Displaying Your Work 102: Platforms
You’ve just finished your latest project. Each blade of grass has been meticulously placed, each rock is rendered in glorious high resolution, and your hero asset, the focus of your piece, is standing tall for all to see. You take your screenshot…and then…you don’t know what to do with it. Where can you get feedback?! Where can you post the finished piece?!
You’ve just finished modeling the best gun in the entire world, with all of it’s attachments crafted to perfectly fit in specific places on the gun to improve it’s design and effectiveness. You bring everything over into your choice of render and…it’s flat. All the work you did is gone. You can’t show this to anyone!
In search of answers, you and your buddy search the internet for help. It takes just a few moments before you find the GameTextures blog, and now…
102: Platform Overviews
Platforms that artists use to display their work have evolved almost as fast as social media sites have during the past 10 years. Prior to the early 2000’s when broadband internet started finding it’s way to most residential communities, internet based portfolio’s were uncommon, and often not accepted when applying for work.
Viewing a 384 kilobyte JPG image on a 28.8 kbps modem could take anywhere from 10 seconds to a few minutes depending on a large number of factors.
While rare, I was even mailing out DVD’s in 2009.
Today, we have an optimized viewing experience on cell phones anywhere in the world. With a few exceptions, most of the developed world has internet that’s fast enough to make uploading images a breeze. Instead of old school, homemade html websites, we have content hosting platforms that make it easier than ever to have a professional looking portfolio that’s easy to access and use by everyone.
So where are the best places to get feedback, host work, and to be seen?
Forums: The Feedback Kings of yore
Prior to the advent of social media, internet forums were the place to go for feedback and discussion with other artists about work, technical questions, and general chatting. Forums still have a place today, and most sites make use of them for support and community building. Unfortunately, 3rd party art focused forums that many professionals used to learn more about their craft in years prior have significantly changed or closed all together.
Today, Polycount is still an active and a widely regarded community forum for all sorts of game art information. Most of the artists from forums that have closed migrated there and students are always joining. With seasoned professionals who continue to check in now and again, Polycount can be an excellent place to get feedback on your latest creations.
A major strength of Polycount is the Wiki and the multitude of Stickied Threads on the site. Full of nearly evergreen information, the Wiki and Stickied Threads (along with tough and fair critiques) were where I got my Post, Post-secondary Education.
If Polycount isn’t your cup of tea, check out the communities for the tools you use on a daily basis (Zbrush Central always comes to my mind).
All in Ones: Deviant Art, Behance, and ArtStation
Community. Social. Portfolio. Blog. Store Fronts.
In 2019, art sites need to have some combination of those traits in order to be compelling platforms for users. It’s no longer enough to be a great portfolio site, or a great community. You have to be everything.
Deviant Art, Behance, and ArtStation are 3 of the largest types of these sites on the internet. Each one has a set of strengths and weaknesses that push it towards a particular user base.
Deviant Art is probably the oldest and largest of these sites. Started back in 2000, DA as it is commonly known, has grown into a monolith of a community. With millions upon millions of users and a vibrant and diverse set of users, Deviant Art is still going strong after almost 20 years. This is evidenced by it’s acquisition by Wix in 2017 and it’s coming major site redesign, Eclipse.
Deviant Art today is mostly geared towards users who are just starting out on their journey, want to take part in a community that is full of diversity of all kinds, and want to make lots and lots of fan art. A quick glance at DA will show photography and anime as some of the most common works you can find.
While DA can be great for getting your work into the world, taking part in a community, and being seen, it’s not the place to host professional work for portfolio use, at least not the main site. The main gallery that users get access to is disorganized and will require work on your part to make it partly presentable to potential employers (and it will never look professional as is). DA never really positioned itself as a community for corporate employers to frequent looking for talent. If you do choose to use Deviant Art as the platform to host your work however, I highly suggest looking into their the DA Portfolio feature.
DA Portfolios are a free extension of Deviant Art, with additional benefits for Deviant Art Core members. With no need for coding, wide compatibility with most browsers, plugins, and mobile devices, and free hosting of up to 100 images, it can be a great, no cost way to get your work presented in a professional way. Deviant Art branding on your site and hard image limits will remain unless you upgrade to the paid Portfolio.
ArtStation was born out of the closure of the original CG Hub in the earlier part of this decade. CG Hub was much like Polycount, a place for artists to post their work to receive critiques. It also served as a larger community where artists could, if they needed to, create a portfolio and use it to get jobs. What made CG Hub special was it’s community that focused on ‘higher end CG’ at the time. CG Hub had tons of Zbrush sculpts, high detail pre-rendered characters and environments, and Architectural Renderings galore.
Under appreciated at CG Hub, at least by me on my infrequent visits, was the variety of concept artwork that was done for feature films. It was everywhere and it was glorious.
ArtStation is today what CG Hub was in 2009 and then some. ArtStation is built around community as much as it is around art; a visit to the home page will show that. ArtStation has dual functions; a community site for artists of all walks of life, featuring all kinds of social media functions (comments, likes, and more) and a focused portfolio site for professionals. Last year (2018), ArtStation became the latest site to open up a Marketplace for artists as well. You can sell a wide range of artistic products and services on ArtStation now, making it the one stop shop for artists of all kinds.
In 2019, ArtStation is the go to site for pretty much all art needs. Portfolio? Use ArtStation. Community? ArtStation gives you a touch of the social media drug. Store front with a wide range of possibilities? ArtStation lets you sell video tutorials.
ArtStation is where I direct many students and young artists today for portfolio hosting. With ArtStation Pro, you get a wider range of site layouts and options, as well as advanced statistics and a host of other benefits. I highly recommend looking into it.
Behance started out in 2005 with the intention of being a portfolio site that mimicked traditional print portfolio layouts. Clunky and tough to navigate, Behance never felt like it got the traction in needed-at least with me.
Adobe saw potential and bought them not long ago.
The current Behance.net site feels like a slicker version of the past. The social functions are expanded a bit and it’s easier to navigate than before, but it’s still a bit obtuse. If you’re heavily involved with or linked to the Adobe Creative Cloud, using Behance might be a great idea for you, as it’s easy to push work from many Creative Cloud applications to Behance.
If you want to showcase your work in a professional, easy to view manner with no social aspects getting in the way on Behance, look into Adobe Portfolio.
Yes, Adobe Portfolio is linked to Behance. It was formerly known as Behance Pro Site, but was re-branded after the Adobe acquisition. Adobe Portfolio takes your images and projects that are on Behance and makes it easy for users to set up a professional looking site.
The downside? You need a Creative Cloud subscription to use Adobe Portfolio past a 30 day trial window.
3D for All: Sketchfab
I mentioned Sketchfab in the previous article for it’s excellent web based 3D model viewer. But, did you know it has a community too? And a store front?
Sketchfab has always had an easy to use website. With it’s primary focus as a web based 3D model viewer, the site has maintained a fairly minimalist design for some time. In the past few years, Sketchfab has added social functions (likes, comments, etc) to the models that are view-able on a user’s page. With annotations being integrated into the viewer, discussions on truly unique pieces of interactive art can be hand with full context!
In 2018 they launched a storefront, so you can sell work through them as well. The work you sell isn’t nearly as limited as the uploaded 3D model is, so you’re free to upload a wider range of source assets if that is your intention.
Sketchfab also has a Pro option which enables larger uploads, more annotations, sounds, and more in the model viewer (and more). It’s a good option for artists who view Sketchfab as more than just a model viewer (and for many, it is now) or artists who really want high resolution maps on everything.
With compatibility on just about any platform, Sketchfab is the perfect compliment to any portfolio site or forum you use or frequent.
Cost Breakdown
- Deviant Art is free. Deviant Art Core can be purchased for $15 billed every 3 months, or $50 a year. It includes premium support, access to online storage via a DA Partner, video uploads and a bit more. It also unlocks Premium Portfolio access when using a DA Portfolio.
- ArtStation is free. ArtStation Pro can be purchased for $10/mo or $84 yearly and includes customization to your ArtStation Site, full portfolio customization, advanced analytics, blog support, a 95% cut of marketplace sales, and more.
- Behance is free. Adobe Portfolio comes with any Creative Cloud Subscription.
- Sketchfab is Free. Sketchfab Pro is $15/mo (billed yearly, so $180). It comes with 20 private uploads, 200MB file size limits, priority support, and a few other features in the model viewer.
Conclusion
Much like last week, I’m going to quickly give an outline of the platforms I discussed above, as well as a word or two on how to use it as a professional.
- Forums are always a good place to go for knowledge drops and feedback on your work.
- Polycount is still the go to forum for game artists, but if you need help or very specific feedback, check out the forum hosted by your program or medium of choice.
- Shout Out to Tech-Artists.org!
- Deviant Art is a great place to be seen by other artists and to be a bit more free with your work. I would suggest looking elsewhere for portfolio hosting if possible.
- Behance is nice for 2D design artists or others who use Adobe Platforms daily. Adobe Portfolio looks slick and has plenty of options for portfolios of all kinds, but it may not be worth the extra cost if you don’t use Adobe products already (or use old versions like myself).
- ArtStation is the new CGHub for digital artists of all kinds. With community competitions, Master Classes, easy to use portfolios, and more, it’s incredibly hard to not recommend. Pro is worth the money too.
- Sketchfab is the easiest to use model viewer on the web and can generally be embedded into anything. With good support, always improving capabilities, and a creative team servicing all kinds of work, it’s a perfect choice to pair with your portfolio service of choice. Consider Pro if you need the extra file upload size or the additional features that Sketchfab offers to Pro subscribers.
- Naturally, you are still able to use WordPress, Carbonmade, and Squarespace (or even your own code) to build a site tailor made for your needs. Just make sure art is in your viewers face immediately.
