Portfolio

 I will be creating a portfolio that is catered more towards finding-work condition, although in my opinion I wouldn’t do too much of a difference if its for any other reasons. I stick to a few basic rules that I discovered and will discuss about.

To start this project I had to look at some other portfolio websites as a point of reference and analyze the reasons that made these portfolios good or bad.

The first few websites I looked at are solely from artists that does 2d digital artworks, which is closer to what I’m in the process of making. http://marcsimonetti.artworkfolio.com/gallery/234825, http://www.jessevandijk.net/, http://www.ryanchurch.com/, http://www.artstorm.net/ These are 4 concept artist portfolios that are very professional and looks really sharp, all of them uses different layouts and arrangement but one thing in common is all of them had big piece of art to show off starting from the very first page; that tells you what their style or best works are like. I was thinking of doing this similarly on my site, however since I am also going to be making a show-reel, I will be using that instead on the very first page.

Next I looked at websites specifically on 3D artist for reasons that they uses show-reel more often for animations and also because 3D artists are still pretty much in the same line of what I do. http://www.artstorm.net/, http://www.andreiszasz.com/, http://www.timbergholz.com/ Again, all of them seems to vary, but one thing is still true that an enter page might be unnecessary and also all these websites had dark backgrounds (because it seems to contrast with the artwork more) which is something that I will be using on my site too.

Next I looked at completely random portfolio sites, http://www.becomeknown.co.uk/ http://www.koendemuynck.com/, http://www.ch3mical.com/, http://couchkumaras.com/, Most of them hardly had any text and never had to use more than just a few pages and buttons. So I think this is also one aspect of a good portfolio; to keep it really simple, not to keep too many things on the screen at a time, keep it easy to navigate.

There are 2 examples of sites that I would specifically avoid to make, because they are simply too crowded and finding my way through these sites turn out to be a pain. http://www.ashleywoodartist.com/ and http://www.cassius.com.au/category.html they may be great artists, especially Ashley Wood, however that webpage is in reality very hard to navigate in.

For my show-reel I looked up at quite a few on You-Tube again as reference. I thought I’d just put myself in the shoes of those people in the company who looks through portfolios to find good artist to hire. First up is from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCeImMZ3XXQ an artist called Johnson Ting. He may be a great artist, however the first problem is really the first thing that everyone should be wary about in making any portfolios; time. Its simply too long (more than 4 minutes) and I don’t have all day to look through all this portfolios on you tube so therefore I’ll ignore it and move on to a new one; which I think is precisely the same thing that people who does hiring would feel. The thing is he spent too long on each drawing, but I think the idea of the show-reel is not to show people the real artwork, but instead to give people our impression of it, our style. When people are interested, they will ask for more and will be bothered to look at it on our portfolio anyway.

Next http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03dl3HWWiaM&feature=related , this person’s portfolio is done under a good time (1 minute 30 seconds) so I think this is a good range to have the video finish at. However one main problem with this show-reel is that its completely silent, there isn’t any music which makes its more bearable for many cases. Comparing that to this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVytWA0Y57I by Jordan Ross, he had his whole show-reel done in animation, like a journey to his various work and most of all he had music that goes with the video. The best part is that, his drawings isn’t very amazing however the whole video was so interesting, almost like a music video that it made it worth the while to watch it. However I do also think that at times it might have been a bit too visually tiring and the movements distorts the quality of the real work.

With this things in mine I finished my own portfolio http://www.wix.com/epiclone/elbert-lim-2012 with the show-reel at the front; which is about one and a half minute long and paced in different rhythm to keep viewers from getting bored, with music ‘Any Colour You Like’ by Pink Floyd which seems to suit it very well. My sites includes 5 main buttons, home, gallery, music, about and contact. The galleries are scrollable and most importantly expandable, it is also made of 3 buttons, digital illustrations, graphic novel, and miscellaneous. Games soundtracks and other music can be found on the music section. Links to my other sites and email are all in the contact. The whole design is just straightforward, simple, easy to navigate design, professional looking and most importantly, functional.

My portfolio is done on WIX, which utilizes a very useful page editor that you can mould into pretty much any site you want.