Help me on improving my portfolio so I can get hired for a full-time job.
Greetings,
I am from North Macedonia/Europe and I'm looking for a full-time job. Unfortunately, the gaming industry isn't much existent here, and while I'm open to relocating I think most companies would be very hesitant to employ someone from a different country unless you are very good or have strong referrals. So what should I focus on my portfolio to be more likely to be hired mostly based on it? I'd be open to model anything, but most of the stuff I have on my folio is for character art, so I guess I need to apply mostly for those positions.
Also, I don't have many hard-surface or sci-fi models, so should I refrain from applying for those types of jobs? Or much of stylized ones either. I guess mostly they are semi-realistic fantasy pieces, but if I limit myself to those types of games only, the opportunities would be very rare.
Portfolio so you can give me proper feedback: https://arianportfolio.com
As well as my CV https://bit.ly/3rUQq2M
You can also check a Cover Letter I have sent to a company 2 days ago, even I'm a bit embarrassed about showing it, it might be helpful for advice https://docdro.id/wB1IZi4
P.s I have plenty of 3D models and a few 2D ones as well that you can access if you click on the 3D Art or 2D Art category on my Artstation, and I'm not sure if I should make those categories available on my website as well so that if anyone is more interested about me can check them.
Thank you.
Replies
I'll still give you some feedback from my own experience hiring and interviewing people.
What works :
The knight piece has some very good clothing/armor work.
Ease of access. Everything is there and the "resume" link is easy to find.
You have both professional and personal work and have good experience
What I think could be improved :
I'd remove the "Brave Nidale" piece, it's not as good as the rest.
Anything tagged "wip" is not helping you, especially unfinished WIP from 2016. (The black widow is good just remove the WIP tag)
I would also remove those.
I would add company or project logo on professional thumbnails like most people do on artstation. Personally when reviewing porfolio it helps put some context between the pro and personal work. Helps me know if something "less good" is a skill problem or a project constraint, its way more understandable as a project constraint.
You obviously have a very character centric portfolio so I would focus on expending and improving on this and apply to those jobs if this is your passion. I wouldn't hire you for environments with what you currently show, that's for sure. If you want to do more sci-fi or stylize work professionally, you need to make more of those on your free time. Spend your personal work doing what you *WANT* to do and apply to jobs that requires those skills.
About the layout unfortunately I don't have much control over it since it's a website template from Arstation.
For sure if you feel anything is worth keeping I would keep it ! Especially if it brought interest from recruiters.
And yes character art is hard to break into, but it doesn't require necessarily more seniority than other crafts in the industry. Every single specialty out there will always look for both seniors and juniors, and with your experience I wouldn't qualify you as a junior anyway, you could easily fit in a mid-position in places like Ubisoft.
I think your updated layout as it is right now is good, and once you add the logos on the thumbnails you will have something solid.
For sure, the stronger your portfolio, the more interested companies will be to spend money to get you a visa and help you more country.
Your clothing work is solid, especially on the knight, though if you really want specifics on where to improve I would say your facial anatomy needs more studying.
Just keep making more personal work and improve until you get the job you want.
Cheers man.