5 Portfolio Mistakes You Must Avoid (Students/Artists in Games)
Art Directors are busy (and lazy). We developed a third-eye to quickly tell apart a good portfolio from a weak one. We usually spend no more than 2 seconds reviewing it before making up our mind. And if we are still not 100% sure after this first impression, we will keep looking for reasons to reject and move on. After all, it’s 6pm on Friday afternoon, we have 20 more portfolios to check, and as I said we’re lazy.
Let’s see what are the pitfalls to avoid to survive the 2 seconds barrier.
Bad Art
That sounds obvious, but I guess it’s not. Half of the time I reject the portfolio without even looking at it because the very first thing I see is badly executed artwork. And I don’t mean not to my taste. I mean the artistic foundations are just not there. If the very first image is weak, then why keep going? It tells me the artist can’t yet understand what good looks like.
Needless to say, the first image should be your best work. And your best work should be on par with the industry benchmark for your role and seniority level.
If you’re not yet comfortable with ambitious pieces such as epic environments or detailed characters, then keep practicing and don’t show it in your portfolio. Focus on smaller scale subjects like props that are less demanding.
Wrong Format
The worst format to use is a Google Drive full of folders and files. Having to navigate through Drive is painful and feels like work. Plus it tells us you didn’t even bother to create a real portfolio. Another annoying format is a personal website badly designed with hard to find menus and long loading time.
A gallery view (like Art Station) is good, though one issue is that it gives the reviewer the chance to click anywhere first. Maybe I will click on something you did 3 years ago that’s no longer your best, and it’s probably not what you want for my first 2-seconds impression.
The best format is a single web page with vertical scrolling and widescreen images for maximum visual impact. This way you control what I see first and my entire journey through your portfolio. There are no clicks needed, no menus to find, no friction, it’s just “scroll and watch”. Note that a PDF also works, as it’s the same concept but offline.
Irrelevant Content
A typical example is a concept art portfolio filled with illustrations, fanarts and speed paintings. Or a 3D game art portfolio depicting only final, high-res renders made with Vray.
When the content we see on the portfolio doesn’t correlate with the job you are supposed to do, it tells us that you don’t understand your role within the production chain. Concept art is not illustration, they are vastly different roles even though they use the same tools. Likewise, 3D for games is not like 3D for films or architecture. Show us you understand what will be your place in our studio by only showing relevant works in your portfolio.
Lack of Context
By this I don’t mean that we need a paragraph of text explaining the complete backstory of your character and the entire plot of your imaginary project. What I mean is we need to understand what was the context of the work (Project name? Company/Client name? Your specific involvement? Software used?). It’s very reassuring to see a real project in the portfolio so use every opportunity to show a game and company logo within each slides.
There is also a need to show not only the final work but how you got there. If you designed a bunch of characters, we need to know what’s their purpose in the game: enemy? friendly merchant? Ally? In short, what was the brief given to you? We also want to see the process you followed from quick sketches to color tests, up to final design. This way we can assess how you think and solve issues, and appreciate your skills as a concept designer. If you modeled a 3D character, it’s nice to show the concept you used as a reference, to see how you converted 2D into 3D and how you solved emerging issues in the process. Also relevant to show technical things such as wireframe, UVs, texture maps.
Quantity over Quality
Students and junior artists tend to be afraid of small portfolios and feel the urge to fill theirs with plenty of things. Yet a portfolio with 8 great pieces will always be better than one with 30 average visuals. If your portfolio contains school exercises, fanarts, inktober sketches, speed-paintings done fast but not well, then you’re doing it wrong. A portfolio is not an art dump or a personal gallery. Again, the key is to show relevant content for your job and only the best.
That’s all folks!
I hope this little guide will help you rethink your portfolio to get higher chances of being selected for an interview.
As a final word, I will add one tip: Take care of the visual presentation of each of the slides in your portfolio. Carefully craft their layout and graphic design to elevate your content. We say we don’t buy a book by its cover, but it’s a lie, we do!
Etienne