[Portfolio] - Brad Myers, 3d Artist

[BradMyers82]

Hey guys!

I'm currently working as a freelance artist, but I still would like to get a job in-house at a studio somewhere.
Specifically, I'm looking for a job as a 3d artist generalist, so that I can apply to a wider array of jobs.

One thing I have been considering is changing the format of my website to a single page full of images, which many people seem to like. I'm actually thinking that my index page could be in the single page setup, and I could call this "Quick view", but also leave an option for my website as it is now and call it "Gallery View". This way, the viewer can choose how the art is organized and viewed, but by default they would get the all one long page setup.

So I'm interested in what you guys think of my idea.
I would also like crits on everything and anything that has to do with my portfolio, the art, the layout, everything.
Feel free to crit is harshly as you like, I have a thick skin.
Brad Myers: Art Portfolio_Home

[Zeph]

Site's good as it is right now. It and your work show you know what you're talking about in a no-nonsense manner. Only thing I can think to change would be your label of "old art". There's a lot of negative connotation with the word old in games. It might be old, but there are many places that use that exact type/quality of work in handheld games right now. I'd change it to "prior work" or something. Go look for studio. The only thing keeping you out would be a studio having a specific art style they're looking for in hires.

[BradMyers82]

Zeph: I took your advice about the "Prior work" idea. I think you are right, that does sound better.
I pretty much implemented all the stuff I wanted to now in the site, Hopefully its better now.
Thanks for the kind words!

[Zeph]

>_>
People seem to know who I am here irl based off my forum name and brought up this thread in conversation. Hi stalkers o/. We were talking about your horse, btw, because a member on my team just made a base mesh of one for practice a couple of weeks ago.

Anyways, I took another look at your site on a different computer not realizing you had the option of switching between a gallery mode or "quick view". By default everything showed up in quick view and I didn't really understand what I was looking at (multitasking and it's past midnight). I would suggest defaulting the site to show up in gallery mode to avoid a person becoming confused as to why they're looking at a large picture of a bust (in my case) instead of a person's portfolio. Also, the images you click to switch between the two need better indication of which one is currently 'active'. I would suggest moving away from "cliche" buttons and follow your pattern of links being text. Try using color for this. Something as simple as a high value green<->crystal/cyan triangle underneath the active text link would do wonders. If a HR is having a bad day and winds up confused, you might not get much farther than them looking at the first image.

In the end it's up to you, but I feel that your site is stronger without the latest work category. Drop Freeman back down to high poly and the wrench back to games. Your work is and should all of consistent quality, so I don't see it as important to know the last things you did. It seems a bit redundant to have two indicators of when you completed the work. If you're still worried, just call it low poly (yes the bandit is low poly).

[BradMyers82]

Zeph: Thanks again so much for the great feedback!
I was actually afraid that I wasn't clear enough with the whole Quick view and Gallery view mode, and your experience confirmed that.
Now I have talked with several HR type people, and they have said that they prefer the absolute fastest method to see a portfolio to see if it's worth their time. That is why I am sticking with the Quick View as the default, because it can't be faster than that, all you have to do is scroll (or if you're smart, center click and pan down).
Anyways, the gallery view is good if you want to quickly locate specific pieces and get all the details and stuff. Also, my "prior art" is located in the gallery view and not the quick view.
I do think that the top two pieces are a lot stronger than many of the others, which is why I choose to have them stand out more in the gallery view. It is definitely redundant if you think they are all of equal quality, but I don't believe this to be true, and another person pointed this out to me. So I was told to make these new pieces stand out more which is why I made that change.

So... to fix the issue of not seeing gallery view, I just wrote in some text that quickly explains that you are defaulting in quick view and you can always switch to gallery view if you want. I also made a note to scroll down to see ALL my work. In case that was not clear. I'm still not sure if this is ideal yet, but I do think its better, and hopefully it will clear up any confusion if someone is not familiar with the all-on-one page setup.

Oh, and I played around with different colors on the buttons, I know you said you don't like them, but I just wanted it to feel more like a interface than a link. Anyways, using other colors made it look awful imo so I am simply just using the text to catch attention for now. I did a little rollover too, but that's pretty minor.

Anyways, thanks again for the crits. I would be interested in hearing what you think, and if you believe that this will clear up any confusion as is.