Looking for critique on my portfolio
Hey everyone, I'm a 3D generalist from Canada and I'm in my final semester of college. I'm looking for some critique on my portfolio site so I can best prepare it for internship/job hunting and I want to know how I should be be moving forward from where I'm currently at, like what the most noticeable flaws are in my work and what I should focus on improving.
I'm also interested in any suggestions for what kind of things I should be making next. I know that I'm lacking grungy stuff and plant life in my scenes but feel free to suggest any concept for me to work on, I'm not entirely sure on what I should do next and I'd be up for trying any cool concepts you post here.
Link to the site: http://www.louisparai.com
I'm also interested in any suggestions for what kind of things I should be making next. I know that I'm lacking grungy stuff and plant life in my scenes but feel free to suggest any concept for me to work on, I'm not entirely sure on what I should do next and I'd be up for trying any cool concepts you post here.
Link to the site: http://www.louisparai.com
Replies
I'm not working in the industry yet, so take my comments as they are.
Are the environments rendered in an engine or is this all VRay/Mental Ray? If it isn't an engine like Unreal then you may have a tough time landing a job as an enviro artist with no engine experience.
The props within the environments have really high spec values and there's no material definition. Did you unwrap and texture these? Most look like materials from Max.
For the vehicles, are those game ready assets? The poly count looks extremely high. How come there are no wireframes or texture maps either?
I wouldn't have a demo reel just because your work is always changing, and with that you'd have to make a new reel everytime you remove portfolio pieces. If you're an animator demo reels are great.
Overall I'd say for a portfolio of basically your school work you're ok for now, but I personally would always be adding to it even when in school. You wont land that first job with it just yet (Maybe an internship), but it's a start.
When I had my first portfolio done, I was still in school but the quality of the work wasn't where it needed to be to get me a job. I never included any of it, and only had work I did on my free time.
For example here is a little project I'm working on - http://bhop.xyz/
Notice that the images take up the entire page and the font is modern and proffessional. Just something to think about.
Your website itself needs a little love. Ditch flash because it doesn't allow people to right click then save images from it, and it just slows it down. Use a really simple layout, no bells and whistles. I would recommend making the layout a bit more easy on the eyes with a darker background and using up more of the space, the images and the header are really small. All your artwork should have your name and website on it, but make it cleaner and more subtle, because on some of your pictures it is a little distracting. Adhere to a standard resume layout because HR people expect that and it makes it easier for them.
As for the work, you have to much of it shown here. Pick your best 4-6 pieces and stick with those, and as you make new stuff at school replace the worst piece with the new thing. The old cliche you always hear is that you are only as good your weakest piece.
The enviroments have some proportions issues and I don't know what renderer you are using but they don't look very appealing.
Drop the characters and the weapons they are not on the same levels as your cars and hurt you more then anything (sorry to be blunt but they suck).
I'd make some nice renders of the really cool cars and the bike ( in someting like keyshot), ryan hawkins as a great tutorial on this, I'm sure you can find it somewhere here and maybe work on a new piece and give it the same love you gave the red car (but be careful about objet's proportions in relation to one another that's something that I really noticed is off in your pics)
- get rid of the categories "Characters" and "Weapons"
- make "Environments" category your major category where I would like to see breakdowns. Mockup, lighting / normal only, wireframes, textures.
- images should be at least 1920*1080. Its 2016 and we dont use 1024*768 anymore
- the jaguar looks cool. Keep that
- motorcycle is hard to judge because I cant see it. Its like a post stamp.
Sketchfab is generally a good idea to present assets and props! Maybe use that for the motorcycle. I very much like to zoom around an asset on sketchfab and look at it from every angle.
Get your environments into UE4. The Loft and the Kitchen! Maybe the Library with new furniture. Ditch the last two enviros.
I have the general feeling that you are trying to hide something from the viewer. Maybe modelling uncertainty or even issues. That might not be the case, but I get that feeling. I think the presentation should be more self-confident. Even if it reveals some issues.