Zenutron - Props / Environment artist

[Zenutron]

Hi evryone !

 

I'm in the process to refresh my portfolio and i would like to share my toughts about it to be sure i'm aiming in the right direction.

 

http://zenutron.daportfolio.com/

 

 

Here are the most critical points on my opinion :

 

- Most of the pics are works from school projects and doesnt age well.

- I should take off characters since i'm aiming at environment .

 

Some other things i have a doubt about it :

 

- Should i use something more professional than DA portfolio ?

 

And here are the things i would do to improve it :

 

- Having a category with level design / lighting works using SDK and pre existing assets.

- Having a category with modular assets proving the hability of creating environement efficiency.

- Having a category with general props , 2D works , proving polyvalence.

 

 

I would really appreciate any kind of feedback, at the moment i'm still struggling to know what kind of profile the game industry are looking for environment artists.

 

Thanks you in advance

 

[Corwin]

I'm puzzled by why you have a homepage that just shows an unclickable picture, then let me find my way to the gallery. I'd suggest making that the default page and killing the homepage altogether.

 

Basically, I'd advise the following:

Send visitors directly to your gallery, show pretty/amazing/well-thought things in there then make it easy for people you've just impressed to find your contact/resume information within a click of their current location on your website.

 

I'm also not a fan of the horizontal scrolling thumbnails you have there, because if nothing catches my eye in the first batch, chances are I won't bother clicking to see what's in the second.

Seeing how little pictures you have in there at the moment, I'd just stick all of them on the page right away and let people scroll through them all. I wouldn't categorize as you're saying, I'd do the opposite. Don't make me think, don't make me click, don't make me look for the cool stuff. Show it straight at my face the moment I step into your portfolio. This is especially true for artists.

 

If you're looking for an envionment art position, I'm afraid you've got way too few screenshots of environment art assets/scenes though, you should focus on increasing that, even if it means getting shots from different angles, or showing a scene + some of the assets isolated under it, etc.

 

EDIT: Also, about your last point, as far as I could see the important thing for env. artists is showing that you are familiar with the whole panel of tools/techniques that you may have to use on the job, and also that you can combine all that to create a few well-crafted scenes (and show your composition skill). So you show some texturing work, some Zbrush work, some high-poly asset, some low-poly/optimized asset, a beautiful scenery you've made entirely on your own, and that should be enough, provided the quality of those all put together is high enough. In art teams there'll be some guy that's the master of Zbrush, some guy that's the master of texturing, you're not expected to be the best at everything, but you have to show you know what you're doing.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Corwin