Scott Honeycutt Portfolio - critique requested
polycounter lvl 14
I ask for strong critique on my portfolio(s). Here is my general Squarespace portfolio which includes everything from graphic design, 3d stills, illustrations and animations. It's too general and is essentially for being desparate for any job I can get lol:
https://scott-honeycutt.squarespace.com/
Here is my CGS portfolio which is 3d only:
http://scott31.cgsociety.org/portfolio
A few things. I'm thinking of using the CGS for 3d jobs and taking the 3d out of the Squarespace (It's way too general). Despite the design starting it off, this is only to get work out of necessity. 3d is definitely my passion, I earned a BA recently in graphic design as a backup plan because i haven't obtained the 3d job in 6 years now. Some pieces need wireframes and texture maps which will be done in time. I just blew my RMA vid card from EVGA after three weeks so I can't access all my files at the moment ... what really hurts is I just started on the test for the recent Arena Net year internship posted, but thats life
Im not sure what should be taken out. I like the island city, hotel room, sega and gunner mech the best and have mixed feelings about the rest. The Kusanagi model is going to get replaced eventually as one of my next project will be Ghost in the Shell related. There isn't enough space here to tell my story of how I've struggled to figure out "game art" and gone back and forth about focusing on game assets or doing only hi res. I had my heart set on games for years but always struggled mightily with that workflow and that mech is the only game piece I have that "doesn't suck" lol. Another piece to share is that I feel my fear of not getting work is resulting in my indecision. in other words trying to be employable for too many things.
All thoughts are welcome. Feel free to be strong, rate the pieces, tell me what I should or shouldn't do ... anything that comes to mind. Thanks!
https://scott-honeycutt.squarespace.com/
Here is my CGS portfolio which is 3d only:
http://scott31.cgsociety.org/portfolio
A few things. I'm thinking of using the CGS for 3d jobs and taking the 3d out of the Squarespace (It's way too general). Despite the design starting it off, this is only to get work out of necessity. 3d is definitely my passion, I earned a BA recently in graphic design as a backup plan because i haven't obtained the 3d job in 6 years now. Some pieces need wireframes and texture maps which will be done in time. I just blew my RMA vid card from EVGA after three weeks so I can't access all my files at the moment ... what really hurts is I just started on the test for the recent Arena Net year internship posted, but thats life
Im not sure what should be taken out. I like the island city, hotel room, sega and gunner mech the best and have mixed feelings about the rest. The Kusanagi model is going to get replaced eventually as one of my next project will be Ghost in the Shell related. There isn't enough space here to tell my story of how I've struggled to figure out "game art" and gone back and forth about focusing on game assets or doing only hi res. I had my heart set on games for years but always struggled mightily with that workflow and that mech is the only game piece I have that "doesn't suck" lol. Another piece to share is that I feel my fear of not getting work is resulting in my indecision. in other words trying to be employable for too many things.
All thoughts are welcome. Feel free to be strong, rate the pieces, tell me what I should or shouldn't do ... anything that comes to mind. Thanks!
Replies
Cheers
-Neil
I recommend drawing the human figure regularly. It's good practice for any and all artists. Helps refine your eye, your sense of proportion, your ability to internalize form, etc.
I shared these links with some of my students today, might help you...
http://artists.pixelovely.com/
Randomized human and animal photos, on a timer.
http://www.posemaniacs.com/
CG poses showing superficial anatomy (top-level muscles)
https://www.google.com/search?q=%C3%89corch%C3%A9&tbm=isch
Moving forward. What do I need to add? I often feel like I'm simply adding more "stuff" without moving forward. However I feel the recent city piece is my best yet so thats encouraging. Some thoughts:
1. Clearly I need more game assets if I want to seriously take on game jobs. I've been given the advice multiple times to stick with assets and not try to take on full environments with every project. I'm definitely feeling that right now as the main thing that gets me about game envs is dealing with so many parts. Questions like, "How many pieces should I make this in? How many parts should I put in one UV layout? How many stinking Normals do I need to bake? Why don't they ever work?" always get me. Then I don't put my whole heart into any one section (which is inexcusable) but rather fight to get through it all. I need to be focused on art not technical issues. I'm thinking vehicles, devices, weapons, machines.
2. While I've spent years going back and forth on films or games, the one decision I can firmly make now is to finally just give up on organic and stick to hard surfaces. I'm way better and more confident there. Another thing I know is I prefer sticking with fiction. I'd do anything for work but as for my own style, I get bored with real world things like cars, real guns, tanks, ordinary houses, etc.
3. I was planning on doing another Ghost in the Shell piece to replace the old one with either of these two Shirow Masamune covers as reference.
I was going to do the one with Kusanagi on top at first but the other would keep me to hard surface work and with the destruction on the Fuchikoma it could get interesting. These could give me a hi res and a game ready still each.
4. Marc Brunet is one of my favorites painters and he has some nice hard surface additions to his characters pieces I could use as refs. The motorcycle esp. looks enticing as a game piece.
Thoughts? Thanks!
http://scott31.cgsociety.org/
This is nice to hear since I slaved pretty hard on that one and took a lot of critique. Thanks
The normal map looks really odd. A texture overlay across the whole flat is a no-no. If you want texture like this, rotate the pattern to match the flow of each surface. And consider which surfaces would get it vs. not, don't distribute it so evenly across the whole model.
It looks like you did an emboss on the normal map as well? Also a no-no.
Looks like you retouched your UDK screenshot in Photoshop (yellow glow on top of the blue intakes, etc.). Don't retouch screenshots of game assets. An Art Director wants to see you can make things look good in real-time (which means no retouch!). It's obvious in this case because the yellow glows are not in the texture flat. When you need glows, it's good to make an emissive texture.
Game artists usually look for the triangle count, not the poly count. That would make your model around 13,000 tris. Not terrible, but I see some unneeded edge loops that could be stripped to trim it down quite a bit. Optimizing edge loops will show that you know how to make clean concise models that fit within a tri budget (usually set by your lead artist).
To show off the highpoly hardsurface model, use a gray material with a nice specular, and make a nice lighting setup.
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/character-lighting
Same goes for the textured shots... get nice lighting in there.
Thanks. There isn't any post on the screenshot. I simply forgot to post the emissive (done). Not sure what you mean by the emboss. I had the rough texture going across the whole thing if thats what you mean. Or maybe you are referring to the amount of level adjustments I did to raise the edges of the pieces? I was referencing Laurens Conrad's Bulldozer video the whole process including how I baked it by colored sections, leveled the channels and layered them, etc. The tri count got critiqued on Polycount pretty hard. I lowered it significantly at the time (several times in fact) and still was told it wasn't enough. At one point I couldn't take it anymore and accepted my best effort (I'm definitely not editing this one LOL).
I've noticed a lot of artists posted wireframes with tris rather than quads in the mesh ... is that because they use Marmoset? I'm assuming its not necessary?
Thanks