Need some help with my portfolio please :)

cello

Hi guys! Please wont you have a look at my Art station. I just want to know if you guys think there is something on there that is hurting my portfolio right now. possibly some of my old stuff? let me know and thank you for your time!

https://www.artstation.com/artist/cello8080

roguecode

Let's be real here - your stuff is obviously very good. If you're looking for issues though, I'd say it would just be lack of more content.

cello

im trying to add more content but its not easy with a full time job so trying my best XD honestly i was thinking maybe the kids room and the apocalyptic render should maybe be removed?? which is why im posting this, to see if people pick up on that too or if its just me, thank you for your feedback though @roguecode

critic

I can be an asshole if you need one, Beach Sand and Brick Wall somehow don't fit into the collection, the other images are full scenes while those two are a tiled texture, you can find those on Google image search. Also the hand in Foliage Study needs more tris and some texturing, the plants are excellent though. AK scene, town backdrop and the kids room are excellent, I would only put that type of art in the portfolio, if I was capable of doing art. The Arch is nice, but it's not a full scene, doesn't really fit in there.

/asshole off
The full scenes are excellent, keep it up.

Elyaradine

The beach sand and brick wall textures are fairly important in the portfolio because of its showing that they aren't some random images that can be grabbed off of some stock texture site. Their being made in Substance Designer implies that they're parametrized, and that they can be extended to fit various different environments, amounts of weathering, dirt and grime, etc. without significant reworking, and that, if your shaders supported Substance-like inputs, you could get all of these things being interactive for relatively few texture inputs. And that they come with more accurate accompanying maps than you'd get from generating them from a stock photo. It's kind of a big deal, imo.

The muddy ground isn't as successful as the others I think. The individual layers look good to me (not an environment artist though), but the blending between them looks very soft, and makes it look like grass just somehow become mud, instead of grass first growing between cracks or in otherwise more purposeful areas.

I think the apocalyptic scene is by far the weakest, mainly because the lighting seems very unfocused. There's no colour in the skybox, the light direction is ambiguous, and (as a result) it's very difficult to read what's going on, where the player's supposed to be going, or what any focal points are. I think it's got potential for keeping, but the lighting would have to be much better designed imo.

The thing I typically look for in environment work, aside from general art quality, is storytelling (not just what happened, but how the scene guides me around with visual cues, lighting, texture work/decals), the mood it's trying to create, and whether I can imagine people wanting to pay money to see this. And, for game work, whether they show any understanding of optimization (e.g. sharing materials, modular pieces, efficient use of geo, screencaps from a game engine, game engine materials, game engine lighting, packed textures).

The Resident Evil scene looks super awesome!

Great work dude!

Who/what sort of work are you trying to tailor your portfolio to?

cello

Thank you soooooo much @Elyaradine for taking time to give me an in depth answer!! So super cool of you. Yes to be honest the apocalyptic one is so amateur compared to my other unreal scenes, honestly at that point I had no idea what I was doing in the engine. So I think I will probably take it down. I'm happy having fewer art works that represent quality than just have stuff there for the sake of having stuff.

The resident evil one is obviously my latest work and shows my growth from that point which is why it looks so much better. Glad you like it! I think right now my work is missing organic shapes and forms but I'm currently learning more about it and planning to implement it into my work very soon.

My life goal is to be an environment artist for AAA studio so I won't stop until I get there, and even then there will always be so much to learn. What I'm incredibly passionate about is foliage. That's like my ultimate, which is also the reason why I haven't made a big scene focused on that because I feel I need to do it justice as it has a special place in my heart.

cello

@critic haha no I don't take it personally, I'm always open to what people are thinking and feeling. So the idea behind the hand being low poly and not textured is because It makes the plants stand out, they are the hero of that little scene of that makes sense, didn't want the hand to distract from that. And then the arch is to display low poly to high poly baking which a lot of companies look for :P but perhaps I should make a scene with that sort of vibe too! Thank you for the feedback, really appreciate it and value your criticism :)