the most time on. The rocks especially, I literally went through 10 or 15 iterations and many ZBrush sessions before I finally hit on something I liked, and it paid off.
I think with what's been said in mind, I've obviously got either route to explore since both environments and characters are going to be an equal challenge when there's so much for me to work on. Maybe I should go with the one I'm evidently more technically ready for.
I've cleaned up my folio a little and added some recent works.
I'm kinda stuck right now and could do with some opinions on where to progress next. As you'll see from my portfolio, the work is very much all over the place. Bit of character work, some environment stuff, and props.
I've been chatting to a couple people who say this is bad news when seeking work. And I completely agree, if someone was to say 'Ok, which role do you think your portfolio fits', I'd have to say it's very unclear.
So I'm at that point where I'm ready to kick it up a gear and get some projects in there which really sell my strengths and focus on one type of work... environments or characters.
Now the choice for this would seem simple at first... 'which do you enjoy more'.
The problem is, I enjoy both equally and honestly couldn't pick one or the other. There's been times where I've got frustrated with the scope of some enviro projects, but there's been times where character work has gotten me more than frustrated too. I honestly can't decide which one is a more suitable role to follow.
So I'm throwing it to the floor, take a look at my site, feel free to offer crit if you like, but most importantly, which path do you think I should follow. Which work shows most promise, and is the subject I should spend time on developing my skills in.
It's clear that my portfolio is kinda 'average' and I want to take it from average to 'great'. But before I invest the time in that, I want to make sure I'm spending the time wisely and not just adding to my already confusing portfolio.
I'm not concerned about which field would be a sensible choice in terms of gaining employment, I'd rather make the choice based on my work rather than which one I'm more likely to get a job in just because of the market for that type of artist.
www.creationtwentytwo.co.uk
Yeah good call heh. There used to be more, but if you saw them, you'd know why they were taken out:
http://creationtwentytwo.daportfolio.com (old folio)
That Ghost Rider is my most recent work, so it's an idea of where my current character skills are at. The rocks/bmx are probably my most recent env/prop work.
I think you should 'flesh out' your 2 environments and made them substantial pieces of work. The ramen shop is crying to be placed in a bustling Japanese street. The film 'TekkonKinkreet' is good inspiration, some scans of the art book here:
http://i-seldom-do.livejournal.com/115405.html?page=2
Or placed in rural Japan with a mountain back drop in which case you could tie in your modular rock pieces so you actually make good use of them, rather than being an 'exercise in making rocks' piece.
Your workshop needs lots of work in terms of design, you should convert it into a garage and base it from real references and maybe have a car as a focus point. The bike, once your make a game art version can also go into here too.
In my opinion the offline renders, characters and 2d can all go in one page as 'other skills' and only have a few examples. You main page should consist of realtime rendered, fleshed out environments and then some other 'hero' prop examples.
It's clear you have skills and that you can make good props you just need to concentrate on making convincing environments that your props can exist in, if you know what I mean.
I'm still struggling with this decision for sure. I can't help thinking every time I go into a bit of environment art that I'm just doing it because it's the 'easy option' (I should clarify that I don't mean easy in any way in terms of it being easier to do or produce great work) because of my current folio examples, and because of my background and current job in Arch-Vis.
As I mentioned, the last few projects I've tried have hit stumbling blocks for differing reasons. I get bored with environments, and I get technically stuck with characters.
I'm gonna take some time out I think, really consider which avenue to take. It's not really a decision I should rush since I'm intending to spend the rest of my working career in the chosen field, I guess in hindsight I shouldn't be asking others to decide for me either since it's something only I can decide.
Regardless though, I want to make sure I make the right choice and taking a step back for a little while is probably the best option here.
Thanks again Ex-Ray!
lead with the environment art, you've got more of it and it's where your strength lies, a character first makes me think you want to be a character artist, not an env artist, push it down and you'll get people thinking you like to branch out in to character art instead.
you've got more buttons dedicated solely to stuff that's not art and that's not a good thing, put your contact info on the about page, and ditch the cv, if someone wants to know your employment history, they'll get in touch. i'd even suggest ditching the about page altogether and just having an email address at the top, there's nothing in there that isn't obvious from your work and at this point, what packages you know is largely irrelevant