3D Environment Artist Potfolio Critique/Feedback (Stylized)
keyframe
Hi everyone!
I'm an aspiring game artist trying to land my first job in games- I've submitted (mostly speculative) applications to various studios but haven't managed to get any interviews, jobs for juniors also seem to be quite scarce right now haha. I talked to a recruiter at an event over the weekend and he suggested just cold messaging other artists to have a look at my portfolio, so I thought I would try asking for help here as well.
This is the portfolio I've been sending to studios: https://gnraeart.artstation.com/
A bit of background which may or may not be useful: I don't have a degree in game dev or game art, all of my 3D skills are self-taught over the last 2-3 years. I'm aiming for AA and indie.
If anyone has any advice especially about the art (but any feedback is very welcome!!!), I would be in your debt :'(
Thank you!!!
Replies
The only thing that stood out negatively to me immediately was the UV layout of the market stand. There doesn't seem to be a good reason to have the tabletops/shelves rotated at 45 degrees and have the edges stick out that way, only to have one or two small seams less (but if it fits, it fits, so that's less of a problem than the angle). Then you have two of the tabletops/shelves when you don't have shadows baked in.
The whole piece offers many opportunities for texture reuse but seems to be mapped completely uniquely (without making full use of that, either, meaning, you could basically have the same effect with repeating textures).
Dungeon Entrance seems to be the piece where the most thoughts seem to have gone into optimization techniques (at least going by what you show), but I agree that the first impression isn't as strong as with some of the other works.
The animated versions of some scenes have so little movement that they almost seem superfluous. Might save bandwidth, but perhaps you could move the camera a bit, after all these are realtime 3D scenes.
The shop game is something you could link in a general "about" section to show related skills. The sauce jar looks great, btw., but the separate shot has filtering for some reason (different from everything else).
"I'm a fine art graduate" is pretty vague. Either it´s relevant, then be specific, or it's not, then don't mention it.
Edit: tabletops, not plates. Sorry for any confusion.
@Ashervisalis My main inspirations are artists like Jasmin Habezai-Fekri (https://www.artstation.com/curlscurly), I like to look a lot at what Airborn Studios is putting out, actually. I guess I don't have a super clear vision on the kinds of games I would like to make- there are a ton of "cosy" games across various genres that I like and I know my artstyle is geared more towards. I'll start making a lil document of reference portfolios, thank you for suggesting that!