I need help and advice on my portfolio

GlitterWhisp · Sep 2023

Hi, it's been almost a year since I started 3d modeling as a hobby, but now I want to make money from this. I have embedded links to my Artstation and Sketchfab for you guys to have a look. I believe I need professional feedback on my work, so I would greatly appreciate your help. I specially want to know If I am ready for a job, or for receiving serious gigs on fiverr or other freelancing platforms.

Here are the links to my Artstation and Sketchfab:

https://www.artstation.com/glitterwhisp

https://sketchfab.com/GlitterWhisp/models

(a couple of models are only on sketchfab)

nexussim · Oct 2023

Nice work! I feel a big plus would be having high quality wireframe renders on the main page (not having to go to sketchfab to see them). The wireframe renders you could make would be able to look much nicer than sketchfab wireframe view.

GlitterWhisp · Oct 2023

nexussim said:

Nice work! I feel a big plus would be having high quality wireframe renders on the main page (not having to go to sketchfab to see them). The wireframe renders you could make would be able to look much nicer than sketchfab wireframe view.

Thank you friend, I'll start working on it

Bek · Oct 2023

GlitterWhisp said:

I specially want to know If I am ready for a job,

Sorry, nope. One off freelance gigs, no idea but probably not going to get any bites. I would focus on improving your skills more — something you could consider is finding a modding project that interests you for whatever games you like, see if they need any 3d work and if they're interested. Try that before looking for paid gigs and see how you go. You make stuff for your portfolio, get experience working within a team, they might have other artists to mentor you a bit, and they get content for their mod. Win/win.

Game art jobs are highly competitive so you really need to be producing mid-level work to even be considered for a junior position. Weapon art is especially difficult to break into in my estimation, as there are fewer available roles per project than say environment or characters, where a lot more content is required in the typical project.

Briefly about your art:

Weapons have some pretty key dimensions that if wrong, are very noticeable. Two common offenders show up in your work, the picatinny rails and the pistol grips. Rail dimensions are standard, you can google NATO rail and get a blueprint with exact dimensions. Pistol grips on the other hand (heh) need to comfortably fit a human hand. The FAL grip is much too wide. The Scar-H seems better, but then the stock feels too thin, and the AFG too wide. The Eotech is squished. The magazine and suppressor are noticeably blocky. Textures are very bland and don't show any interesting variation in roughness to catch the eye, and the model is presented in a simple way (flat boring lighting) that isn't helping this. Search FN SCAR H on Artstation and look at the top few examples and note how the textures pop, how they have appropriate details that catch the eye — glossy smudges where the hands touch, scratches where the safety rotates, grime in the cavities.. Your textures have none of this, if you were to remove the roughness map and set it to 0.7 roughness universally how much would change? When texturing try to look at each map and ask "Am I getting the most I can out of this?" (This doesn't mean just crank the contrast in each map, but consider, is there detail in the reference that could be included here?). Texturing is reliant on observation; if you don't notice it, you can't replicate it. My advice, pick a small project, maybe follow a texturing tutorial, and put all your effort into trying to make it match the reference photos as best you can. Observe, replicate, repeat.

Good luck, hope this wasn't too discouraging.

GlitterWhisp · Oct 2023

Bek said:

GlitterWhisp said:

I specially want to know If I am ready for a job,

Sorry, nope. One off freelance gigs, no idea but probably not going to get any bites. I would focus on improving your skills more — something you could consider is finding a modding project that interests you for whatever games you like, see if they need any 3d work and if they're interested. Try that before looking for paid gigs and see how you go. You make stuff for your portfolio, get experience working within a team, they might have other artists to mentor you a bit, and they get content for their mod. Win/win.

Game art jobs are highly competitive so you really need to be producing mid-level work to even be considered for a junior position. Weapon art is especially difficult to break into in my estimation, as there are fewer available roles per project than say environment or characters, where a lot more content is required in the typical project.

Briefly about your art:

Weapons have some pretty key dimensions that if wrong, are very noticeable. Two common offenders show up in your work, the picatinny rails and the pistol grips. Rail dimensions are standard, you can google NATO rail and get a blueprint with exact dimensions. Pistol grips on the other hand (heh) need to comfortably fit a human hand. The FAL grip is much too wide. The Scar-H seems better, but then the stock feels too thin, and the AFG too wide. The Eotech is squished. The magazine and suppressor are noticeably blocky. Textures are very bland and don't show any interesting variation in roughness to catch the eye, and the model is presented in a simple way (flat boring lighting) that isn't helping this. Search FN SCAR H on Artstation and look at the top few examples and note how the textures pop, how they have appropriate details that catch the eye — glossy smudges where the hands touch, scratches where the safety rotates, grime in the cavities.. Your textures have none of this, if you were to remove the roughness map and set it to 0.7 roughness universally how much would change? When texturing try to look at each map and ask "Am I getting the most I can out of this?" (This doesn't mean just crank the contrast in each map, but consider, is there detail in the reference that could be included here?). Texturing is reliant on observation; if you don't notice it, you can't replicate it. My advice, pick a small project, maybe follow a texturing tutorial, and put all your effort into trying to make it match the reference photos as best you can. Observe, replicate, repeat.

Good luck, hope this wasn't too discouraging.

Thank you friend, I really appreciate the time you put into writing all of this, it's the first time I receive serious feedback on my work.
I have a few questions, I hope you don't mind:

_How do I make the suppressor and the magazine less blocky? Do I just increase the polycount or is there some better way?
_Do you think I should stick to blender or move on to some other 3d software? If so, what software would you recommend?
_Do you happen to have any specific Substance Painter texturing tutorials or courses in mind?
_The tanks are painfully highpoly and badly optimized (I've done bevels in places you people wouldn't believe!) but all in all, what do you think of them?
_Do I just contact mod publishers directly on Nexus (or some other platform) and offer my contribution?

Again, I thank you so much for your help, it actually gave me a few leads to follow!

Bek · Oct 2023

Yes, more geometry. Looking at the front of the suppressor you can see the edges pretty clearly, that's not really common in modern games so ideally shouldn't be in portfolio pieces. Obvious there's mobile projects, third person games, lowpoly aesthetics so obviously it can depend on the project, just use common sense
Stick with blender, the main DCC apps like modo/max/blender etc are fairly equivalent. In the future you can look into CAD software like f360 / plasticity
https://www.artstation.com/learning/courses/owg/substance-painter-pushing-your-texturing-further/ has some good advice though there might be some better stuff for a broader overview.
artstation isn't loading for me right now but from what I remember they presented better than the weapons.
It really depends on the game and how its community interacts, in some cases this will be forums, most games have a discord server now, just look at the stuff you enjoy and see what's going on in that space and if there's any groups taking in new members. Try to read the room and see if they're looking for new artists, don't just spam every thread you find and annoy people. Another thing to consider is joining art-related discords, see what other people are doing and interact with those communities. One I see often on artstation is 'the weapon room' which I've recently started lurking in.

Good luck

GlitterWhisp · Oct 2023

Bek said:

Yes, more geometry. Looking at the front of the suppressor you can see the edges pretty clearly, that's not really common in modern games so ideally shouldn't be in portfolio pieces. Obvious there's mobile projects, third person games, lowpoly aesthetics so obviously it can depend on the project, just use common sense
Stick with blender, the main DCC apps like modo/max/blender etc are fairly equivalent. In the future you can look into CAD software like f360 / plasticity
https://www.artstation.com/learning/courses/owg/substance-painter-pushing-your-texturing-further/ has some good advice though there might be some better stuff for a broader overview.
artstation isn't loading for me right now but from what I remember they presented better than the weapons.
It really depends on the game and how its community interacts, in some cases this will be forums, most games have a discord server now, just look at the stuff you enjoy and see what's going on in that space and if there's any groups taking in new members. Try to read the room and see if they're looking for new artists, don't just spam every thread you find and annoy people. Another thing to consider is joining art-related discords, see what other people are doing and interact with those communities. One I see often on artstation is 'the weapon room' which I've recently started lurking in.
Good luck

Thank you so much for your help

Vertrucio · Oct 2023

My suggestion? Make small scenes. As said already, it's very difficult to get hired for props/weapons role. Most jobs I see are for Senior level and you're competing against a lot of other artists that can do more.

Most junior/mid level positions I see open are for Environment/World art, doing small scenes gets you closer. You technically can find work as a props/weapons person, but your work has to WOW recruiters and be something that'll get to page 1 of artstation.

Remove the stuff that's directly based on a tutorial, such as the revolver model that's exactly the one from the Chamferzone tutorial. Make a different gun using everything you learned to replace it. Recruiters see these all the time and leads want to see how well you work without someone directing every action you make.

You need to work on the way to subtly distinguish stuff like wood and plastic/composite/polymer surfaces as they are very simple in real life, but you need to make them pop somehow. I'd recommend the Handgun Tutorial from Eugene Petrov if you can afford it (

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcuLcvM5aRI). As it shows how someone who's worked in the industry for a long time still takes a lot of time to make plastic guns look interesting.

GlitterWhisp · Oct 2023

Vertrucio said:

My suggestion? Make small scenes. As said already, it's very difficult to get hired for props/weapons role. Most jobs I see are for Senior level and you're competing against a lot of other artists that can do more.

Most junior/mid level positions I see open are for Environment/World art, doing small scenes gets you closer. You technically can find work as a props/weapons person, but your work has to WOW recruiters and be something that'll get to page 1 of artstation.

Remove the stuff that's directly based on a tutorial, such as the revolver model that's exactly the one from the Chamferzone tutorial. Make a different gun using everything you learned to replace it. Recruiters see these all the time and leads want to see how well you work without someone directing every action you make.

You need to work on the way to subtly distinguish stuff like wood and plastic/composite/polymer surfaces as they are very simple in real life, but you need to make them pop somehow. I'd recommend the Handgun Tutorial from Eugene Petrov if you can afford it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcuLcvM5aRI). As it shows how someone who's worked in the industry for a long time still takes a lot of time to make plastic guns look interesting.

Hello friend, thank you so much for your advice

_Apparently the tutorial requires Maya and Zbrush, do you think it would be worth putting time and money into learning them?
_Have you gone through the tutorial yourself? if so, was it beginner friendly?

Vertrucio · Oct 2023

You can accomplish that tutorial the same way you did the revolver tutorial. But again, don't make the exact same gun. I have literally seen that same pistol in 5 other portfolios while casually glancing through artstation and art portfolios. The main useful thing is that he goes into real detail about how to make uninteresting gunmetal and gun-plastic into an interesting material for games.

I need help and advice on my portfolio

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