HELP ME WORK OUT THE COLOURS ON PAGE 2!!! THX!!

http://www.sa.bigteo.net/index.html

ight v2 is up only some of the content for the mermaid is in, still need to add the home back and next button at the bottom of the content page aswell. not all the bars on the home page are final.

domain name and email will be changing soon. seems like the .blahblah.com part changes everyday for creating a domain on the site i''m using so i'm just gunna pick a name up asap

images large enough?.
style still looking gd?
all the links and the email work? ( feel free to test it out)
should i add a view all button under the other button?
did i miss anything?
anything else?



also started working on a new hard surface character which shouldn't take me to long, will make a thread for that when i get more into it.

__________________________________________________ _____________________


http://www.line.clod5.com/index.html

^^^^ linky



ok i should say my main aim is to become a character artist but you may notice that my portfolio contains other stuff. this is because from what i've seen junior character roles just dont exist, not that i wont be apply for character jobs but think having other stuff should (?) help my cause when looking for junior art jobs

still needs bio, resume, contact page ( anyone know how to make a quick and easy 1 with html? shit is confusing!!), info popup button for each page ( explaining what the piece is, polycount etc etc), 2d section has a couple wips in there for now which i'll be finishing soon, will also probably get rid of a few pieces from that section.

cool stuff section was an idea to show other not relevant but relevant work such as mods, videos and other work such as design and animation.

does the design work??
how are the colours?? ( pastel like on my screen, win8 style. alil darker/brighter on my phone)
does everything so far function right?
should i add or remove something??
how does it load?
how does it look on larger monitors?? ( working on a laptop)

anyone know how to make a hmtl simple contact form which i can connect to my email address???
anyone know how to make a site views counter that i can hide on a page somewhere?
( site that its uploaded to is free has alot of space, but on the downside its overly complicated to use for the above things)

anything else just ask/let me know!

Not looking bad, but there is room for improvement. I would condense it down a tad. Navigation at the moment can be difficult (think simple). Nothing wrong with having more than just characters in the site if that's what you want, but if you're aiming to be a character artist make that the most evident thing on your site.

Simple, gets the job done.

Originally Posted by xxxcubanxxx

Not looking bad, but there is room for improvement. I would condense it down a tad. Navigation at the moment can be difficult (think simple). Nothing wrong with having more than just characters in the site if that's what you want, but if you're aiming to be a character artist make that the most evident thing on your site.

Simple, gets the job done.

thx!

if your were to condense it down in your opinion what would go?
which areas do you find the navigation difficult?
in you opinion what would be the best way of highlighing the character aspect more without just sticking 'CHARACTER ARTIST' in big letters or a big picture of a character? keeping in mind i will have it within the bio block.

looks like it was made like windows 8 >_>

I would use larger images, even for the preview/navigation images they are quite small right now. also the layout messes up fullscreen for me see: http://i.cubeupload.com/iLZwix.jpg

Honestly, the first thing I see when I open your page is the huge bars of color, your work is absolutely tiny, barely visible. You really want your stuff to stand out to potential employers, they shouldn't have to find it.

Your title is pretty massive too, and I can't for the life of me read the graffiti bit. Seems like wasted space almost.

The work itself looks fairly good, can't comment much on the character stuff, but the environments look ok, though maybe a bit dark.

Unfortunately we're all lazy by nature combine that with someone that has a lot of work to go through, most likely they don't have time to go through 20 hoops to see a picture of one charact

-Have the work like suggested above simple to access and in bigger pictures on the main screen.

-It can be condensed by removing some of the buttons and pages you have to just simple links or smaller icons

When recruiters and potential clients review portfolios they normally want to be slapped in the face with your work, go ahead and do exactly that.

Your work is good but i must say.... i hate the layout. When i clicked on the link i expected your best work to be BAMM right there...insted a load of coloured boxes. An employer will close down straight a way and move on if he is in a rush.

Remember to keep in mind you will get remembered from your worse work so delete all that random 'other stuff' photoshop stuff and focus on what you want to become as a 3d artist.

Originally Posted by Tokusei

looks like it was made like windows 8 >_>

I would use larger images, even for the preview/navigation images they are quite small right now. also the layout messes up fullscreen for me see: http://i.cubeupload.com/iLZwix.jpg

urgh... now that sucky!! anyone else having that problem??.. anyone know wtf is up with that??

yea the ones on the home page are tiny probably going to chg them for something more fancy. are the sub category ones for each piece to small?? might just be me working on a laptop that makes them seem ok.. dunno?.. what about the main images for each piece? tried to keep the size reasonable so the loading time wasn't crazy.

Originally Posted by mystichobo

Honestly, the first thing I see when I open your page is the huge bars of color, your work is absolutely tiny, barely visible. You really want your stuff to stand out to potential employers, they shouldn't have to find it.

Your title is pretty massive too, and I can't for the life of me read the graffiti bit. Seems like wasted space almost.

The work itself looks fairly good, can't comment much on the character stuff, but the environments look ok, though maybe a bit dark.

yea you and tokusei got me thinking about the coloured bars and the tiny images. thinking get rid of the small images, and chg them into gif's. start with the colour to keep the theme, then fade to a image thats scrolling etc etc. what you guys think of that idea? maybe look alil crazy with the 3 different bars??

maybe chg the graffiti to something like above and just leave the bars?

Originally Posted by xxxcubanxxx

Unfortunately we're all lazy by nature combine that with someone that has a lot of work to go through, most likely they don't have time to go through 20 hoops to see a picture of one charact

-Have the work like suggested above simple to access and in bigger pictures on the main screen.

-It can be condensed by removing some of the buttons and pages you have to just simple links or smaller icons

When recruiters and potential clients review portfolios they normally want to be slapped in the face with your work, go ahead and do exactly that.

is 2 clicks to much???

not really wanting to just crame everything onto the first page... hmmmmmmm

Originally Posted by bcottage

Your work is good but i must say.... i hate the layout. When i clicked on the link i expected your best work to be BAMM right there...insted a load of coloured boxes. An employer will close down straight a way and move on if he is in a rush.

Remember to keep in mind you will get remembered from your worse work so delete all that random 'other stuff' photoshop stuff and focus on what you want to become as a 3d artist.

do you like the idea above of the animated images in the boxes?

u really think that the cool stuff section is really not needed?.. remember i'll b applying for mainly junior art jobs, thought it might show that little bit extra

This image is way too dark:
http://www.line.clod5.com/mech_envir_Castle_01.jpg

Originally Posted by dpadam450

This image is way too dark:
http://www.line.clod5.com/mech_envir_Castle_01.jpg

thx will put that on my growing to do list!

i'll just reiterate what the other guys said, make it simpler to navigate.
currently there are too many small images to click, and after I click one image, I need to click another image to see your works.

make it simple and bigger pictures on the index page

all you would need is 1 page, neutral background, your best stuff & contact info on top, and the rest underneath that in an appropriate image size...

even one click to get to the actual art is 1 too many...

Design-wise:

I really hate the Metro look of the site (I don't know anyone who likes the Metro stylings of Win8 so replicating that is only going to turn folk off instantly). Too many colours and shapes make navigation difficult - there's no obvious hierarchy or focus to the site.

Bio button and header are waaay too big and the thumbnails of the images are too small - it's a deterrent to browsing further if folk don't know what they're clicking on.

Also, 2 clicks to get into a piece of work - that's a lot of clicking just to see what someone came to the site to look at. Everything on your site excluding your characters is unimportant - folk will go look at your bio or CV if they like your work, which means they're there to look at your work first and foremost - so give it to them as quickly an easily as possible.

Same goes for the mystery meat navigation when in a sub-page - the icons aren't clear enough.

Site layout breaks on my large monitor, too: http://i.imgur.com/MViOf.jpg

"Cool Stuff" doesn't really belong on your folio site, I'd remove it all.

No texture flats or polycounts for anything? Seems a bit stingy.


Work-wise:

A lot of your environment textures seem really noisy and highly contrasted, this makes the end result seem focus-less and mostly just images of noise.

I'd perhaps not show your 2D work as it's sort of sketchy at best. If it's a concept for a character you made, throw it in with the character's page.

And site appears to have gone down so I can't comment any more :P

why do you guys hate me so much!?!?!?!? :poly 122:

lol

site seems ok for me, didn't take it down..........

think i've focused to much on the design and creating a full web site rather than a quick in your face portfolio like most of you have said.

guess its harder for me to pick up most of the problems you guys are having with the navigation since i made it lol

so what i'm thinking is for the first page just 8 bars ( characters, bike and props) button to the bio/resume/contact and maybe the social stuff ( twitter vimeo etc)

are the images for each piece large enough? they where rendered at that size to save alil time since they took awhile. and to keep the load times down

was planning on polycount and texture sheets to, so they'll be in there

if you guys could post some examples of what you think is a amazing portfolio design wise that would be a huge help.

and thx for the feedback so far guys and the huge amount of extra work haha.. aslong as the final site comes out as good as it can i'm down to put the work in... keep the feedback coming i'll be updating/ remaking it as we go

Here are some that are simple and to the point, you don't have to mimic them exactly, but it gives you an idea.

http://www.timbergholz.com/
http://www.andreiszasz.com/
http://www.stevecoyle.com/

Some I like:
http://www.patricksutton3d.com/
http://www.torfrick.com/
http://www.mayvin.be/

and my own:
http://www.mystichobo.com/

I'd perhaps avoid "bars" with a click to get into the subcategories.

I'd go straight to the character page as your index page (as this is your focus) and let folk browse over to your 2D/env stuff if they feel like it. Really, I'd recommend doing this very strongly.

I spent a fair bit of time designing and changing my own folio over the years - used to be a web designer so it's a bad habit these days - designed so it's straight to the pieces then within those there's all the info and a link to the next piece (so that a user can go from one to the next without having to "back out" to the portfolio overview). Google Analytics suggests this does work fairly well, most folk will go and click through a few pieces in a row without returning to the overview. Content's outdated and crap these days but I was happy with the design of it.

The site was kind of confusing for me to navigate. Don't get me wrong, it's all logical and makes sense, but because I had never seen it before I had to quickly educate myself on how to navigate your specific website. Fortunately your navigation bars are labeled, but when I just have icons instead of text I don't know what the symbols translate into because I've never seen the symbols before. Also, hovering the mouse over them doesn't tell me what the symbols translate to.

Overall, I think the nevigation is very risky. When employers are sifting through hundreds of portfolios and websites daily, and they come to yours, are they going to be excited or annoyed that you strayed from the typical navigation? I fear they would "next" it.

Cut the filler, I think your environment art is the only part worth keeping, get rid of drawings and character art. Bigger pictures, cleaner and lighter pictures. Get rid of the design parts of the website, you want your images to speak for themselves.

Originally Posted by SA_22

so what i'm thinking is for the first page just 8 bars ( characters, bike and props) button to the bio/resume/contact and maybe the social stuff ( twitter vimeo etc)

seems like a good idea for the amount of content you have. keep in mind what people have said about showing your unwraps and wires for realtime assets. maybe 3 links from the front page (env/char/2d) which have your work there so the user can just scroll through your content without clicking a metric fuckton of buttons. I've seen some folios where they have a "click here for all images" button so employers can just scroll through your entire folio on one page but it seems a bit overkill to me.

few links that you might get some inspiration from:
http://www.artemstudios.com/2010/gallery.htm
http://www.vivienmg.com/
http://littlelostpoly.co.uk/

Originally Posted by ZacD

Cut the filler, I think your environment art is the only part worth keeping, get rid of drawings and character art. Bigger pictures, cleaner and lighter pictures. Get rid of the design parts of the website, you want your images to speak for themselves.

Harsh as it is, I agree with this fully.

The drawings are absolutely the weakest part, followed closely by the characters.

The 2D stuff in general seems sloppy and rushed, and the anatomy, proportions, and perspective in basically every single drawing are either incorrect, unappealing, or some combination thereof.

The 3D characters suffer the same problems as the 2D, and add several other problems besides: The polygon distribution is wildly inconsistent, the poses are strange, and the materials are reading as something along the lines of paper.



If you want to be a character artist, then keep practicing and don't give up. I know it can be discouraging to hear harsh crits, but if you can get past the initial punch in the gut, you'll be a stronger artist for it.

You should absolutely keep drawing and modeling. If possible, take figure drawing classes. Try focusing more on form and gesture than detail for a while and you'll find that your more detailed work will get stronger. Try to use long strokes and use your whole arm, or even your whole body, when you make a line. You'll feel wildly out of control for a while, but it'll be worth the initial period of adjustment.

In Chrome, I don't get a url at the bottom telling me where I'll be clicking in to, and that's annoying.

The current design is too busy, Icons on the left, Letters and preview pics on the right, colors drag up and down. The eye shouldn't need to scan the site that much to get to the reason the site exists. You sound like you want to keep the motif, but I'd really suggest keeping it as simple as possible. Clicking into an environment thumbnail brings up a new page of the same thumbnails?

anyone know how to make a site views counter that i can hide on a page somewhere?

I think Google Analytics has a feature for this.

thx for the links guys and the feedback!!!

@talon: yeah a next button seems like a useful thing to have in there!

@throttlekitty: thx i'll check it out

@zacd & swizzle: ass kicked lol... i do get were you guys are coming from 2d aint one of my best skills, and i'll probably keep most of that out bar maybe 1 or 2 concepts. i know the character work isn't great but you guys really think its better than the environment stuff?.. alot of that was alil rushed for a so called 20 person team project with 4 or 5 of us doing work. i know the characters could use more work and have a few problems but thats mainly down to not having a huge amount of time and a clear head to work on them over the past year or 2. i would go back and fix them, but i'd rather just keep going and make something new. if i have time before i send this out i'll add the new pieces, and i know i'd be better off having a piece i've spent enough time on but i would say i have around a month until i need to get this out.

if i have time to re render stuff again i'll take a look at the poses, lighting and materials

dont worry about the harshness lol i can take it. aslong as its helpful!

and thx for the advice swizzle

quick photoshop job of version 2 vvv



http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8286/7...4220b0f7_b.jpg

thoughts??