Hey polycounters!
This is my first post here, though I've been lurking for a few months. I've read through a bunch of portfolio critque threads and taken a lot of good advice from them, as well as from all the great art in this place in general.

Im just utterly impressed with all the work here and how helpful everyone is, so I figured it was about time I submitted my own work to the lashings of your well trained eyes.

www.matthaspictures.com <-- That's my work in progress protfolio.

I'm a graduating English student looking for a carrer in game design/art and this is my first serious attempt at a portfolio. There isnt an overwhelming ammount of stuff on there yet, but I'm working on it.

Anyway, any help or critques would be wildly appreciated. thanks!

oh! I ought to mention, the site has critical problems in firefox and safari. I think it has to do with the z-index's of the tabs. IE runs it fine though.

i can't click on anything

there are no links

using firefox 3 if that matters.

If the site doesn't really work in firefox then you've got a problem... a lot of developers i know use firefox as their primary browser (whether that's a good idea or not is a different discussion, but the fact remains) - so I'd really look at making your site more compatible with all main browsers.

To be honest right now the whole site needs an overhaul anyway. It's too complex and you've over-engineered everything. A basic HTML with a simple, clean layout and nice colours which works in all browsers is much, much better than some complex flash/javascript/whatever random flavour-of-the-month website which doesn't work on many platforms. Plus it's just slow right now.

Really, and this is speaking as someone who does look at applicant portfolios at a game development studio, I'd probably close your site after clicking on just one or two of the images. The quality of art that I am seeing is really not worth the time and effort it takes me to click through to it.

I am not trying to be hyper-critical, I'm just trying to be realistic if your aim is to land a job. Redesign the site. Check out the "my portfolio repels jobs!" thread in the Archives section here on polycount, you should learn a lot and put it to good use.

I didnt realize it was that bad.
I suppose the firefox issue is a huge problem that I have to fix. without delay. I read that thread about portfolios repelling jobs, but I guess I missed a few points. I'll re-read it and make some changes.

Is it really slow though? I tried to build it to be faster than a flash site, which I always find cumbersome... to hear that its slow anyway is a depressing notion.

as for the art, what can I say? I suppose the best thing to say is that I'm working on getting better. hopefuly hanging around polycount will help.

anyway, thanks for the crits MoP. I'll start fixing things
if anyone else feels compelled to say something, even if its just rehashing what MoP said please, have at!

Cosigning everything mop said. Completely. I don't know many(if any?) people I work with that actually use internet explorer even. I use opera, and most of my coworkers use firefox. I'm pretty sure IT even sets it as default for any new machines. Haha.

The art is nothing to write home about and theres not much of it. I did click through everything, though. You'll do well to stick around polycount and post some art while you are working on it. There are many talented artists that bounce around this board and can really help shape your development.

The first step is always posting, right? Get to it!

Sorry, it's not as slow as I may have implied. It's not super-super-fast, but it was more the navigation that made it feel like getting to different pages is difficult, so it takes more time and effort to reach your art than it really should.

I am using firefox here and can vaguely browse the site (if you've done it yourself in PHP, then that's ok - I assume you used PHP so it can be easily extensible with new work without having to write whole new pages). However those vertical buttons don't work at all in any sense (they are hard to read, hard to click on, and seem to be broken in firefox as you suggest). Horizontal buttons make much more sense, since that is how the Western world (your target audience) reads, left to right.

Ok, I just fixed the links in firefox. So at least its navigable. there are still a lot of style problems and validation issues, not to mention the art itself. but I need to work on a paper now.

If those of you who tried earlier with firefox want to give it another shot, youre more than welcome! thanks for the help!

okie dokie, I did a lot of revamping of the site. I took MoP's advice and changed it to a horizontal layout and consolidated the images into more intuitive galleries. the colors are beggining to get on my nerves, so I'll probably change them. any suggestions?

any other critques are always welcome (and apparently needed badly!)

www.matthaspictures.com

also, thanks for all the help youve already given, guys!

Hey Apprentice, To start I'm still having problems browsing the site with firefox. But to be completely honest I think you need to re read this article.

http://www.thejonjones.com//2005/10/...pels-jobs.html

In my opinion you need to completely remake this website, Its much to confusing to navigate. this is just my 2 cents but i personally would have your first page be your gallery, you never want to have your potential employers searching and trying to navigate to find your work. Especially because it could just be some HR person looking through a list of portfolio sites. If they can not easily find your work they may just end up moving on to the next potential candidate.

Take it for what it is I guess but I would start from the ground up again.

-NoltaN

is the welcome screen necessary? cause if not get rid of it, maybe make a nice home page instead

I dont know what your goals are, I havent read anything really, I only looked at images, so keep that in mind.

Im Loving dance time... keep doing stuff like this. super fun.

Your forest level actually looks well laid out. I like these things specifically about it: You could get lost in it, paths go everywhere but there is also no labyrinth to solve or anything either, so it goes both ways easily, getting lost and easy to solve - which is perfect IMO. I like that. Also the layout just feels classic to me. However its also just a bunch of loopy lines... Sooo you are a 3d artist, make this into a 3D level! haha.

The rest of the folio doesnt interest me as much. try keeping it fun, simple and loose for now, you are excelling in that area... IE: I think that the dance studio is pretty boring - wherever you went mentally to create that, stay away. wait a bit longer before you try the whole crisp HDRI lighting sterile environments, if at all... its not fitting with where your creative side wants to go IMO> but i dont know you.

cya.

Just for your info, this is what I get in FF :
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/pior_ubb/wtf.jpg

The broken layout side by side with "President of Association of Digital Arts and Media" really makes it all look amateurish.

I think you have learned too much html for your own good, but not enough to master cross browser compatibility. I think that even if web design is a fun thing to learn, will it really make you a better artist? Rather stick to the very basics for page layout. Even a blog format can be enough (a blog folio would look like crap if using a plain default template ; but if you take the time to trim out the fat it can look quite good)

Also consider just a plain page with simple image links. Most of the time it is all that matters.
Check this out :
http://mv.cgcommunity.com/

what else do you need really.

I love the string painting and the floppy cube!!

Good luck,

Actually I wasnt going to say anything about the site design since so many posts critique it, but I did notice that once you get to the "info" page you cannot browse back to the 3D art page... Pior states that he is starting on the info page. So anyone using firefox cant browse to your 3d work? Man this site is really working against you.

Oh the browser didnt open that info page at first ; I posted a screenshot of it because as you say, this is where stuff started to break. No 3D link!

"If you arent re-directed immediatley, click here to get to the art!"

Firstly, why? Just have your index page as your portfolio gallery. No need for separate pages.
Secondly, there is nothing in that page that will ever redirect you... so you have to click the link regardless. Making it a splash page... which you shouldn't have.

Also, z-index is really flaky, I advise you don't use it at all. I don't really see why you need z-index on that site anyway.

And saying "site best viewed in..." isn't good, either. That's not a valid get-out clause for a badly compatible site. Spend some time and ensure it works equally as well in all browsers.

As it stands, though, your time would be much better spent improving the work on your folio than trying to get a folio site together. You're not really at that point yet.

everything everyone said is pretty useful. but another thing id like to suggest is, figure out what you want to do in the industry first, and target your portfolio to that, if i look at your portfolio, i dont get a sense of what your trying to achieve, environments/props/characters? right now none of them feels like its at an appropriate level to get hired with, even for a junior. the next thing i would do is try and find some sucessfull artists that do what you want to do and check out their portfolios what type of art assets they are showing, how they are showing it, layout and so on, observe what they did right and learn from that.

its not working for me, clicking the little thumbnails does nothing, it really is in your interest to get this working in firefox, I found that alot of the people browsing my portfolio use firefox, in fact considerably more people are using firefox on my portfolio than any other browser.

I'd echo most of what people have said above, as well as add that in your "info" section, having things like this, "All around likeable guy! true story!" sounds very unprofessional. I dig the floppy disk cube

I'd be inclined to agree with Talon, in that, I don't think your work is near the level where a decent portfolio is feasible. Your efforts would probably be much better spent focusing solely on your work right now, and worrying about the website later.

oh man, what a beat down! I guess I still have a long way to go on this. And with the art in general.

heres what im thinking for now, if ive missed anything let me know:
1.) BE SURE OF FIREFOX 100% COMPATIBILITY. PERIOD.
2.) figure out a proper redirect, instead of glitchy splashpage.
3.) get rid of the z-indexs
4.) change the colors to something less jarring
5.) become better artist...?

-microneezia, thanks for the cirts. I think youre right, I do like the "super fun/cartoony" stuff the best. though im trying to branch out. its nice to know what the strongest part of the portfolio is in addition to the multitude of problems.
-Ged, you said that clicking the thumbnails didnt do anything for you? like, just flat out broken? cause I've tested those (at least) to hell and back, so they ought to work. if theyre not Id like to know for sure. anyone else having this problem?
-pior, the site you linked is simple and has great work, but I've always been told that making people scroll excessivley is a cardinal sin in webdesign. but ive noticed that a lot of portfolios do it anyway (supposedly for simplicitys sake?), so is that not true?

anyways thanks to everyone else as well. I appreciate the crits, and Ill be working on it more soon. maybe today. im done with classes...

Hey,

A long scrolling page properly is a cardinal sin as a web designer, but your not doing it to look pretty or as a web designer, your using it as your portfolio website to try and get a 3d art job.

The important thing to remember is the games industry is small and theres a lot of people going for the same jobs, that means that a company is more than likely to receive a vast number of portfolios,which will mean each portfolio will get very little time spent looking at it.

Thats the point, companies want to see your artwork immediately , they don't want to click buttons, wait for things to load etc, they want to see your artwork. As long as your artwork is immediately available and your resume/CV and essential contact info is there then thats good enough for a portfolio site regardless of overall lay-out.

a decent lay-out is a bonus without a doubt, but as long as the artwork,contact info and Resume can all be reached in one or two clicks then its done its job.

Regards and good luck

John

the first trap for me was that I thought: pitty he has only 1 piece of work to show. Then I noticed that the GUI design is very odd and ititating and that the thumbnails are above the menu items (I would expect a banner there).
Apart from that I assume you used some JavaScript hacks for the menu because I cant see the links in my browser status panel - nothing bad as it works fine here in Opera 9.6 just something I noticed.

Most of the content still needs a long was to go,- but if you keep it up you might reach it. The only recomendation I can give you is to practice more and more (more 3d: setup, rendering, modeling, texturing,... more 2d as it can never hurt) because most 3d work looks like expierence was a minor presence.
Personally I think the traditional section had some nice pieces just a few though. Btw. the info or copyright bar at the bottom of each image sometimes destroys the shape and composition of the image - like cutting something away. Imo putting right under the real image would be better, I wouldn't know someone that would steal you work anyway, even I try to put comments, name or whatever on my pieces on a isolated space because otherwise it could destroy the image.

good luck

Originally Posted by ApprenticeEverything

heres what im thinking for now, if ive missed anything let me know:
1.) BE SURE OF FIREFOX 100% COMPATIBILITY. PERIOD.

Yes! Test your page in as many browsers as you can get your grubbly little mits on. (I.E., Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Wii, whatever.)

2.) figure out a proper redirect, instead of glitchy splashpage.

NO! Why are you redirecting at all!? Make index.html your gallery page. There should be no redirect. When I go to "www.matthaspictures.com" I should immediately see your Name, Contact Info, a link to your resume, and your best work. As I scroll down the page, I should see more of your best work. The end.

3.) get rid of the z-indexs

Yes, make this a simple html page, there's no need to make it more complicated. This will also vastly help with #1

4.) change the colors to something less jarring

Aye, a darkish background will likely show your work off the best (similar to the dark grey of Polycount.

5.) become better artist...?

Indeed. . . it's shitty to say, but telling you that you need to get better is the only way to make you better. If we were to blow smoke up your ass and say how awesome your work is, we'd be doing you, eachother, and this board a disservice. Don't freak out about this though, you're in good hands. Just keep working, and post here with updates so we can see progress. I'm constantly amazed how far/fast people can come on this forum. There are people who show up in worse shape than you, and a year later I'm sending their portfolio off to our recruiters.