John Ehresmann - Portfolio Critique/Feedback
polycounter lvl 4
Thanks for the feedback guys, after getting it going to nuke this thread and work on a new portfolio over the next few months. It's insanely appreciated, and I look forward to getting more feedback on the new one.
~John
~John
Replies
1. Bigger and more descriptive (zoomed out) thumbnails. Without the title in the thumbnails I would pretty much have no idea what the first two were before clicking them.
2. Your header and banner font looks terrible, change it.
3. Your about section is IMO superfluous as it doesn't add anything to the site. I'd remove it, but if you really want to keep it at least remove the photo and break it up with a few linebreaks.
4. The signature on the images looks horrible. Just go with some simple white text with a nice black outline (and a nicer font) without anything extra. If you absolutely want to do gradients at least keep it subtle.
As for the portfolio pieces:
School:
- Feels way too empty.
- The proportions feel very off.
Theater:
- Texture scale is way off (they need to be scaled down).
- The walkways doesn't seem to serve any function, why are they there?
Ruins:
- Very boring environment without anything to really catch interest.
- Try to blend in the grass better by using a grass texture on the ground as well.
- You could also add some vertex painted materials to break up the monotony of the wall texture.
Sci-fi scene:
- The texture scale is way off again.
- The textures are very noisy.
So yeah there are a lot of problems that need fixing to make these environments worthy of a portfolio IMO, but TBH the environments are pretty boring to begin with so it might not be worth going to back to them anyway. If possible you should try to add some story to the environments, for example add a few helmets and swords strewn around on the ruins scene to hint of a battle. For the theater you have added a reason for why it was abandoned like a fire or maybe something more extreme like a bomb. Doing this would give your work a lot more life.
I thought the demo reel was pretty nice, however it doesn't really add anything that the pictures didn't already show. So ultimately it's a waste of time to make a fancy demo-reel if you won't do something more with it.
You should really step up your game as quickly as possible.
Study on your own if the school can't teach you current gen workflow.
Get into making highpolys, baking, proper texturing etc etc.
Also you're tackling these giant, expansive environments that are just empty and quite frankly boring.
Think about creating video game art like going through an RPG. You start with loqw level gear (props, weapons) move onto mid level gear and enemies (mini environments, larger props, vehicles, character gear), until finally getting that end game armor set (larger environments, full characters, etc). By the time you have reached the end of the game you're a beast. You're prepared and ready for anything. Right now you're skipping to the end. And no offense but you're going to have a rough time. Go back and level your way up.
Look around on polycount and other sites. Two examples:
Jordan Powers did a great job with his student portfolio. It's focused on 1 style and only props. He's now a Prop Artist. He focused and the job came together.
Scott Homer also has a good mix of smaller props, mini environments and larger scale scenes. I wish he still had his student portfolio online. It's a great example.
Again look at http://gameartportfoliowall.com/ and find some portfolios that has work similar to the type of art you want to get paid to create. There's a ton of talented Artists on there. I don't have the space to list them all. I would start off by emulating (not copying) that work. Also going through the smaller props will be a bit more manageable for you at this point.
Thanks for the feedback.
@Kimon, I'm actually not "proud" of the work I've done, been looking back and actually agree wholeheartedly with you, it's the primrary reason I've been applying for QA Work while I work on my portfolio. Could go on a long diatrob about why it is how it is, the bottom line is the work is really average, at best and I need to bring it up to another level, I'm actually about to be starting some night classes with FuturePoly to try and work on that.
@Jeff, I agree with you as well wholeheartedly. I got too ambitious with a lot of this stuff, and ultimately it bit me in the end.
@Nosslak, I agree, I don't plan on saving any of these shots, my goal is to have a completely new portfolio in about 3 months.
all that being said, thank you for being honest. It's appreciated, I think that I can get my stuff to the proper level, I just need to put the work into it.