Demoreel feedback

Hey @ItzOmega,

Your demo reel is great, but honestly I don't think demo reels even matter for artists anymore. They're important for content that needs movement by nature (animation, fx, audio...) but not for art. ?

In all the companies I worked for, art leads would literally just browse ArtStation, find artists they like based solely on their stills, and make decisions based on that. They often completely ignore demo reels, because they have dozens of portfolios to skim through and they really don't have all day. It's a very fast process. That's why quality images beat videos when it comes to artist portfolios.

(btw I'm not an artist myself so I don't know these things for a fact, but I heard this soooo many times that it's just burned in my mind at this point...)

For your portfolio, if I can make a quick criticism I'd say that it's not focused enough in terms of role. What are you applying for? Are you an environment artist? character artists? props? weapons? Those are all different jobs in most cases, and I strongly suggest molding yourself towards a specific role, focusing only on that, and dropping everything else. Putting your time and energy into a single aspect will make you MUCH better at it, and the quality of your work will soon follow...

It's daunting sometimes to take some projects off your portfolio, but think for the greater good!

Also there's a few GDC talks about artist portfolio you should look at if you didn't already:

Good luck man, Keep us posted!!

Hey Pau,

I agree with Mike that there seems to be a little bit of confusion between your stated role (Environment/Props) and your reel and portfolio. Why is there a character head if you're doing props and environments? If you do not need movement to show the nature of your work then stick with still shots. Recruiters and managers do not have time to watch unless they are specifically looking at motion (animation/vfx). They're literally going to do a "has chair, has table, good material definition, has talent" type of check. So I would start there. The second thing I would mention, and you have gotten much better, is to really spend some time on environments and/or props. Give them a lot of character. Go back in and really define a prop's story or the environment. Environmental storytelling is key and it takes a lot to get right. Look at some of the twitter threads by Ryan Benno (Insomniac Games) as he covers this in detail and really pushes for it, particularly with juniors. Right now, I see basics in your full environments, but not storytelling. Same with the props. Go back in and really refine where the rust shows on that airship and how large it is, etc. On this note as well, remove your weakest works from your portfolio. The bomb, futuristic pistol, and ShogunX (not the photogrammetry one, although remove the character face). My last note, remove the "(training)" from everything. You are a Environment Artist. Period. I hope that helps.

I like the video actually, but yeah, when I saw demo reel I just assumed you're a animator right off the bat. You can still use videos to present your environment work of course, but I would probably categorize it on a portfolio somewhere instead, like: "here's my latest level with 5 screenshots and a flythrough video with some gameplay" and have a page like that for each one of your levels, it's just the right amount of organization that's easy for recruiters and leads to glace at.

As for your work, I see some some really good texture work, some good modeling work but your lighting and presentation leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of the color maps from your materials seem to either be too dark or too bright, and it's making the lighting very contrasty. (See the western environment, that wood contrasting agaisn't the bright sand texture makes for a very unappealing and contrasty read) Another thing I've noticed is the lighting, it seems way too rushed and most of it shows me you don't know the fundamentals of lighting and color theory, I would recommend you read a little bit on both these topics next, this knowledge will bump you up to the next level. Good lighting can make a grey cube look amazing, but bad lighting can make the most amazing art pieces look abhorrent. Some cool links: