Portfolio Critique?
Hi all!
I'm a 3D Artist looking for new employment - which means I want my portfolio looking the best it can.
I really love stylised and low poly work, but I want to express on my site that I am also a capable artist for realistic AAA projects. Essentially, I'm applying for Environment Artist roles across all styles and studio types - I don't mind what, I just love working on games.
Is this too broad a goal?
I want to start a new project, but I'm stuck as to what employers will want to see. I can't decide if I should make something totally different to show more diversity, or if I should focus on creating better, more confident pieces to replace the older ones.
Basically I'm stuck and I'd love your honest first impressions and opinions :-)
Portfolio: http://chelsealindsay.weebly.com/
Thank you!
I'm a 3D Artist looking for new employment - which means I want my portfolio looking the best it can.
I really love stylised and low poly work, but I want to express on my site that I am also a capable artist for realistic AAA projects. Essentially, I'm applying for Environment Artist roles across all styles and studio types - I don't mind what, I just love working on games.
Is this too broad a goal?
I want to start a new project, but I'm stuck as to what employers will want to see. I can't decide if I should make something totally different to show more diversity, or if I should focus on creating better, more confident pieces to replace the older ones.
Basically I'm stuck and I'd love your honest first impressions and opinions :-)
Portfolio: http://chelsealindsay.weebly.com/
Thank you!
Replies
Thank you again!
I don't think the goal is too broad, but try not to make the portfolio that way. I think the pieces you have appear confident. The Barkington Palace is great the way it is as well as the Fish Taco shack. Those are nice finished "environment" things.
Here are improvement ideas that come to mind:
-too much white, my eyes already hurt lol
-the revolver looks fine on it's own, too many people try to make a scene with it that just kills it in two ways 1) takes away the focus 2) scene isn't as good as the gun thus dropping the overall quality of the piece. It's a model not a scene so it's fine. Maybe it's a bit on the lowpoly side but so is all your other stuff, it's your thing
-off the map project, you don't actually show off the models you worked on just the concepts for them which imo makes it a wash (I tend to only watch vids if it's an animation portfolio - as do a fair bit of others)
brutal honesty - your portfolio starts off with a strong expectation of being AAA quality but doesn't live up to it - maybe for mobile
i never worked in a big studio so i can't share any wisdom. doing ammo crates or AK-47s all day sounds boring, unless your skills are super awesome so you get to do more creative things. i think your portfolio is stronger in organic and stylized stuff ( barkingham, taco, tree, 2d art ) so maybe you should go in that direction as your ''thing''. there's a lot to explore when you have that kind of freedom with colors, shaders, shapes, characters..
the gun is fine but it's just a gun ( i tend to scroll away every time i see a regular gun or a rifle no matter how awesome it looks ). try to stick out by doing something more complex ( hi-tech equipment, vehicle) inspired by yours or other artist's concept. i see your Division stuff is coming soon so maybe you got that covered too.
Still think this applies. Just to throw in my 2c I'm a white background kind of guy, I like that aspect of your portfolio just fine (didn't even think about it).
Cheers
Your goal seems clear other than type of work. Are you looking for an in house studio job or freelance/contract work? The difference being: If you are looking for in house, focusing on scenes is ideal because you will most likely end up composing environments in levels. If you are looking for contract work, focus on individual models because many jobs are on a per asset basis. Either way, your real goal is to impress ADs, Senior Artists, Recruiters, etc. enough to land interviews or contracts.
Junior Artist Portfolio Advice:
When building a portfolio as a new artist, its incredibly important to show range in themes, styles and materials. Create a checklist of things you want to show your proficiency in:
- Styles: Realistic, Toon (cell or flat shaded), Hand painted
- Themes: Realism, Fantasy, Sci-fi, etc.
- Materials: Wood, Stone, Metals, Foliage, Cloth, liquid, etc.
Avoid wasting time with overlap. Once you have shown a good example of hand painted cloth or realistic stones, there is little point to making another scene or asset that shows the same ability. Make sure to show a range of poly counts as well. (very low to high)When creating stylized work for a portfolio, I always suggest finding an existing game that you think looks great and building assets that would fit within that style. Analyzing and studying games with solid Art Direction is the first step to making good choices. This not only helps with consistency, but also allows you to focus on making good, creative assets in stead of worrying about what stylized wood should look like. This will also help you with color harmony, lighting, detail levels, scale cues, etc. Ok, now lets get into some of your work.
General Portfolio Feedback:
Its nice to see that you have a pretty good range of work for a junior artist portfolio. You could add more of your 2D work to this section. Be consistent with naming (top its called '2D/Concept', section is called 'life drawing', page is called 'life drawing/concept'). If you want to do environments you should have some environment sketches. Your more realistic work is stronger than your stylized work simply based on consistency. There are a few simple tweaks that you can make to greatly improve a lot of your work. I will get into more specifics on some of your individual sections.
Revolver:
This is a good model to show your proficiency with a realistic theme, materials and shaders as well as staying within a reasonable poly budget. Overall its a solid model with nice texture job. While this works, its too simple and basic to be a strong portfolio piece. Its the equivalent of a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich. Its great for what it is, but not complex enough to be impressive. This is something we have all seen a hundred times and nobody is going to pay you to make something they can get for $20 on Turbosquid. Weapons are a great thing to show because most games have them. I suggest finding a more interesting and creative gun. Something a bit more rare and complex. This would also be your best opportunity to show something higher poly since most of your other work already shows low poly counts.
Barkingham Palace:
This is probably you weakest work. The character actually looks great and there are some individual models that are pretty decent, but the overall execution and composition of the scenes are pretty poor. Everything is uniformly saturated, there are no clear focal points. The textures look different styles and resolutions. Lots of objects shoved into each other (clipping). No lighting. Inconsistent poly priority (example: more polys used on small stair posts than giant pillars, 20 sided jars, 8 sided pillars, etc.) A major issue that is plaguing your scene are the connection points and where things line up. Looking at your first image, you can see that the pillar on the left lines up well with the floor pattern. The pillar on the right does not. It feels like every asset has the same level of contrast, saturation and detail which makes it hard for the eye to find focal points. Regardless of where it stands today, this is a scene that can easily be salvaged. Adding AO to this environement would help ground the elements better. With some simple clumping of details, better composing of assets, less clipping and finding ways to bring attention to focal points like the throne and the fire hydrant, your scene can become far stronger.
Throne of the Dead:
First off, your concepts are great! Its nice to see some decent silhouette studies. When doing these, its your opportunity to go crazy, so always push your silhouettes as far as you can. You never know what great ideas will come out of it. The 3 full concepts you did below are very nice with some good range of ideas. GG! These all have a really nice throne to tree ratio. I don't know what happened in your model. It feels like you completely moved away from your original throne idea and just made a tree with 10% throne tacked onto the bottom. When working in 3D, its almost always fine to make adjustments to your original concept. But you should always remember what the most important elements are. Where are the great candles and mushrooms? As it stands, the tree looks pretty good. Its just lacking the creativity and interest of your concepts to be a strong piece.
Taco Stand:
This is a fun idea with some good modeling execution. Its also fairly well composed. The lettuce and tomato textures are especially well done. Nice work. The main issue I see with this one is lack of consistent texture style. Parts of the ground and bricks look almost photo like, but the taco, fish, wood and awnings looks very cartoony. Find a consistent, existing style and nail it. The other smaller issue is the lack of clear focal point. Every great scene should have clearly prioritized focal points that everything else is either drawing your eye to or supporting by being less important. The eye is naturally drawn to a few things: Faces, high contrast, saturation and detail. The most detail is at the counter area, the highest contrast is the fish eye and the words Taco Store and the fish has a face and everything is equally saturated. Don't get me wrong, this is certainly not a bad scene. Its definitely one of, if not your best pieces. This shows some good creativity and your ability to exaggerate forms. Nice job.
Overall, I think you have a great start towards having a solid portfolio. Work hard and focus on attention to detail, composition and foundational art skills and you will have a very successful career. I hope this information helps. GG!
Thank you all for taking the time; its really hard to give yourself fair criticism and goals without other artists' eyes. I appreciate it.
@xhi I did forget that gun wireframe actually - thank you for your comments!
@CandyStripes05 Thank you. I know, The Division seems like an odd style match for me, but I think ultimately it was about skills > style. Although I wish there were big cartoon fish tacos in Manhattan
@SittingDucky Thank you. I'm starting to think doing a standard revolver was a misfire(!).
@BagelHero Thank you kindly for returning to post that draft!
@PEET? Wow, I really appreciate you taking the time to write all that. All very honest and fair; I'll definitely refer to this when making portfolio changes. Thank you.