Portfolio Evaluation

In the last assignment, I analyzed how one would reach external partners in three different parts of the Illustration industry. Using that knowledge, I will look over other illustrator’s portfolios as well as my own. Then I will be able to make a list of portfolio pieces which I think are indispensable as well as a list of rules for the presentation of said pieces.

How other people do it

These are a few examples of portfolios I liked, each for different reasons. I didn’t expect so many artists that I liked to not actually have proper websites for their portfolio and just use an Artstation link instead, even if they mostly work in games. It’s efficient, though.

The common thread here is they do not use text, and if they do, it’s only a title and/or the project the image is from. Even that is rarely on the front page of the portfolio, but rather on a separate project page. They all tend to let the images to speak for themselves. I’ve seen different recommendations regarding text:  SEO-minded individuals advise using as many keywords as possible in order to rank high in Google’s algorithm, while others emphasize keeping in mind the short attention span of a creative director/agent who has been combing through dozens of other portfolios regularly. Thus the need for brevity. I suppose that’s another plus in the Artstation advantages column, because some people would already be used to navigating it.

Navigation-wise, the most straightforward portfolios use a general “gallery” page with images that lead to more detailed projects when clicked, and if the artist has more than one category aside from “illustration”, like “character design” or “books”, then it’s clearly labeled in the header. Some recommend not having more than one category at all. Good advice for people like me, who don’t have that much work in the first place and are better off just eliminating the less impressive images from the get-go. Illustrators who have been around for a while and have a bunch of wildly different projects are exempt from this though.

If I were to choose a portfolio to emulate right now, I think it would be Even Amundsen’s. I also like what Naomi Vandoren does with the shop elements, but that would be something to think about in the future. I think Amundsen has a good balance of text and images, and I like the way he approached the first page: a bit of text at the top, pretty pictures that are links to more work of that category, then when one scrolls down there’s personal work. I think it’s very neat and efficient.

What I have & What I’m missing

Despite what I wrote about categories above, I still compiled some of my better work into categories, for the sake of organization. The first thing that is immediately noticeable is the scarcely furnished “books” category. And the fact that I can still thin out a lot of this stuff. Like the Red Masque comic, pretty much all of the book covers, and some of the black and white images. The whole “character design” category would probably be better off as part of a project page with Verner’s Tale instead of the portfolio page. They’re basically process images, so they can live there.

As for the artwork itself… I’m just noticing that I don’t have much variety in terms of characters and compositions. I would like my portfolio to include more creatures like animals or ones of a more fantastical variety as well as more grand scenes with interesting environmental elements. Not necessarily landscapes, but those too. I will be including the project I’m working on right now, as well as the second project which will be part of this course, both of which are both sequential in some way as opposed to being just illustrations.

Comic

The comic project is going a bit slower than I would like, but I’ve been steadily building on my initial sketches. I’ll finish up the last six pages in Part Five. As I have tried my best to keep the characters consistent on the page, I have realized that my process is too haphazard. I wanted to use a semi-painterly style instead of the more traditional line art, color blocking and cell-shading technique, but my inexperience combined with an unclear workflow means some panels look too rendered and others not rendered enough. Some I chose to make simpler for stylistic reasons, like the last page in this update where the character has a flashback, but I’m not sure if it reads that way. I like some closer shots or more important shots having more detail than others, but I’m not sure if it looks deliberate. In any case, a lot of these need cleanup. I like some of the sketch showing through, but there are some messy bits that don’t need to be there. I’ll take a few hours after I’ve finished this stage of the rendering and clean up some edges.

It’s a bit odd to upload images and not have much to say about them. In the past few years, I have gotten used to writing explanations beneath every image because there were multiple stages to explain, like brainstorming and ideation and experimentation. There is some of that as I draw, I look for references and I experiment with colors and so on. I’m putting what I learned into practice, but right now the thing I’m most focused on is efficiency. How can I make this look good in a reasonable timeframe? Is the question. I allowed myself to stretch deadlines to infinity before, but now I’m attempting to gather up the things I’ve learned and condense them in a fashion which allows for results in a reasonable timeframe. This means letting some steps go and not allowing the perfectionistic gremlins in my brain take over. At least, not much. The last assignment was not a very good showing of this conviction, but I think I’ve done better with this one in some ways.