I like the depth in this latest texture. The fact that you have overlapping in the design is a nice change. Your swords are looking good too. Although I prefer the blue one because the rest of the sword is so bright, the red doesn't really fit with the color you have currently.

i would say stay away from putting any noise or extra detail of that sort in your normal maps. the way normal maps are compressed in games now a days, you'll just end up losing all that detail. stick with big broad shapes like you have on your environment textures

Hey bud. This is a great start. You have a lot of promising material work on the props and a few of the textures.You need to show me that you are able to identify your strengths. Being broad does not help me when I'm looking for a dude to do one job. That said, cut the concepts. They are not as strong as your material work.

Cut. All. Fat.

I'd suggest working on some more props and really refining your material/texture work.

Cheers

Your texture works have a kind of oldschool feeling that I couldn't described well.It seems you're doing most of your texture work in your own way.I'm really liked your works but probably they don't tie together with the expectations of game devs.I'm sure you have capability to do really nice works.Just strictly follow some tutorial or simply copy the some works of your favorite hard surface artist.I'm not proficient enough to give critiques for the initial work,just wanted to drop a few lines about my concerns.

yay, replies!
thanks people.
----
changes:

-the brown rust/dust is less reflective and its highlights are less saturated now
-i added an additional dirt/stain pass on specular that's not present of diffuse, now edge highlights aren't as bold contineous anymore
-normal map lines on marble have been toned down in few places
-added few design details
-specularity toned down





(unfortunately the above pic got blurry when uploaded, but maybe that's only in my browser)

Originally Posted by stoofoo

That said, cut the concepts. They are not as strong as your material work.

i'll cut some but I don't think i have balls to cut -all- concepts out at the moment. also, concepts might be useless when applying to big studios but they probably can help with small ones, which usually are looking for people who can do a little bit of every job when necessary. they also seem to have lower quality standards.
i dunno if those should be my aim, but if my skills aren't enough for the big ones then i guess I should have a portfolio that will be appealing to those as well.

in any case, on my last job interview they seemed to appreciate the fact that i also had some concept experience. (not that i got the job...)

Originally Posted by xK1NGxOFxSKAx

i would say stay away from putting any noise or extra detail of that sort in your normal maps.

You mean the latest texture, or my general style?
i know that some of old textures have very rough normal maps, now i'm trying to keep them as clean as possible.
the latest texture is rather clean, i just added some cracks and soft cavities in the marble-like surface. it's still tweakable.

Originally Posted by igi

Your texture works have a kind of oldschool feeling that I couldn't described well.

Hm, i think i am a bit oldschool in certain aspects. i'd rather paint everything by hand, without having to struggle with different maps, vector shapes, settings and whatnot. textures from oldschool games surely have been inspiring me, for example Q3A or UT2004.

Also, i think shader may be ampfilying the oldschool feel.
lots of my renders use max 'standard fx' shader which is pretty crappy.
i can only use xoliul on someone elses computer, since my ancient graphics card doesn't support it. this means that i can't accurately preview textures (sob).
they definitely look different with xoliul and i suppose they would look more "modern" in marmoset.

--
@samcole, dirtyharry - glad you like it.

hey blaisoid! wow i totally dig your textures! really well done.

^thanks Iciban.

here's the texture sheet, if anyone sees some aspect that could use a different approach, let me know.
i know that 4x5 tiles is not a good number, i decided to stick with it since i didn't want to mess with my original design too much. i'll avoid that in future though.



---
As for the portfolio page, i made custom thumbnails with embedded text, tell me what you think about them.
http://shownd.com/bkaczmarek
in comparison, this was the previous version:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-D.../PFscreen1.jpg

i had to use various workarounds due to layout limitations but somehow it works now.
artifacts around text suck, not sure if i can avoid them. are they very distracting?

also, i changed my initials to full name and removed the 'digital painting' section.

not sure what to do next, asset wise.
i'd like to make a more complex prop but my mind is blank when i try to come up with something interesting.
i'll possibly turn some of DS2 competition concepts into models:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95424

Here's some weapon concepts i've been working on:





the ones on the top were made for the darksiders II competition and were in fact first weapon concepts i ever painted. i didn't finish any of them in time, so later i pushed them in different directions and started making new ones solely for portfolio purposes.

i don't have a fitting page for them at the moment, i guess i'll have to reorganize the portfolio.



I also started some making some new characters, here's 3 latest WIPs for one of them:


I can't make the pose look right, as usual. feedback on colors, design and everything else is welcome.

bump. i need dem feedbacks.

BTW, i launched a new portfolio: http://b-kaczmarek.weebly.com
at the moment it's just thumbnails though.
any idea on what may be causing the cut outline on right side of thumbnails?
i'm a html noob.

newest axes:



still need feedback for above posts.

I think your understanding of color and ability to make a material read (both 2d and in 3D) is amazing!

I'd for sure focus on props and inorganic things on your website because I think your understanding of anatomy isn't quite to the level to be concepting characters professionally.
Play to your strengths

If you really want to do characters then I'd suggest doing some figure drawing or anatomical studies before you hammer out a bunch of character concepts.

just my 2 cents tho btw I love that repeating alien wall texture thingy and the axes/weapons are top notch. Saved em to my inspiration folder!

^ yeah, you're absolutely right.

i feel that my ability to design things is improving fast but when it comes to fundamental stuff like perspective and anatomy there's a long way ahead of me and the progress is slow as hell.

Playing my strenghts is pretty much what I had in mind - i'm trying to make a portfolio that's still appealing despite the issues of my art.
That's why started to paint those weapons in the first place, understanding of perspective and anatomy isn't necessary to make them look good.
---

2 weeks ago i was out of ideas and decided to redesign and color a bunch of gun sketches i made in 2010. here's the current progress:

Oh god those are beautiful! The second lot are my favourite! I would love to have a crack at some of these!

Man your stuff is great! I like the website. The changes have made it easily navigatable.

SaferDan - sure, go for it! it's always fun to see concepts getting turned into actual assets.

cmc444 - thanks!

in meanwhile, i made moar guns:

oooo nice weapon concepts!

I'd probably move the TV to the top on the props side, the grungy rusty textures aren't that much more interesting to look at. Same with the 2nd and 3rd lowest pics in the env concepts.

Man, these look really cool. I love your old school style and you're producing quite a lot too!
A little critique for the weapon concepts; Maybe it's just me and the way I'm reading the shapes and all from your concepts but your weapons seem to be missing "mid level" shapes. The silhouettes look great and there is plenty of smaller details but there is no "mid" level shapes which makes your weapons look somewhat flat(not the rendering but design-wise). Perhaps you could add more shadows coming from some of the shapes to suggest a more extruded form or increase the highlights or something...
Keep it up, though. I'd like to see more!

I think detail is your crutch. You inject more and more and more and more shapes, seams, detail, rust, greebles, stuff, and junk into your pieces until there are no areas of rest at all. You're obviously talented, but you're lacking in your grasp of the "areas of rest vs areas of detail" concept.

Put me down as being in that camp, I guess.

Loving the gun concepts, really makes me wanna model some, thus making me really curious how you made these?
Would be nice to be able to gain some tips/tricks so I could try practice my own concepts.

@ Coots7 - thanks.

@ Saman, mutatedjellyfish

You guys are right and thanks for pointing it out.
I often can't resist the urge to add details. when manage to create some cool looking detail on one part of a concept, other parts start to feel empty and dull so i try to make them consistent with that part. and before i realize it it's all filled with tiny shapes and lines.


also, I think i've been trying use excessive details as a way to distract viewers from the fact that lots of my concepts use very simple and boring dimensional forms. i often use forms that look good from front but have nothing to "offer" from other angles.
That's probably because in the past i would approach design as drawing flat things and for years i've been staying in the comfort zone of frontal ortho shots.

recently i changed my workflow - i started to add details to blockout shapes by using spots of light rather than lines. i found that this way it's easier to feel the perspective so creating forms isn't such a pain in the ass anymore.

anyway, here's some stuff:








@ jestersheepy

Well, "how you made these" a very vague question.
but i'll try to answer it tomorrow.

this guy will definitely make it to my portfolio:


any feedback?


speaking of portfolio, i finally started uploading stuff to the new weebly version:
b-kaczmarek.weebly.com

(in comparison, old version: shownd.com/bkaczmarek)
it's still unfinished so some bugs are present. but let me know if you find something anyway.

i'm not sure how to organize concept art. i got environment concepts and characters but now i also got weapons and few objects, which don't fit any of current subpages. i'm kinda hesitant to create more subpages. thoughts?

i'd like to send an application tomorrow so any feedback would be appreciatied.

your material definition is amazing.

i will admit that i am slightly disappointed though. i read the thread title as blastoise.

i'd maybe switch your images around. the first tiling texture that pops up in your environment section could be the first thing you see on your main site and work a bit better i think.

^ thanks!
and yeah, i think i'll change the env tex thumbnail content to this one:
http://b-kaczmarek.weebly.com/upload.../326572458.jpg

in meanwhile here's progress on the chick:

i will admit that i am slightly disappointed though. i read the thread title as blastoise.

Lol, people misread and misspell it in all kinds of amusing ways.
among others i recall Blaislol, Blaisold and Blastoid (almost like a Mastodon song)

QUESTION:
currently environment textures have outlines, while model textures don't have them. which one looks better?
http://b-kaczmarek.weebly.com/environment-textures.html
http://b-kaczmarek.weebly.com/model-textures.html