Effective talk: Making a portfolio (From an artist's perspective)
Year of Talk: 2024
Common portfolio mistakes:
Lack of diversity or lack of showing off all the skills that you can do. From the perspective of an artist, they might only show off parts of the process when making a model but not the entire process. This lets you show off how you work on more of the process and how developed your skills are.
It is also important to show the character/model doing a multitude of cycles/activities instead of just one common thing like walking around. It allows you to show off that the model is modeled and prepared enough that more animations can be requested and easily used on the model. Since there can be new animations or features that need to be implemented quickly having proof that it can already do those things is a great bonus. It can also help to show off how you can bring a wider variety of characters to life in many unique ways not just through their walking.
Make sure the portfolio is geared towards showing off the areas you're interested the most in. If you want to do cyberpunk-style art or enjoy working on puzzle games, gear a large portion of the portfolio into showing off the projects you've worked on that revolve around it. You can compare your portfolio with other ones that work on projects that have a similar style or area of expertise that you're trying to do. See what you might be lacking or what you have that they don't have. By comparing to people that are already established in the industry it also gives you a target of how your different things need to work on or what people are prioritizing when working on projects.
Having people that don't have much experience with game dev look at your portfolio and work allows you to get reactions from people that could be consuming your work at some point. Even if they don't know the terminology as well, their reactions can give you a better understanding of what people might think of your work when playing a game you've worked on. They will give you a quick reaction on what feels or might be wrong and what might be done well. This also can help when a recruiter quickly looks at your portfolio they will likely have a very similar reaction to the other people. So if you can work on getting better reactions then you have a better chance of advancing through the stages of hiring.
It is also important to make sure that all the projects you release are of high quality. It hurts your case if there is a project that might look unfinished. Spending some extra time on each project to make sure it's as polished as possible instead of making a high amount of different projects can help show recruiters that you are willing to put extra work in when needed.
Trying to make the project tell some story will help show that you can understand that your work is meant to interact with a larger project with a lot of moving parts. Your work can be used to help improve the atmosphere or the story being told by the team as a whole.
Creating fan art can be acceptable as long as long as it's not just a trace of some already-created art. Try creating new scenes or moments that might not appear in previous media but that can make sense for the character/mechanic. If you show that you understand why certain decisions were made and how they impact the game it helps show you will be able to get new characters or features and understand why they are being implemented.
Amount of work shown:
Animation should be around 1 minute of animation. But anything over 1:45-2 minutes can become tiring to look at. Make sure you only show the best parts of your work, not just any part of the animation. For models in general the panel recommends about 3-4 pieces shown. Does not take a lot of time to understand if the work is good enough to continue looking at or if they should just move on to the next candidate.
A good way of thinking about it is that your portfolio is very similar to a store page. You want to make sure you can entice someone who is quickly going over the website that the items there are not only worth looking at but are interesting enough to buy.
Showing in-progress work:
This can be very tricky as it might change depending on each recruiter. It might be useful to show it for one of your works, but not a lot of it. It can be very hard to pull it off as it might seem very out of place compared to the other finished projects around it. The best way is by making a blog where you talk/show about your work in progress and show off the workflow. That way while you are talking with recruiters you can point at it as proof that you already know the workflow and what is normally done.
Generalist Vs Specialist:
Since the industry has grown so much over the years it has become harder to just be a generalist. While working on projects try to narrow down what you enjoy and what you would want to work on as a full-time job. This might take a bit of time to find but try to make sure you gear your portfolio/projects towards that area so that you can become the best possible person in that area. Applying to a job that is only about a specific area while applying with a portfolio that shows other areas can be conflicting as the recruiters might think you don't have as much experience as they would like to fill the role. If you specialize in a specific type of role you will still have opportunities to expand your knowledge base and work on other areas while at your normal job.
At times it can be very useful to show that you've spent time in the other areas of development. This is because it lets you demonstrate that you have an understanding of the entire process and can easily integrate into the process. It also helps show that you understand what other people might need from your work and you can implement it without being asked for it and wasting more people's time.
AI art in the portfolio:
No. Moving on.
All joking aside, by not doing AI art and instead doing the work yourself it helps you get better at the skills and helps you learn what it means to be an artist. If you aren't willing to spend the time to get better at doing the art and the thought process needed when making a new model or working on a project.
The portfolio is meant to show off how you as a person work on projects and make things. If you use an AI tool then it's just reusing other people's work to make the art and does not show off how you personally might make art and what unique flavors you might add to said work.
It can be harder to find good reference pictures online for the work you want to do but there are alternatives. Buying picture books about nature, models or other similar things can help you find good reference books that tend to have real-life locations or people that can be referenced. Going on hicks or trips allows you to visit new locations and get a better understanding of how things work and how different things might relate to each other.
Networking:
It can be daunting to go to networking events as many times you're going to environments that you might not be used to. Going to local events or other areas where a large amount of devs might be around can help. It is important to understand that networking isn't about doing transnational things. You should be trying to make relationships and friendships with these people. If people start thinking of you as a friend or a good person to work around then they might be more likely and willing to recommend you to their company.
Vertical Slices:
If you have projects that are super big or have a lot of items that could be their standalone models then it might be more useful to work on said standalone models with a few variations. You can later expand on it but you already showed that you made a few models that can be used for a larger project and mesh together very well.
If you have been working on a large project that combines a lot of areas that you enjoy then it can be quite useful to make multiple portfolio examples for different areas or just the areas that you're most interested in. It might be best to reduce the scope and instead just spend time making the areas that you're most interested in the best possible versions and then use other parts as complimentary.
Trying to tailor the portfolio to better the position/company will help the recruiters see if your work can fit into their normal workflow. This can be an easy discard on whether or not an artist would work well with the company. It would be a good idea to have a few different portfolio options that show some general areas and then spend time with many companies to add or remove from the portfolio so that it's better attuned to the company.
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