[Portfolio] Joshua Lennen
polycounter lvl 15
http://www.dark-winter-studios.com
New to the community here. Been on CGS for quite some time, but looking for a better home of critique and hoping I can find it here! I have been trying to get into the industry for quite some time with no avail. Let me know what you think of the work on the site as well as the site itself. There's quite a bit of material on the website, so take some time to look around! Shoot, bookmark it and come back to it later! Thanks in advance for any feedback or advice!
Josh
New to the community here. Been on CGS for quite some time, but looking for a better home of critique and hoping I can find it here! I have been trying to get into the industry for quite some time with no avail. Let me know what you think of the work on the site as well as the site itself. There's quite a bit of material on the website, so take some time to look around! Shoot, bookmark it and come back to it later! Thanks in advance for any feedback or advice!
Josh
Replies
Your characters are good though. Do you really need that black line over the body of that one old chick? If you don't want to show it, then why did you even model that character if your not proud of what you did?
whats_true: yeah, it just isn't that good. fixing this puzzle game right now. HAHA! No, it isn't that. I had put that image up on CGS and you never know who you are going to offend.
P.S. you may need to do a full refresh on the site if you've been there already.
Also noticed there's no overt home button to get back to the main page, found it by accident when I moused over your logo.
Suprised no one has pointed out the classic "Your Portfolio Repels Jobs" article over in the archives, it's a good read. Good luck.
But even if it was every other letter, it still doesnt make any sense
I hate how half the menus disappear after you click one half, and all the links on the left are under construction which also annoys me. Theres also TWO contact and bio buttons on the same page, I guess its to make up for the fact that one half disappears when you click on a button - still looks crappy.
Why does the action hero link take me to zbrushcentral? Isnt the whole point of your portfolio to show your work on your site? Not to mention that in the thread you have to scroll down a massive log of text just to see your initial concept, and then click on page 4 to actually see the work (which is still WIP).
This one is personal but I dont like that font. Looks like Times New Roman and that font just looks boring and old.
I do like the way you presented the 3d gallery main page with the 3 big thumbnails. This page is great and should be the first thing I see when I come to your site instead of that huge logo. What I'd do is put ALL the buttons on the right or left menu and then make this 3d page the default. Also combine the empty paintings and drawings pages into the 2d gallery. Same goes for Animation/Video/Reel.... So many useless buttons
There should also be contact information, at least an email or your name on all your pieces of work.
There is a little background here as to why everything sucked until you guys and gals put in your two cents.
The site was originally set up for an art show I did in October of '08. I did three animations that were based off of fourteen paintings that were in the show and made by my friend. The intention was to promote the site to feed the public and get them to come to the gallery openings of which there were two. Well we did get A LOT of people at each show, so it worked from that aspect.
My friend and I wanted to continue using the site to host our work. Well that's a wretched idea if I am trying to have my stuff on the site in hopes of employment. Mixed signals galore! "Who's this other guy?"
There was the issue of navigation which is an obvious reoccuring theme here right now. He wanted it to be very ambiguous and no menus at all. I wanted it to be straight forward. At that time, I wanted there to be some give and take between both of us... so I used menus with ambiguity. Still not a good idea when you're putting this on your resume. Like some of you have said, "Where is everything? Where do I click to see that again? Ah, screw it!".
So I made a bunch of changes tonight. Hopefully it is a little better.
Em. : Kinda wish I would have taken website 101 and read that article ages ago. You are so right about the menus and everything being IN YO FACE! It certainly does take away from the work. I left the home button as is, and with all the links being visible at any time, I don't think there will be too much of an issue of a home button for now. It is a valid point, and everyone should have one there. It is a commonly used feature that everyone looks for, so in that regard, I'll have to come up with some thing to make it work more to my advantage than a quiet little logo in the corner.
Yozora : You may be the sole reason I stick with Polycount. Thanks for the wicked honest crit. Appreciative doesn't come close.
- Brain computation solved. That was a quick little fix I did when I got home from work, and now all the letters are the same color.
- No more split menus. This goes back to sharing the site. If you clicked on my side, it would show only my work. If you clicked on my friend's side, it would show only his work. Now that I eliminated his side (which was all under construction anyway from a lack of material), all my stuff should just center up on the screen. Hopefully this is not as crappy, because you're right, it didn't make sense, and if it doesn't make sense, it IS crap. I also made all the headings on the page my name and title. I think this makes a little more sense.
- Action Hero link is gone. I just put that slop in my signature here. When I finish it, it will be on the site. Until then, no unfinished product will be on the site or even mentioned unless I am contacted. Thanks for the kick in the nutz on that one btw. JK.
- Yeah, that font was a result of the site collaboration. Wasn't my choice either. I'll have to change it soon, but for now, it will unfortunately have to stay. Boring and old is right. I prefer fresh and clean, but I gotta finish this action hero contest before I spend more time on the site.
- The 3D gallery page is now the home page. I liked your suggestion very much so I went with it. Not quite sure what you mean about combining stuff together though. What I would like to do is take this to a thumbnail level on everything so it is one central page and split into rows for different categories (3D, 2D, Animation, Turntable, etc.). Each thumbnail will just bring up its own little flash gallery for details on each one. That way you can easily close it and still stay central on the main page that just has everything in front of you.
- I'll have to get to including the contact info on the images at a later date, but an excellent suggestion that I most certainly will follow through with.
I didnt know your story so I assumed all those buttons belong and when I said combine the pages I meant instead of having 3 buttons for painting, drawings and 2d gallery - just put it all in the 2d gallery. And do the same thing for animations, video and reel.
But the site is looking much better now I think and navigation makes sense. The number of buttons are now in a logical pattern so its probably best you kept the animation and reel buttons instead of combining them.
I only just realized theres a "next" button for the 3d gallery. I do understand why you separated the thumbs into 2 pages but I did miss it the first time round so maybe you can do something to make it jump out more. Of course now that I know its there it jumps out every time I click 3d gallery but some people may miss it at first glance as well.
For example on the animations page your focus is on the new centered area and you can easily notice the "vessels of parasomnia - turntables" buttons so maybe you can put next/prev page buttons down there instead.
Is there any significance to those numbers in between your name on the side? Your name is on the top already and its easier to read up there than on the side so I dont think you really need it there, but if you like the look then I guess it could stay - its not that big of a deal.
btw, there still is a hidden link where "Action Hero" used to be and it still takes me to zbrushcentral!
Your 2d work should probably come down I think. Needs more love. A recruiter would probably wonder if you're serious because it looks like you could have done all of those in a single afternoon. Sorry, but you can't kid yourself.
I might be getting a bit picky here, but the third person bio can come off as being a bit pretentious - I'd consider replacing it with a resume. If you're keen on keeping it then I'd make it easier to read by opening up the linespacing or making the line lengths shorter. Hope this helps and I hope I don't come off as a douchebag
Oh, and I'd keep all the thumbnails on a single page.
What kind of position are you hoping to get with this site? It says you're a character artist, but those animations are pretty cool, are you interested in that as well? You've only got three characters up, and only one of them looks like something appropriate for a game, and that's the one you don't have a wireframe or texture sheet for.
not a big fan of the red tint to everything until mouseover. before i moved my cursor around i thought that was what the actual art looked like.
1) 3 huge thumbs per page with a next button at the bottom right? What happens if you have nine pieces? I'd have to click three times to see just 9 pieces! I believe that websites should be designed in such a way as to reduce clicking to the bare minimum, meaning that you should present your gallery in the most accessible way possible. All thumbs: all on one page.
2) The menu on the right side just doesn't do it for me, not to mention that it's not a low-resolution friendly design. Not gonna fault you if your site doesn't work on 640x480, but at least make it all fit in 1024x768 without popping up the horizontal scroll bar.
3) The type is extremely basic. You don't need to go all out and photoshop up some effects, but I find that font far more reminiscent of crappy 1000 page long highschool papers than art of any kind, plus the mix of upper and lowercase in the menu clashes.
4) On the other hand you do need to photoshop that arrow into something nicer. Come on.
5) Can't say I'm a fan of the colors. Rather attention grabbing, when all that needs to be attention grabbing is the art. But this one's down to personal taste I guess.
6) Referring to yourself in the third person in the bio is for authors, companies, big time pros, and royalty. For the rest of us? "I am _______, I did __________, I want __________, hire me please I'll suck your _________." Plus is sounds like self-aggrandizement.
The animation is really cool though. Nice job.
Yozora: I have heard really good things about polycount, so I am officially staying. There is no significange to the numbers, and the font should be changed, but I can't right now. Color palette as well. Once the comp for action hero is over, I will totally re-lay it out and get it where I want it.
killingpeople: Thanks man.
monkeyboy_garth: Thanks for the nice comment! I agree with you on the 2D stuff. I'm leaving it up for now because I think although it is not fully complete and at the standard I want it at, it does show that I have drawing abilities. I know there are some great modelers out there that can't draw to save there lives, so I feel it is a good asset to show on the site. That ability to communicate visually in a 2D format can be very important. That whole auto-gay-ography is gone. Think it may be better now. Let me know your thoughts.
Sectaurs: Thanks to you as well! I'm really glad everyone is enjoying the animations! I had fewer comments about those over at CGS, and those that did comment were mostly artists I already knew. At this point, I will do anything and everything to get into the industry. If I have to take an animation job, I would in a heartbeat. If it got me in the door, I would do it. I put all the work in thumbnails on their category pages, so you will see all the work easier now.
dfacto: 1) Think this issue is resolved now for both 3D gallery and Animations.
2) So I tried changed the resolution of the table in HTML and it didn't do anything. What should I do? You make an excellent point. You can hold down CTRL and scroll your mouse wheel to zoom in and out if it doesn't fit just right, but I would like to avoid the viewer from having to do that.
3)Yeah, I can't afford the time to change this right now. I HAVE to finish this action hero challenge and then the text and colour layout will all be changed around. I know it sound kind of gay to put the contest before the site, but I entered the challenge, and I've never backed out of one I entered.
4)This will change when I can find the time. Do you have any suggestions that would work with the current layout?
5) Same thing as before.
6) HAHAHAHAHAHA. You are so right, and that has been handled. Let me know if I still sound like a total douche or not. I think it is a little better and is somewhat closer to a CV feel.
Thanks to everyone for their help and suggestions!
Good job.
killingpeople: fixed it. thought i caught all those. thanks for spotting that and letting me know!:)
If you do want a job with video games I think it is a necessity to have polygon counts and texture resolution sizes on your characters. Also, I think you should consider placing software used on each character and possibly even go as far as time to complete.
If your serious about getting a job as a character artist I think its most important that you now start making everyday characters (regular ol' humans). The aliens are cool don't get me wrong, but you seem to have a very specific style atm, and I think employers will be hesitant to hire you thinking that its the only type of characters you can produce. If you can make a realistic human, game ready with all the stats, think about how much more practical that would be to various studios.
Anyways, just seeing your site now for the first time, it seems good to me. I really don't have any problems with navigation and its pretty straight forward which I like. The only little nitpick I can come up with is that your menu jumps down a little when I click on one of your characters. Like its not aligned the same when you go into your 3d gallery. Anyways, good luck and nice work! I hope to see more from you.
I TOTALLY agree with you on making everyday characters. I'm in the process of one right now that I'll take into XNormal at a later date. Not a real everyday character, but is more towards the realistic/stylized human side instead of ka-razy aliens. I think all those points you made (polycount, tex res, software) are really good suggestions and I will implement them later. Right now I have two game ready characters on the site. The others are all medium res with normal maps because my dinky laptop can't handle super high res and doesn't like doing displacement.
But to finish responding in reverse order, yes, I do want a job in video games! You kidding!?! I live in NC man! Epic, Insomniac :poly128:, Vicious Cycle, Destineer. *sigh* if only.
As for the art, solid stuff, but yeah if it's focussed on games, show more normalmapped characters, show you know steps a to Z. And ofcourse, like Brad says, more everyday stuff is always good to have.
I think your modelling is solid stuff, can't say the same for all your texturing tho'. But, that's more personal I think, just too bright and satured when it comes to colors. (would be rufus, kolt and gredarian)
Totally in love with dante's muse, can I ask, is it inspired by TOOL? Very toolish vibe to it.
Anyway umm, good stuffs and welcome to the jolly green giant
Glad you're in love with Dante's Muse! This was one of the pieces I did for an art show in October of '08. It was displayed on a 32" LCD that was rotated on its side and mounted inside a custom wood cabinet. It played on a loop DVD. The one downside was that it was all rendered in highdef, but I couldn't burn a disc in BR or HD format. I thought it still came out alright though.
I am very glad to be a part of this forum now! Much better vibe here.:poly142:
some really nice sculptings in there but some variety in style would be really nice to see. Some realistic chars and even other genres would rock (plus i'm guessing employers would be be into it).
Feels a bit clustered too, maybe adding some more open space to the page layout itself would make it easier on the eyes (make the icons and things smaller). And more game art spec stuff is always good.
Also there were a few pages where i really prefered the screengrabs of the sculpts over the renders. Lookin way to dark (ambient light is good). Could just be personal preference, dunno :P
-Woog
woogity: well that sucks! let me know which pages you had trouble with and i'll troubleshoot the issue. i hear ya on the turntable being fast. i'll re-render that and slow it down a bunch.
Changes made:
*Additional work has been added*
1) Complete revised layout/color scheme/design
2) New gallery viewing system (javascript, not flash); you can still click, view image, save, print
3) All work has contact info on it
4) Bio/Resum
Took me several viewings to realize there were additional images for each thumbnail.
none of the animations load for me in Firefox
I'm using firefox as well, and I don't have any visible controls for the animation. It is just a black bar under the animation that does function - however, there is not buttons. after a few moments, click on the bottom left and it should play - Firebert might wanna look into this.
Thanks for the feedback guys!
Couple of questions.
In Firefox, which version are you guys using? I'm on 3.0.6 and it works fine. I had to stop using the last version and rely on IE because there were so many bugs with it (version 3.0.5). I did try it on a different machine at a friend's house in IE and it works okay, so let me know on the version of Firefox. I'll try it on a couple of machines tomorrow that have Firefox and see if they work or not.
Also, is it just the Flash videos that are having issues, quicktime videos, or both?
Thanks for your help on addressing these bugs!
How does the layout work? Friendly, not friendly (aside from the obvious video issues at this point).
tried in IE as well same thing.
maybe its something to do with quicktime?
so i take it the flash videos are okay then? make sure you have the latest version of quicktime if it is the quicktime videos giving issues. I actually had to update it to play my own videos on-line for some reason. weird. i had a guy i know in atlanta, ga check out the site and he said everything worked a-ok. let me know man and thanks for the help!
If I look at a portfolio, i generally pick a few pieces out that catch my eye first. I had assumed the next arrows would next me through the gallery from the beginning andm issed a lot of art. That's not good!
All things considered, the content itself looks pretty good. Some of the animation stuff has pretty noisy textural shapes.
Anyway, that's all. =O
So which would you think is better to resolve this... which I agree, IS SERIOUS!
1) Display all the work on the page that is in each gallery and divide each one into its own row
2) Auto-play each gallery
3) Increase the size of the arrows at the bottom of the images so they are more visible
My concern with doing number option one is that it would be almost too overwhelming and also increase load time of the page
doing the second option is eh, kinda not a good thing because i would have
to make the delay for each image relatively short considering the most people will average 1-2 split seconds and that would be an extremely fast delay
the third option may be the best as the icons are fairly small
thoughts?????
very true.
i tried converting all my videos to flash, but it seems that the one's that are currently quicktime turn very, very dark after the encoding process. until i can get a good encoder they'll have to stay quicktime for now.
stoofoo: let me know if you think this makes it a little better. i modified the javascript options so a few things happen:
- you can not close the images by clicking outside of them. you have to use the close button at the bottom right corner of the image. this should force the viewer to notice the navigation bar.
- each image now has a 5 second delay. so the images will start moving and show the viewer there is more work to look at. this also provides additional buttons on the navigation bar, which makes it a little more prominent than before.
i tried making the buttons larger, but it just looked silly.
let me know if this most recent change to gallery navigation helps or not.
thanks again to everyone. i am a rather new member to the forum obviously, but i am so glad i have switched over to here. the sense of community is probably the best i've seen. i'm an avid polycount supporter! :poly135:
Is the light box setup necessary? Could you just have a page per character? Click a link see a scrolling set of images? I think that's what I did last time I made a portfolio. One thumbnail, then all the arts?
Even though I see that nav bar, I still would assume it's for the gallery as a whole.
You can think of me as the worlds laziest potential employer, or think of me as the guy who has to look at 50 of these links a day. Either way, simplicity is key. Hit me in the face with your art, dont make me spelunk. =O
I shortened the delay between images. I re-enabled the user to click off the image to close. Each gallery is all inclusive within itself (i.e. 3D is all the renders/models, 2D is all the drawings and such). Hopefully the shortened delay will tap your cheek at least.
Is the lightbox necessary? Well to be honest man, I dunno. I've heard/read mixed reviews on which is best (straight up jpeg -vs- gallery viewer). It is always "six in one hand, half-dozen in the other". But what's the difference? And I am seriously not taking this personally, and I am not trying to be an ass, I just want to get it right. If it is all in your face it will take forever to load. Longer load time for an entire page is instant write off. If you have a bunch of thumnails that link to a full resolution, you'll still end up clicking like a mouse on crack to view anything, just like you would in a gallery viewer. So I'm kinda stumped. :poly105:
I'm more than open to suggestions.
What if I add some text beside each gallery title/header along the lines of "click thumbnail to view additional project images and full gallery" or something like that. *shrug*
just make it simple , thumbnails, or each one loaded in the same page, and incase the clients are in 56k , nowadays it takes seconds to download all those images.
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhit.
Thanks Blenderhead.
I'd still like to make changes, but I can get to those later.