[Portfolio] Nate LaMartina, Character Art
polycounter lvl 18
Hey fellas,
After 5 years of rotting in a corner of the internet, I decided to completely gut my old portfolio and start fresh. Brand new content, design, and layout to go with a completely updated set of skills. A colleague of mine mentioned that I may want to post a link to my site here for critique and circulation, so what the hey, I agreed that it would be a good idea.
I'm completely open to whatever comments or critique that you may have regarding the site, content, and anything else of that sort. Any feedback is greatly appreciated, and will help me to get an updated feel for where I'm at. Thank you!
http://nlamartina.com/
After 5 years of rotting in a corner of the internet, I decided to completely gut my old portfolio and start fresh. Brand new content, design, and layout to go with a completely updated set of skills. A colleague of mine mentioned that I may want to post a link to my site here for critique and circulation, so what the hey, I agreed that it would be a good idea.
I'm completely open to whatever comments or critique that you may have regarding the site, content, and anything else of that sort. Any feedback is greatly appreciated, and will help me to get an updated feel for where I'm at. Thank you!
http://nlamartina.com/
Replies
I really really like the art though. Killer textures! I'd like to see some flats and a polycount would be super too. The texture density on some pieces bothers me a bit, the shoulderpads and kilt on this fella for example http://nlamartina.com/images/choppa.jpg
but I know its for an mmo and you probably only had a 256 or 2 for the shoulders so I guess it's alright
Anyway, impressive stuff. Bookmarked and such.
I can't stress this enough; remove that f'n splash page. It just sits there and makes us look at it, and wait for it to load the web site.
A few of the portfolio standards for you here:
The two main standards of a portfolio is the portfolio itself (gallery) and the resume. Everything else is secondary. Therefore your main url should be your portfolio.
I'm not a fan of your thumbnails because they are busy noise of detail giving me no clear picture of what I'm going o see, and therefore no want to click.
Keep your WIPs in your blog.
Technically, Tchar's right arm and the horns of Froth have pretty nasty smoothing errors.
Your page title should be your name. It seems more like you're an outsourcing company instead of an individual.
About pages are redundant hiding the resume. It's a detriment.
Anyway, send a PM my way sometime, curious how you've been and what you are up to lately.
As far as the website goes, I agree with what most others have said. Lose the splash page. Make your artwork your main page front and center.
You actually have a pleasing layout and nice color scheme. The extra pages aren't needed but are nice from a personal standpoint, especially for someone already established such as yourself.
One thing I'd really love to see is texture flats. Clearly you're an excellent texturer so it would be great to see those layed out. Also... wireframes lol always always wireframes.
It's coming along well, although I paused my work on it to finish up the Tchar'zanek head. That thread was getting lost in the shuffle at GA, so I figured I'd wait until I started up some modeling before posting it again.
And point taken about the splash page. I think part of the problem was that I let the page sit there for too long before forwarding on to the blog. I shortened it to a 3 second delay for now, but more than likely I'll nix it entirely.
Art first, text and content later, get rid of the splash screen, I was clicking and wondering what I'm suppose to do.
-Splash page revised. Since there was concern about the delay/non-clickable nature and not having the portfolio front and center, I've added icons to guide visitors to the portfolio right off the bat, or to the blog. Splash page can be kept for search engines and traffic, portfolio is immediately available, and the blog can still be accessed. Everybody wins!
-Thumbnails have a slight border now to help differentiate the details.
-Resume replaces the "About Me" shpiel.
-Artwork page now has professional work first, personal second. Erroneous "Work In Progress" tag removed.
I would also go for larger and easier to see thumbnails. At least show the viewer what they expect to look at when they click on it. right now I wouldn't know if its a character or some kind of ornate jewellery box by looking at some of your thumbnails.
A tip, people are happier to scroll than to click.
Work is kickass though. I'm in love with your hand painted skills
EDIT: I just did this to explain what I mean about large thumbnails. Its just a suggestion I'm not trying to step on your toes or anything! Its just the characters look so good, they really need to scream to the view *click me!!!*
edit: Wow Anuxinamoon, thank you for the mockup. I admit that the current thumbnails are due to my weakness for detail. It's a way of catching the viewer's interest without showing the subject in whole, but I understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea. I really like your idea though.
I agree with the guys on the getting rid of your splash page, and what Anuxinamoon said here about the thumbnails. If you had thumbnails like he has thrown together, your site would be that much better. Great artwork, absolutely great.
P.S. I would like to see turn arounds for your character, and even texture sheets, and wireframes.
Most popular screen resolutions:
1680x1050: 26.58%
1920x1200: 18.55%
1280x1024: 15.92%
Didn't have much trouble to enter or see stuff.
Charlie Rocket..
Castrol Cricket index and whatnot.
godaddy.com...
is it still on?
Step 1): Dig up an old thread
Step 2): Necro the shit out of it!
Step 3): ???
Step 4): PROFIT!!
EDIT: Anyway, here is the whois info (note the parts in bold:
step2. ?!?!?!!?
step3. think I would really like to see more of his work. it would be great!
step4. remember to ask where his new website is!