Senior Student Portfolio Critique
polycounter lvl 7
Hi guys, I'm currently a senior in university graduating this fall and studying Computer Game Design, and I'm an aspiring Character Artist. My portfolio is still under development in terms of content, and I plan on having a couple more pieces in there by the time I graduate. How is the current work that's in there though? I just want to get an idea as to where I stand and how people like my work. I'm really fond of the hand painted, diffuse style, which I am still learning, but 1 or 2 of my next characters will most likely be more realistic to widen my options. I'm learning ZBrush right now so I can start getting some nice high poly character models done, so I realize that's one thing I'm lacking.
I'm open to any suggestions, ideas, or comments on any part of the site and the work, including my resume, site layout, work, etc.
Portfolio: www.ericchiffolo.com
I'm open to any suggestions, ideas, or comments on any part of the site and the work, including my resume, site layout, work, etc.
Portfolio: www.ericchiffolo.com
Replies
That, or take a very strong concept from another artist, and recreate it in 3D.
Right now the stuff you have on there is, well, student grade at best. You won't find a job with it, and all of it should be replaced. The good news is that you are technically skilled enough to replace all of it in good order, with some time and effort.
The forms on all your models are uninteresting, simple and basic, and not in the good way that cartoonish/stylized characters are. Many lack defined joints, variations in forms both subtle and strong. Even color variation is lacking, such as subtle gradients used to help convey extra form where there is none. This is especially lacking on your third character, his giant red robe is perfect opportunity for a lot of variation in form and color, but it's just flat red.
The portfolio itself. Ditch the javascript. Anything that makes page loads take longer, even if it's milliseconds, you should ditch. Any scripting also increases the chance that someone out there can't see your work due to error and incompatibilities, especially in the age of smart phones and tablets. Remember, art directors get hundreds of portfolios when a job is put out there, they will look at one for only 2-6 seconds.
You've got a solid grasp of 3D fundamentals, now you just need to work on your advanced techniques, as well as creativity. You just have to challenge yourself to do more.
Not being a character artist myself, I can't really suggest a whole bunch of tips or resources other than you need to do daily anatomy studies if you want a shot at getting a job as a character artist.
As for your models/textures, I would say the king is your weakest piece just because it has a lot of anatomical issues (arms too short, mouth too small, eyes too far apart, etc.) and the edge flow around the face could probably be better. I get that it's meant to be stylized however even stylistic forms are still derived from actual human anatomy.
Your models' edge flow generally seems alright, same with your UV mapping so I would suggest focusing on anatomy studies and hand painting your textures. The texture work you have on display is rather flat across all three pieces. If you're aiming at hand-painted, you will need to also include the smaller details of a material like folds in cloth; the specularity, scratches, and other grime that would be present on metallic surfaces; and other fine details inside the larger shapes you have (such as stitching, designs, dirt & other marks, lights & shadows, etc.)
My advice would be to get deep into ZBrush. If you prefer digital media, this will be your bread and butter for anatomy studies as well as the general high-to-low game art pipeline.
I would also suggest creating your own thread and post to it regularly. It will keep you on track and the feedback you will get from the other users on this site could end up being invaluable to your growth as a character artist.
Website Stuff
Resume Stuff
It sounds like a lot but it's mostly minor tweaks. Resumes are easy to move around
I know a lot of what I said sounds negative, but it's only negative if you interpret it that way. What you have before you is a lot of room for improvement, and it's completely up to you to improve! (I'm currently doing something similar.) No one is going to dog you for trying to better yourself. You will see tangible progress after the first month if you stick with daily studies.
I feel like I should give a little brief summary of what this current portfolio aims for. As part of our program we have to get internships at some game company, so I put the best work I had up. There's actually an institution that our school has that's composed of 5 companies which hire student interns, so they understand the work they look at is at student quality and students just need internships. So I feel like it fulfills that goal, as I have seen other student work and can compare. However, I want to be as job ready as I can when I graduate, so that's why I'm getting feedback here from you awesome guys.
I'll tackle a more realistic character and challenge myself, thanks for reaffirming my plan to success!
Bartalon: Great great feedback, thank you for taking the time to give it to me! Good advice on the sort portfolio and resume. I'll probably remove the skills from the about/contact, think I want to keep the pages seperate. Strange about the .pdf, loads for me? I'll reorder the categories and good point on the experience splitting! Yeah these tweaks aren't bad, thanks for giving them to me! It's not negative at all, especially the way you gave it to me
Daily anatomy studies is something I'll have to find the time for huh? I think I'll learn ZBrush and anatomy at the same time, and do my anatomy in there. Hit two birds with one stone, haha. As for hand painted texturing, do you have any specific resources that are really good for that particular technique? I have some, just wondering if there's a great resource I'm missing.
Checked out your thread, awesome stuff man! Lot of good stuff going on in there, and you've really improved. Must feel really good to look back on all your old work and see where you are now. I'll make my own thread soon most likely.
I'm also open to any additional feedback from anyone else!
I know it can be a little overwhelming. But you are taking the first step by asking for critiques.
With just handpainted diffuse textures you really should paint in lighting information and ambient occlusion. It will make the forms more readable and will make it more interesting. Try working with gradients too! So it's not just a flat color.
Check out the Dota 2 art guides. Even if you aren't making content for Dota 2 there's some great information in there.
http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterArtGuide.pdf
http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterTextureGuide.pdf
Ben Mathis has some tutorials that I think you may find useful as well.
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tutorial.htm
I would also checkout the Vertex magazine (both 1 and 2).
http://www.artbypapercut.com/
Hope this helps! Hang in there!
If the concept is the problem, then you'll just have to find a more advanced and detailed concept to work from. Using concepts from other students isn't such a good idea for portfolio work unless that student happens to be very good at drawing and painting. Good thing is, most artist are okay with people taking their 2D work and making 3D portfolio pieces from them. You just have to ask, and sometimes you don't even need to ask because some artists have blanket usage statements on their site saying to go ahead.
Right now, I am only a step or two above where you're at, my portfolio used to look similar to yours and I deleted all of it. I've got a whole set of awesome looking models to finish for my portfolio and it's a huge challenge, but I'm learning so much more doing these than I ever did before.
Game studio internships might as well be as though you were applying for a real job. Usually game studios will make interns work on the actual project, instead of just grabbing coffee and making copies. You'll still being doing basic stuff like making hit and collision boxes, but sometimes they will ask more. This is why you want to be doing portfolio work that's as close to what the actual studio is doing.
Doesn't matter if your school has a deal with studios, there's only a limited number of internship spots, and those will catapult your career if you handle it right. You'll be competing against everyone else at that school to get those positions. Most people are hired from other people in the industry knowing their name. Being able to get in and work side by side with pros that might remember your name (if you're good, and friendly, enough to be remembered) is a big deal. Then barring that, if no one knows you, then your portfolio will have to speak for itself.
First, everyone else is right that you need to compare against yourself against industry standards. I would say out of every graduating class, 10% of that class will get into the industry. The rest will not. Even if you are the best student in your class, you're competing with better students at other schools for the same positions, or artists with years of industry experience. Push yourself and be your own biggest critic. You can always improve.
Now, your best bet is to determine a style you are interested in working on. You are leaning towards a cartoony style, so focus your work towards that. I would disagree that you have to do a "realistic" character, but you should do a character with accurate, if exaggerated, anatomy and proportions. You can challenge yourself in these ways - follow those DOTA guides and make a great stylized character. I don't think it is worth your time to split your efforts on making a photo real character at this point. You need a more fundamental understanding for the style you are already pursuing. And, as you note, you like doing stylized hand painted characters. Do what you love, get great at it, then give more realistic characters a go.
Lacking any and all details. Flat color, no highlight or shadow or variation. Barely any info on the normal map. Not rigged or posed. Having said all that, though, your ability to make low poly stuff isn't bad. You will do well when you start putting in more details.
You should also learn ZBrush, or similar program. Sculpting is becoming the standard now. Some few places still do hand-painted style, of course. But they are top-class stuff.
If you have trouble finding motivation or nice concept to push yourself. Join the monthly newb character challenge. Within 3 months you will have 3 gradually better characters to show off.
You will be driven by other industry-standard artists' work that you will want to work harder and become better. Let the anger and jealousy fuel you, like it does for the rest of us :P
Here's what we have going on for April. It's not too late to join now.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=133078
Vertrucio: Well the 2 concepts of the alien and galaxy boy are by my professor (former art director), the king is by a student. Makes sense because the king is in fact my weakest piece, haha. Think the concepts are pretty good, there's some additional information on them I could include, such as shading and highlighting information. Here are both the alien and galaxy boy ones, feel free to offer any specific suggestions for these:
Oh awesome, so you were in the same position not too long ago? Well that's really cool that you've improved a lot, I tried to see if you had your portfolio up, was curious
Yeah the internships are supposed to be like real jobs, I feel like the fact that they seem to accept a wide range of students, including those with bad portfolio's doesn't lend credence to that unfortunately. The standards should really be more in line with the real gaming industry...rather than just accepting more students because they need it to graduate. It's still a valuable experience though, you're right, particularly through the networking and resume building opportunities it opens up. I sent in my resume and portfolio today as I am doing my internship this summer and am out of time, so I'm waiting to hear what positions are open.
MooseCommander: Wow awesome! Hired straight out of school, congrats man! It's something that's not really said at my university, that only 10% will ever make it. Brutal statement, but I know it's true. That's a good point about schools, I know there are other better schools for game art as our school program is pretty new, and needs refinement. I will absolutely push myself and get to my goal, 100% determined on that. Thanks for the vote of confidence.
You know that's a good point about the texture style I like...I love hand painted texturing so I'll focus all my efforts on that first, then go after realistic. My main concern is what PyrZern mentions below about more companies with a realistic style, vs hand painted. Regardless, I am determined to learn hand painting first, just hope the industry has room and longevity for hand painters.
PyrZern: Thanks for the advice, I'm working really hard to improve my texturing after all the comments on it. I plan on rigging the characters, just haven't had the time to. Realize it will help sell the character though. I'm just getting into ZBrush now, wish my school had a course on it along with normal 3ds max modeling. Sculpting seems to be an essential component of character artists these days, even just for low poly characters, because a high poly normal map is used on them. (League of Legends) Thanks for the compliment on the low poly, detail detail details, got it!
I really wouldn't compare yourself to other students unless there is a monster in the class that works 24/7. At least when I was in school there was a general laziness in the air and people just did enough to get by.
just because concept isn't strong doesn't mean you can blame him for having a weak piece. it's disrespectful. when you get a job sometimes you don't get concept art, then what? in the end of the day, you are an artist too.
i don't know about everyone else, but for me when i tried doing handpainted stuff, it didn't work when i was starting out, for obvious reasons, i didn't know anatomy that well - that's why i think you should be doing realistic characters to get the sense of what goes where, worked for me. also drawing helps tremendously.
being determined to learn a style in the beginning is hard, because you are a beginner and your progress is going to be super slow if you restrict yourself to one style. that's why you should be trying different stuff.
i noticed that you leave your characters unfinished, texture wise. just by looking at your diffuse map i can see that you've put maybe an hour of work. maybe you have a deadline, i don't know, but finish it later at least.
Well that's an interesting way of looking at the realistic vs hand painted scenario. I'm set on going for hand painted, I'm going to get anatomy reference and study it everyday. I'll definitely do realistic once I feel my hand painted skills are good enough. Yeah I've heard drawing does help tremendously, it's just another skill that takes a lot of time though. Where do I find the time for all of this? Haha. I mean the color theory, shading/blending aspect of drawing is what hand painting relates to, so that I'll be doing. Drawing anatomy and characters would be great, I feel like learning ZBrush and anatomy at the same time would be best though. I would love to design my own characters, and with anatomy studies I'm sure that'll be even easier to do when I decide to plunge into that. I have to prioritize my effort and time though, never enough hours in a day haha. Yeah the characters will be pushed farther