[Portfolio] - Ryan Dao - Environment/Prop Artist
polycounter lvl 8
Hey polycount,
I have been looking for work for two years with no success, I would love feedback on what works/doesn't work in my portfolio and suggestions on what to add.
http://www.ryandao.com/index.html
I have been looking for work for two years with no success, I would love feedback on what works/doesn't work in my portfolio and suggestions on what to add.
http://www.ryandao.com/index.html
Replies
Looking at your site your stuff is not horrible. I have seen people with worse that have or had jobs professionally. Granted it will be harder landing a AAA gig these days but are you applying to other types of studios? Are you looking outside of so cal?
If you want to be an environment artist or prop modeler then I think you need to do a few things.
First, remove the characters or turn them into some type of statue or something. Remember we are judged by potential employers by our worst pieces.
Second, you have been out of work for two years and that is all the content you have on your site? Are you working on other things continuously while looking for work?
The alley scene does have some glaring issues with lighting(to uniform, needs pooling) and a really bad tiling wall at the end of the alley. Your textures also look pretty noisy and muddy. I would look at the unwraps of your props and use tiling textures or up the resolution of your textures.
Your snake statue looks really high for something like that tri count wise. Looks like you decimated the bottom part but left the top un touched. You might want to also post some tri counts on your objects.
The stylized catapult, I cannot click on the images to make them bigger so it is hard to crit it... Looks like you have a lot of hand painted styled stuff. Is that the route you want to go?
Your jungle scene the lighting for me is killing the whole thing. I understand the sun being the main light source but it is just to monotone and flat for me.
I would suggest finding a scene and building it, whether that is an interesting sci fi hangar bay with a hallway or something along those lines, some sort of fantasy style scene, just pick something that interests you and you could see in a game that is out today or will be coming out. Find some really cool concept art for props or scenes and start going to town. Light it, texture it, model all of it then throw it into UDK and have fun with it. Employers really like to see completed, cohesive scenes. it proves that if you were put on a level you would be able to get it done and at the highest quality and within spec. For now I would just worry about it looking awesome the optimization can be done later. Just get a piece that would match the quality of something from Drakes, Battlefield, Gears etc... You want to show an employer that you can help build their worlds and you dont need your hand held.
I dont know, it is just my opinion take it or leave it. I just dont understand how you couldn't land anything in 2 years. Best of luck in your continued hunt..
I have been actively looking. In the past I did apply to all of the U.S. and some other countries but at the moment I do not have the money to relocate so for now it's been within California.
While I have been looking for work I work with an Indie game team, but I also work two jobs so I only just recently updated my site with new work.
Also thanks for the crits on my scenes I will definitely try and improve them or take what you said in mind for my next pieces.
I remember you from Ai! You should come by and attend one of Nick's classes. He's always making new workflows for Zbrush that seem to be helping out a bunch of people. He always has something to teach. Reverenddevil pretty much hit all the important points that needed to be addressed.
To go from what he said, I would rework your jungle scene. The textures you made for it are good, since their tileable. I would remodel a more complex jungle with a good focal point. Since the textures could be applied in any way, make really complex trees, terrain and rocks; Your not bound to unique unwraps and that is very powerful. Out of all your work, this is the only one in which you can improve on without having to re-due most of it.
If you want to re-touch other old work, I would say add more to the Diablo scene. The angle at which you have it at is very boring and does not show off anything complex. Spice it up a bit and add more contrasting materials, since right now it is pure stone. Water, bit of foliage and a statue could help it. Point is for it to not read completely as stone. Contrast!
And finally, like Reverenddevil stated, make a new scene. You have a bunch of new games coming out this year and picking a scene from Batman, Uncharted, Killzone, Dead Space, etc. would should your up to date with whats out there, not only from a technical standpoint, but from a gamer one too! If you have a DX11 card, well then time to show off those features.
Portfolio wise, get rid of the small thumbnails and make the screenshots HUGE. Look at Jason's portfolio as an example: http://www.jasonlavoie.net/
You don't have to click on anything, just scroll. Makes your portfolio easier and quicker to view.
Keep it up!
Best of luck,
-Juan
What I mean by that is you say you want to be an environment artist, yet you have Photoshop retouch work in there which has nothing to do with an environment, unless that was a still life, or a creatively made scene that you went in and did Photo manipulation on to beautify it.
I would drop the Photo retouch work from your Environment art site. If you want to do Environment art for games no AD, or HR person is going to want to see that work, cause its not Game Art, and Environments. I would also drop the isopodlabs logo. Its not really doing you any good if you can't show any work from the game, until you can put work there from that game its just taking up precious space.
If you still want to do Retouch work on the side I would suggest creating a website just for that.
Fill your work with the Environments the other's above me have suggested, and just hit up the Linkedin, and maybe even create a demo reel and send it out to companies. You never know man. Good Luck. Hope you make it, and I hope to meet you someday if we both make it in the Industry.
Look at it this way, are you comfortable enough with the software that you can do what needs to be done with it? Yes, put it on the list. No? Don't list it.
- Take out the "Best Viewed in Mozilla Firefox", it's annoying and doesn't help you to sell you as an environment artist
- Take out the retouch section, they aren't gonna help you get hire as an environment artist, and that's your main goal
- Put all your work in 1 page, because I get confuse when I click on "Personal" and "Professional"
Site:
Is there some reason the site is gray and dark red? The colours don't combine very well at all.
Your menu is inconsistent, if you go into Retouch you don't see any other menu options. You need to make it as easy as possible for them to see your work, if they go to a page and are forced to press the back button to get back, they are going to click the little red x instead.
You should add some javascript garbage to your main site, its not a requirement just an idea.
You should add a picture of the games-workshop miniature for the plane thingy, people like to see reference material.
You're lightboxes (things you get when you click on a gallery item) take way too long to load, do they really need to be 2000 pixels wide? I'd trim them down a bit.
I'd probably remove the photo retouch, nobody will ever look at it. They are hiring you for your environment art not photo editing skills, which are completely different.
Resume:
As the guy above me said, get if of the "expert, familiar, etc" replace it with strong keyworded notes, "Adobe Photoshop - Hand painted texture skills, classically trained" or what ever the type of job you are looking for. Some studios use keyword selections on resumes to find specific applicants. Organize your education area a bit, the LA Design School and University are not separated by a line but the high school one is, it looked unorganized.
Grammar check your resume, "In charge of creating models and textures and directing and mentoring other artists. " way too many ands, add commas. And yet again that section is unorganized. You have a game, then you have a competition entry, then you have a game then another competition entry then two more games. But there is nothing special about them. They are just smacked down, jazz it up a bit by organizing it properly. Add some tables and columns.
Separate stuff by a line or don't! Half your stuff has a line space below it and half doesn't.
You need to talk in 1st person. You didn't "Create props and assets for various levels" you "Designed and modeled props and assets for various levels". What does "prop and set dress environments" even mean? It might make sense to you, but HR people think that is improperly written.
And another part "Execute senior graphic designers direction and vision ", no you didn't execute anything. You Implemented or Designed or another word.
And one more (there are many many more). "Freelance Photo Retoucher - Retouch glamour, stock, fashion, and pin-up photos " there is no such thing as a photo retoucher, retoucher isn't even a word. You where a Freelance Photographic Editor.
Now up to the objective "To create professional quality work, learning new skills and to be a valuable contributor to the company I work for." Summarize that even more, what do you WANT TO DO? Not what does an employer want to see you do. "I want to create the most stunning visual effects you've ever seen in movies" (don't use that, it's terrible, but you get my idea).
I guess that's it. Let me know if you have any questions.
In Photoshop:
- "Save for web and devices"
- Choose the JPEG format
- Put the quality to 60%
You'll see almost no difference with the original quality, and it's a lot better for the size of your file. That's a trick I've learn in web design.
I'm writing that one down for my portfolio site. Good tip!
Removed the retouch section and a few pieces. Fixed up my resume based on sverbeek's advice. Also optimized the jpegs for web thanks megalmn2000 for that tip. Uploading the updated site now.
Though personally I still want to keep thumbnails, I am not a fan of huge images on the main page and not a fan of scrolling down to see images.
In this day and age people just want the content up front and center. Do that for them, might help you get noticed more.
Maybe changing things up after 2 years of the same website might help your chances. Sacrificing a little design to display, and better show off your work might help you get jobs.
You bring up people having small thumbnails on their sites. Most if they have them are probably already getting steady Professional work so they have soooo much they could display they have to use thumbnails to fit it all in there. You don't have that luxury yet.
But seriously, you could easily have a one page portfolio. You could put a couple of full sized images of each piece and have thumbnails for wireframed shots and texture sheets below them for example, then have your resum
http://www.ryandao.com/index.html.