Feedback on my Portfolio

Kn5743 · Mar 2016

Hey guys! I've been getting my portfolio ready for when I go to GDC on Friday and was wondering if you guys could give me any feedback on it?

http://kevinstuartneal.weebly.com/

Thanks!

Blitzwood · Mar 2016

It looks pretty good to me. You have pretty good stuff but those Fallout 4 models and the Eye of The Giant video were what stood out to me. Best of luck!

BetaRazer · Mar 2016

You have some interesting content on there, but the presentation is somewhat poor and difficult to navigate. I'm concerned that your biggest and showcase pieces (i.e. your environments) won't stand out first. This is crucial to getting past the 5 second impression. Here are some of my thoughts;

Home page: all I see currently are; 2 machines and 2 weapons. You say you are a Prop/Environment Artist; but where are the environments?

"Eye of the Giant" page: I don't see a description anywhere to begin with. What is the environment? What is it's purpose? How long did it take to produce? Is everything there your work? I believe this info should be at the top, introducing us under the title, which paints a better picture of what we're going to see.

Horror Stories, Sherpa and Burn: I'm unsure about the level of quality here. It doesn't seem to match the other props you have. If you are doubtful; best remove it. You don't want to compromise the overall quality of your work.

Avoid thumbnails and slideshows. They are fiddly and tedious to navigate. Employers may find them off putting. Fill the screen with larger images with less wasted space.

On a more positive note: you have some good 2D work, but you might want to make that more relevant to your intended role. The hand painted textures fulfill this however.
Weapons; choose only your best one and keep it. Remove the others. You want to "wow" someone with that one piece. The technical breakdown of your screenshots in this instance is good.
AKM; show the textures. Material definition is good.
Revolver: some detail could be added to tell a story a little more. Such as discolouration or scratches on the metal cylinder or hand grip. Subtle additions that could make it stand out.
Computer & Vending Machine: Great work, I've got no comments to add to these. Keep them both.

You have a small amount of work to do in order to get your portfolio into order. Provide descriptions of each piece. Re-arrange the presentation. Make some changes to your work. Once you've made these changes, you should be good and ready.

Best of luck and enjoy GDC!

Kn5743 · Mar 2016

@Blitzwood Thanks man!
@BetaRazer Thanks for the great feedback! Yeah, I've been mainly focusing on props and weapons recently while I was learning 3DS Max. I'm working on getting a new environment in there but I'm learning Zbrush and Substance Designer along with it.

I originally had Eye of the Giant on my 3D page but didn't feel like my 3D work was as strong there and it was a team project so a lot of my work had to do with refining other artist's assets and getting everything textured. I was mainly in charge of making the characters, terrain, foliage, some smaller props, and texturing.

There is a project description for each of the games under the images where I talk about what I worked on, should I move them up? The game projects are a mix of programming and artwork. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep them but I thought they would show that I have some experience working with a team on a game.

What would you recommend instead of thumbnails? I thought it would be worse to just have a wall of images of different assets.

CandyStripes05 · Mar 2016

quick first impressions:

-too much empty space on your site, I had to scroll down just to see the two guns when all 4 pieces of art could have easily fit on my screen
-not familiar enough with the Fallout games to crit if they resemble their art or not (so for me that cuts out 50% of the work I would be judging you on if I was a recruiter, not to mention if the studio doesn't follow that art style)
-AKM looks solid as a model, but their is so many detailed tutorials for AK-47's and similar that it's hard to credit anyones skills to the model because you never know if they followed a tutorial to the tee or did it themselves. Texture could use some love especially the gloss
-revolver feels boring to me, maybe increase the contrast in the gloss map or work on different lighting
-your 2D stuff is nice, people are always split decision on including it or not (sketches, portraits etc) but I would for sure keep the flat textures, and maybe just merge your 2D with 3D and title it portfolio, the less people are to navigate the better
-Game Projects, I quickly scrolled down before the slidshows loaded, saw one image of really low poly stuff and then skipped the entire page so do what you will with that info
-About Me, never a fan of pics on portfolio pages, people will judge you based on that even if they don't mean to also your bio is dull so maybe just leave it all to your resume and skip this section too
-contact me, not sure if people ever use this format to send out their emails I think it's more for people to apply for jobs. Better off just leaving your email in the corner of all pages or something similar but not a huge deal
-scrap the environment artist title or add an environment, this makes it look like you don't know what you want to be or are fresh out of school and using preset job titles given to you

gl man, you got this!

BetaRazer · Mar 2016

No problem at all.

If possible; try and include a small, high quality piece as your main environment.

And yes, move the description up and place it under the title, with the artwork to follow. Not sure about the programming works though. The knowledge is nice to have, but not essential in your case as you want to show off the art more.
As a general rule of thumb; avoid using thumbnails. People don't like squinting to see the detail. Go for high-resolution images and fill up all that screen space with art. Not only will it flow better, but it'll be more nicely presented too.

CandyStripes05 · Mar 2016

I'm pro thumbnails that link to full high rez, just make them a better size. At the same time as people don't want to squint to see the detail they also don't want to scroll past works they don't care for or get bogged down with potentially longer load time. Go for the happy medium : )

Kn5743 · Mar 2016

Thanks guys! This is really helpful. I'll size down the thumbnails a bit and remove environment from my title for now. Would hard surface modeler or props/weapons modeler be a better title? It sounds like I should remove the Game Projects page as well then?

@CandyStripes05 I did follow Tim Bergholz's tutorial for the AKM, I have a new gun that I'm working on right now that I'll be able to finish by Friday. I'll replace it with that one.

CandyStripes05 · Mar 2016

Kn5743 said:

Thanks guys! This is really helpful. I'll size down the thumbnails a bit and remove environment from my title for now. Would hard surface modeler or props/weapons modeler be a better title? It sounds like I should remove the Game Projects page as well then?

@CandyStripes05 I did follow Tim Bergholz's tutorial for the AKM, I have a new gun that I'm working on right now that I'll be able to finish by Friday. I'll replace it with that one.

Hard Surface works, 3D Artist works, Prop/Weapons works, which ever you want really as long as it doesn't include something you don't currently showcase like environments.

I wouldn't remove the AKM as it still looks good as a model, I would update the texture though and then bump it off your portfolio as you add in more/stronger work that didn't require a tutorial.

Kn5743 · Mar 2016

Okay, great! I'll go work on the texture now. Thanks again.

Kn5743 · Mar 2016

I've redone the layout and got rid of a lot of the older stuff and added a new gun. What do you guys think?

http://kevinstuartneal.weebly.com/

CandyStripes05 · Mar 2016

layout is much better, the buttons on the bottom that have the names of your 3d work seem somewhat pointless. Pretty much everybody already knows to click on a pic for higher rez if there is multiple of that subject or for more if there is only one of said subject. Also people may not know what the names of the guns are and they find themselves revisiting the same thing when they could have spent that time viewing more of your work. Remember the studio you apply for is viewing and filtering out plenty of portfolio's so don't give them a reason to close yours early.

the about me section, if you're going to have it then include some info that I saw on your linkedIn like professional projects you worked on, even if you have no approved images then use company name and project name if allowed. Also what school you attended if it relates to the field. You don't need to put the years you attended but should include type of degree and if you graduated or not.

3dReaper · Mar 2016

Personally, I would use your artstation as your primary portfolio.

It is presented well, looks clean, and removes almost all of human error at least in the design aspect. Show your texture flats on here as well!

You are a 3D artist, not a web designer.

kohg · Mar 2016

QUick question, why bother having a portfolio site when you have arstation?

Kn5743 · Mar 2016

@CandyStripes05 Yeah, I had put the buttons there because someone I know that I sent my website to didn't notice the images were clickable. I'll go ahead and remove them. I think I'll add an attachment to my resume on the About Me page so all that info will be on there.

@3dReaper I was considering just using my Artstation as my portfolio but I wasn't sure how people felt about that.

Thanks for the feedback!

CandyStripes05 · Mar 2016

kohg said:

QUick question, why bother having a portfolio site when you have arstation?

I've been considering this too as of late, portfolio allows you to organize the layout how you want but artstation imo gets your work more noticed. I just decided to keep both and link both whenever applying for a job etc

Feedback on my Portfolio

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