[Portfolio] - David O'Brien, Environment/Prop Artist
Hey everyone. I am about to graduate in Game Art & Design in a few weeks and before I do I was hoping for some good critiques of my work. Please tell me all about what you think of the site, and my work. Really more on rendering and quick changes right now because there is so little time left before I need to be done.
O ya and I am looking for a job.
Thanks for all your help!
www.OBrien3D.net
O and I just got the site up and on Internet Explorer it is showing up wrong so just use Mozilla to view it and it will hopefully be fine for you
O ya and I am looking for a job.
Thanks for all your help!
www.OBrien3D.net
O and I just got the site up and on Internet Explorer it is showing up wrong so just use Mozilla to view it and it will hopefully be fine for you
Replies
the 1st thing that stood out at me on your site was that the background didn't tile very well, there is a obvious shift from light to dark on the concrete tiles. this right away made me look at your textural ability. actually a plain darker background or gradient would probably look better than what youve got right now, it would probably look more professional.
There is good ideas behind all the work, solid concepts you have chosen to work from. I would say you should focus on your texture skills, thats what immediately jumped out to me. There are blurred/undetailed textures in all your pieces, looking at the texture sheet for the wall piece thing i couldn't really see much detail work on the texture sheet.
really give some loving to your textures, thats what will usually catch gamers eyes, especially floor and walls, they take up 80% of the screen. Your lighting in the wall assault scene seems kinda dim and could use with some brightening up and some color in the light itself. the work shows promise and i think if you apply these general comments plus the multitude im sure you will get from other PC'ers here your next pieces should turn out increasingly better. I wouldn't recommend going back and trying to update/fix your old work, move onto something new and fresh. now here is something that could seem pretty harsh and maybe unbelievable but ive been told this by many art directors and people in charge of hiring:
as soon as you are done with school, take what you did and throw it all away(well maybe keep it backed up :P). start a new portfolio, with high quality work using the foundations of what you have learned in school. the main thing you want to do is break away from the portfolio of someone who recently just graded from an art school. most people can spot these types of portfolios immediately and that usually isn't a good thing.
With a new spankin' folio in a couple months you could probably net a job pretty quick if the work you pump out is high quality. with the general shortage of jobs at the moment in most areas for beginner artists I wouldn't recommend shopping around an AI reel to make a 1st impression, especially with so many studios closing and experienced artists looking for art jobs at the same time.
Finally, I would recommend taking your personal synopsis off your site, or atleast the part that says the "newest 3D Environment & Prop Artist’s website portfolio"
I hope this hasnt been to harsh, I kinda feel like an ass every time i say this to people just gradding school. Your work shows promise for sure man, the crusader room is your best example i think, and its good to see you have some ingame work that you did, thats always an asset. best of luck man, cant wait to see some more work!
But who cares about IE anyway.
Stop making normalmaps like this:
http://www.obrien3d.net/images/category3/trashcan.jpg
As I could notice, your textures mostly seem to be too dark. Also you might need to improve your lighting because, for example, in crusader room the table and map are lit by invisible light source and shadows are almost black that means you did not use much of radiosity.
Shepeiro and strangefate's work might be more visually helpful.
From what I see it seems more like a bump map is added in.
The layout is good, but the background is a real eyesore, take what has been said and changing it would give a much better initial impression. Stay on top of your game and just take on more ambitious projects than the school work you currently have, showing use of concepts would be good approach as well.
thanks for the critiques
Your environment with the battering ram didn't compliment the model at all, there was virtually no contrast between the subject and background so I think you need to take a step back and try to look at the big picture, this is the major flaw I see because your individual model and render of the ram was really nice.
- Take everything you've made for a class for AI course and throw it all away. (already said)
- Take off school projects and Arby's off of your resume. If you have a 'lack' of job experience in your resume you can go the experience route with your resume, I had the same issues when I graduated with my resume. If you'd like take a look at mine for a non-job related type resume. Not saying mines the greatest though... but you need to sell your experience and what you can do, even without job experience.
Good luck and good start!! It's a rough road ahead but well worth it to do something you love.
"your portfolio repels jobs" -
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=39516
just to make sure i do it right. i do have "I used the Warhammer Online concepts for this piece and recreated each concept in 3D to create this scene." and "WarHammer Dark Elves Wall Concept" caption for the image showing the concept of the wall and "WarHammer Chaos Army Ram Concept" caption for the ram. is that enough or what more should i have? should i bold Warhammer Online?
Your logo is clearly a rushed replacement. Stop trying to make one. Your name and contact information should be there instead. Simple, classy text will do. Honestly, you don't have your name or contact info on the main page at all. I had to search your site for find out your name.
Super nit-picky comment: Chaos ram attacking Dark Elf keep?! They are both on the same side. This wouldn't happen.
That doesn't really matter though. A much more important issue you need to address is learning how to create proper materials. Any monkey can google pictures and run them through crazybump. Consider posting an individual asset you want to kick ass in it's own thread, and redo it with the feedback you get. We can train you up.
ya i figured out they were on the same side after i made the models, lol, next time ill do more research.
but ya for sure ill get working on some new stuff after i graduate and really get some great work done.
Dito with everybody else. Seriously though, uninstall crazy bump and Ninvidia filter, because that is killing your normal work mate. I would suggest you spend a few class periods in Don's class so you can learn the proper way to do SPC maps and NRM maps.
here's an awesome tut by talon;
http://www.hull-breach.com/Talon/temp/normalMapMiniTut.jpg