My portfolio failed a SCHOOL admission, please help

DrPTI · March 28, 2024, 5:23pm

Link to my portfolio: https://charlie979.artstation.com/

I had about a month and half to put the portfolio together. Most personal projects except one were made during that time. There is also a letter of intent in manga format that the French school demanded (hence why the texts are French). I have not been given the official reason yet, but I seriously don’t understand how my portfolio is rated too poor to enter a 3D school for cinema/games. The projects are mostly rendered and made in Blender.

Sample work for thumbnail (full portfolio see link above):

thorn · March 29, 2024, 1:24pm

Overall, your portfolio relies very heavily on assets that you did not create.

On most images, Character Creator is listed as the source for the human and the plants come from various packages you found. Of the scene objects that are not these, many are constructed of very simply shapes (a cylinder, a stretched cube, etc). So overall, your portfolio does not demonstrate skills with modeling.

In terms of rigging and animation, you have a clip of the bent knee with the sphere moving around it. I cannot see what this is meant to demonstrate, as it appears like a clip one might see in a thread titled “what is wrong with my deformation”. The sphere is pulling the skin in unattractive ways, faces are glitching over others, etc. So, within the portfolio, it does not demonstrate you’ve a lot of skill in this area.

In the environments, the materials used are rather basic. The lighting is flat, and you seem to rely on using lens flares to present good lighting, instead of actually lighting and shadowing the scene to create contrast.

Finally, on the letter of intent: the use of comic sans is a bad choice. That font, in particular, is considered by many artists to be an indication of someone who lacks artistic sensibility.

Setting the font aside, the layout has a few mistakes - dialog bubbles are not filled with white. The last 3-4 slides have very large blocks of red text just layered on top of everything else with no design. Though the basic character is manga in design, the shading used for his clothing, the car, and the furniture does not match the manga style of his skin.

Now, you’ve stated “I had about a month and half to put the portfolio together.”

There’s a difference between “I had a month from the day I was told to prepare one”, and “I only had a month, ever, to create artwork that would be good in a portfolio.”

My own portfolio took about a week to create - the document itself. The art IN the portfolio spans over years. And, doesn’t contain anything that I know shows a particular limitation or known lack of skill. (Example: I’m not good at sculpting - and my portfolio contains NO sculpting.)

Now, i don’t know the school’s particular criteria for acceptance - so, my critique may be missing some points. But I would encourage you to spend some serious time in 3D, learning to create assets on your own so that you are more able to display a skillset in modeling. For animation and rigging, lighting, and scene blocking - spend more time refining your skills here. You must be able to show that your skills extend beyond dropping a piece of 3D clip art into a scene.

You have the desire, I can tell - but now is the time to also drive yourself to increase your skillset and knowledge. Best of luck.

joseph · March 29, 2024, 1:58pm

The post above me covers problems from the technical side. Let me add some notes from the artistic side.

Your work has no visible composition. It feels like assets have been more or less randomly thrown together. I don’t see much evidence of planning.

Your work doesn’t show any understanding of color harmony and color theory- you have essentially random colors, with no clear color palettes.

Let’s take this image as an example:

What is the focal point of this image? What am I supposed to be looking at? You have no contrast, no clear lines of action or composition, it’s essentially just a cluttered collection of randomly colored shapes.

Long story short- it’s clear you have no conception of the artistic fundamentals. You need to study composition, color, value, contrast, alignment, spacing, and visual weight.

Start by doing studies- focus less on finished pieces and more on studies. Do value studies, where you work only in grayscale, and not in detail, mocking out the shapes of a scene before you make it. Do color studies- practice working with just two colors, then three. Try complementary, harmonic, and triadic color palettes.

One excellent resource that will help you here is Edgar Payne’s Composition of Outdoor Painting, as well as other good textbooks. YouTube tutorials can be good as well.

Musashidan · March 29, 2024, 2:43pm

I don’t want to sound too harsh, but it really is best to be brutally honest about these things. Judging by your Artstation you have a significant improvement to make. You spent a month on building a portfolio and it really shows. A good portfolio can take years to build.

And, as mentioned above, these very poor renders of kitbash scenes of meshes that you didn’t create is not going to be acceptable. A single grey render of a character you built yourself from scratch would be more valuable than all of these images.
You need to show that you understand at least the basics of representing and building 3D forms, whether that’s human/animal anatomy or accurately built hard-surface objects. Even still life and anatomy study pencil drawings would be far more useful to show you have an understanding of being able to read forms and silhouettes and light/shadow. All of these basics show an understanding of what you are doing.

I don’t know what school you applied to, but the main French 3D schools have a reputation for high quality. If you are determined to follow this path then you should forget about these kitbash renders and go back to basics. Start building things. Start sculpting things. Do it from scratch. It might take you years to get to the stage where you are heading in the right direction, but it’s a worthwhile pursuit if you have the passion and this is what you want to do.

But you should really scrap these sorts of images from your portfolio. Everything about this is very poor, and it looks like a rendering from the 1990s. I’m not saying this to insult you. Honest advice is the best advice. It’s up to you how you take it.

picto · March 29, 2024, 3:23pm

You need to be aware that competition is particularly tough in this field ( to get into schools and even tougher for the job market). So the standard is all the higher.

These days there are a huge number of resources available for training. I’d even go so far as to say that there are enough of them to avoid going to school
But that’s not the point.

If you fail this time, don’t give up and tell yourself that you now have a year to progress.

And don’t you dare ever again present a rendering with the wood grain reversed… ever!

woodgrain

sozap · March 29, 2024, 4:08pm

Hello @DrPTI ,

I read it and my bet is that it plays a big role in the denial from the school. It’s really not what this text should be about.
Basically from that we can understand that you are in a situation of distress and looking for help but in the meantime it doesn’t tell at all why you’d like to enter that school and eventually work in that industry, and from what you wrote it’s questionable if you really wish to work in that field at all. Beside your interest for 3D which is quite obvious.

Enjoying 3D as a hobby and enjoying 3D professionally is a bit different and while art is a way to express ourselves, videogame and film is still an industry with it’s own codes and rules and it’s very like any other industry in the end : we work on products made to provide money to people who invested in them.
Anyway, since you don’t speak about why you’d like to work in film or videogame, but rather speak a lot about you own views on life and personal issues, sadly they probably gave their chance to someone who is more aware of what this job is about and how that industry function.

From what I saw from your whole porfolio you show some interest in 3D, you have good skills too that you need to polish obviously, but that’s also what studies are about. But before going into that you might look for help and work on your personal issues first. Maybe try to seek help from a social assistant if possible so they can help you write a proper letter of intent and assist you in you journey in education and eventually in your professional life.

I hope these comment don’t sound harsh even if they are probably not what you’d like to ear. Anyway, finding a job and also finding peace of mind is really not easy especially in the early years of adulthood, but eventually one step at a time you might get there as well !

Good luck !

thorn · March 29, 2024, 4:23pm

I don’t speak/read French, but Sozap got me curious. So, just now I processed the Intent Letter images through Google Translate.

If the translation is even somewhat close, then I’m going to agree that this letter very likely was a factor in denial, beyond the portfolio.

The contents on several pages read as something that might be better suited to discuss in a therapy session, or similar personal counseling. Certainly not as a letter that introduces yourself, and offers reasons why you should be be considered a good candidate for their program.

Midphase · March 29, 2024, 4:30pm

Maybe consider yourself lucky that you didn’t get accepted into an expensive school so that you can waste a ton of cash into getting a degree that probably won’t help you secure a job.

You have ways to go, but you don’t need to go to an expensive art/cg school to get there. Everything you need is available on line, and with enough time and practice you can build an impressive portfolio that will get you work.

I say you just dodged a bullet!

thorn · March 29, 2024, 4:35pm

I myself did not go to art school and have no professional education in the field. Nonetheless, I’ve had a successful career doing it. As you say, it took countless hours of self study and seeking out advice and teaching from peers and mentors.

With all of that in mind, I’m going to reiterate what I just typed. I have been in a management position where I would receive portfolios from artists looking for a job. If I had received a cover letter, that read as the above, I promise you I would have saved that portfolio in my file cabinet… But not for the reasons one would hope. Even if the artwork was absolutely stellar, there is no chance I would have contacted such an applicant.

I am not saying this to be unkind to our member, nor make them feel bad about themself. I’m saying it because it is very important to know that correspondence with other professionals, needs to be written in a professional way. The best portfolio in the world will not be enough, if your cover letter is filled with stories that display the unfortunates of home life, relationships with parents, or personal views on various religious beliefs.

Musashidan · March 29, 2024, 4:46pm

I didn’t see or read it, but if I had I probably wouldn’t have led with general 3D advice. A letter like this as an initial contact in a professional setting is a huge red flag. I’m guessing that the member is very young. I’m not saying that this is the case here, but more and more I’m seeing society embracing the ‘victim mentality’ as the new card to play.

This sort of letter would probably get you a top spot in an American ivy league school, but I’m sure it doesn’t open any doors to success in France.

All that aside, at least the OP has plenty of solid advice and food for thought to ponder.

calpgrmr · March 29, 2024, 5:16pm

You can be taught to do something - or you can be born to do something. I was born to write software. I did attend a community college and received a “Certificate”, but back in 1995 if you could pronounce the word “computer” you were hired. I learned more after class by talking to the instructor and my class-mates.

I consider writing code to be an art - not a science. That being said, I do not believe that artistic talent can be taught. You must be driven to learn as much as you possibly can about what you are naturally good at.

Good luck. If you love it, you will be driven to be as good as you can be at it.

joseph · March 29, 2024, 5:19pm

I think there’s a very clear case of misunderstanding here. Applying to a university or college is very different than applying to an art school. Applying to a college, you don’t need to know anything, your goal at college is to learn. At art school, the goal is not to learn, the goal is to perfect and network. Going into art school, you need to already be a very good artist. Going into a normal four year college, you don’t need to know anything about your degree.

I see this a lot here- new artists trying to get into art school with terrible portfolios and confused why it’s not working. Again, you don’t go to art school to learn. You need to be ready to go as a good artist from day 1.

sozap · March 29, 2024, 8:07pm

Well, I totally get what you mean, but IMO it’s not as simple as you put it.
It’s true that there isn’t that much to learn in schools that you can’t online. But in the meantime in schools you also have a few benefits too.

I don’t know how it is in various country but here they allows to get some internship meaning that you can get professional experience while studying.
Beside that you meet other artists and tutors, and most importantly schools at least help you build an industry related portfolio.

A lot of self-learners I see here totally lack that knowledge, as a result their portfolio is generally a mix of unrelated quickly made models, and it’s hard to get
from it what kind of industry or position they target. And on top of that it’s also pretty blurry in their heads too.

I’m not saying that schools are that useful, it’s mostly a scam IMO, but the little they can do makes it harder for people learning by themselves as they probably will need more time and effort to get to the same result, and because of the lack of connections or internship it’s probably going to be harder to get their first jobs as well.

I’m a self learner and I’m sure it’s still possible to go that road, but I think things have changed a bit, because of schools the market is crowded with junior artists so one has to be very competitive to stand over that crowd. Best is to start learning on our own and eventually use a school to polish that knowledge and get more professional. That is probably going to give someone a big boost rather than relying only on their self learning or only on school…

That said, I’m also quite angry with that educational system as I see a lot of artists being poorly prepared and they end up having a 30 000€ loan to pay standing very little chances to get a job as they lack mental and technical preparation…

DrPTI · March 30, 2024, 4:30am

@thorn Thanks for the reply. I thought that professionals use bought assets too, so using some wouldn’t hurt. I guess I’m wrong. To be fair though, for the professional projects, I did model the cartoony characters and most of the assets by myself. My personal philosophy is to not reinvent the wheel and model what is needed and not already available. Finishing projects on time is important too.

The bent knee with sphere is to demonstrate a geometric node group I made for real time soft deformation without physics. It was in the title.

I can’t say much about lighting. I just tried to light the scene as naturally as possible.

For the letter of intent, the school doesn’t accept a normal written letter. Since my story is long, I really cut some corners there.

My case is “I only had a month, ever, to create artwork that would be good in a portfolio.” This is because the school only accepts works made in the last 2 years. I scrapped my older traditional works for a certain reason anyway. Also, due to personal experience, I don’t make art to show people, so a lot of my personal works are not good for portfolio. I really hated it when people told me to change the face of my favorite character(s) to their liking and bash me hard for not complying. It’s not even their commission. I don’t mind making a model exact to a client specification.

There is another reply to you below, for your later posts.

@joseph The piece you showed was my last piece that I finished on the last day before deadline. I needed more time. The title/idea is abundance, a beautiful garden-like world that is also full of fruits and vegetables. The road to it isn’t without difficulty (river cutting through the road) or straight, but you can choose to cross the bridge.

@Musashidan I do have grey renders of 2 characters I build from scratch though? But ok, I get that you can’t use bought assets in portfolio.

@picto haha, good catch. I will be more careful.

@sozap I wrote as clearly as possible in the first page. I believe that the Creator told me to go back to school. That is why I applied to an affordable school. All the rest is just showing how I arrived at that conclusion, as honestly as I can. If I get the opportunity to study/work, I will gladly take it. But I know from experience that diploma doesn’t mean that I will necessarily get a job. For my personal issues, there is NO ONE who can really help. My family and “friends” can’t do anything. Psychiatrist can’t do anything. It’s not stuff that individiuals can solve. Humanity is in grave peril and no one cares/can stop the train going off the cliff and I can’t even jump off the train. Can you imagine how that feels?

@thorn I believe that the letter of intent is supposed to explain to them who I am and why I want to apply to their program. I simply answered as honest and as short as possible. My life is just like that. But ok, I guess it’s too honest. And to be brutally honest another time, study/work is only to kill time before the world goes to destruction, perhaps in the near future. But believe it or not, I am a responsible person who would still do what I need to do, be it study or work, otherwise I will surely regret it. Although, don’t expect me work above what I am paid for. I’m done with people who expect excellency with minimum wage.

@Midphase I get what you mean. It’s just that the 3D studio I worked for really screwed me hard for a lack of diploma. I’m also kinda lost in life and going back to school was direction I was given.

joseph · March 30, 2024, 11:48am

Hmmm… everything you’ve just said is defensive, justifying your choices, but I don’t see anything that indicates you intend to follow the advice you’ve been given about how to improve. So here’s one last piece of free advice - kill the defensive part of yourself. You will not survive art school if this is how you respond to critiques.

And you never will, until you scrap your emotional attachment and read these replies with an open mind trying to learn from them, not defend against them. Remember, no one here knows you or cares at all about your personal life. It makes no difference to any of us whatsoever if you get into art school or not. I don’t say that to be mean, I say that to emphasize that your defensive attitude is pointless. Everything said here has nothing to do with you as a person and everything to do with your output

sozap · March 30, 2024, 1:43pm

Hey,

Ok, but if you apply to an art/cg school it would have been more effective to talk about why you’re interested in CG, how long you’ve been doing it, what kind of position you’re expecting, what you like to do best with CG. And how you see that school as an important step in achieving your professional goal. That’s should be at least 80 % of what the letter is about.

You could talk about your past experience a bit and who you are in the remaining ~20% if you think this is some important information that can help choose you over someone else.

If you’re still in doubt, you can weight how much % of it talks about your personal issues, and how much % about CG, art school, professional goal in the entertainment industry…

Well, it’s true, there are much more CG artists than actual job positions. Probably just like the school you want to go to. It’s not that your portfolio is necessary bad but it’s just that there are more talented and motivated people that already fills the places for next year’s promotion.
If CG is really what you want to do you need to study more, take advice from professionals like in this forum, and eventually improve your portfolio and try again next year with better material. Getting a job might be similar, after school you might spend a few years keeping training until you get your first job.
Hopefully, if you survived these first years, once you get into the industry things become easier and the more you work the easier it gets.
If that’s something you’re not mentally prepared to face and you’re not motivated enough maybe you should look for something else. If that’s ok, then try to take the most of advice here and try again next year.

Maybe the first thing to do is to work on these issues as they seem to take too much space preventing you to work on your career path properly.
Even if no-one can solve your issues for you, try to make the best of all the help you can get. There are always much more bits of solutions than we actually think.

Jvry · March 30, 2024, 1:43pm

Thought experiment. Pretend the people you responded to are your future instructors telling you what they want to see from you in order not to fail you. Does this change the way you responded?

As Joseph says, your comments are defensive. You asked for help and critique, it was given, and your reaction was to make excuses. That will not work in the environment you wish to place yourself in.

That is a red flag against going into a fully structured learning environment, or even working in the field. You won’t be working to exact specifications, you will have to create your own pieces and make changes based on feedback. If you don’t like showing your art you will struggle with this. Games and cinema are not spec work.

If the school is geared towards industry, it is better you don’t take the position of someone who actually wants to be there as a life goal, as opposed to “to kill time until the world goes to destruction”. You are looking for a job, with no specific direction in mind. They are geared towards careers, with a vision the applicant is working towards. According to your letter, the school is the NAD. Did you do any basic research into the school, or did you just pick them because they were affordable?

Cinema and games can be notorious for the crunch. VFX studios that have done amazing work on successful films have previously been bankrupted doing so, and the industry has only recently unionised to protect themselves. Big game studios aren’t necessarily much better. The chance is high this path would just end up as another one of the laundry list of things you tried and left because they were against you. If the school admissions read the entire letter, that would have stood out to them: “this is someone who can’t stay the course. We don’t want to be the next ones they blame because they cannot take it.” You can say that assessment would not be accurate, but they will be looking for success stories, and they will not see one with you because you gave them a doom and gloom story, not an aspirational one.

It seems you have reached a low in your life, and built a defensive wall around yourself. Understandable, but that wall is counter-productive. It makes it so you can’t tell friend from foe and are shutting out genuine attempts to help.

If this really is a path you still want to go down, take Joseph’s first post in this thread to heart: learn colour theory, do studies on lighting and composition, and learn art fundamentals. You will need them if you want to get anywhere. You might even be able to find classes and workshops on these things. They will also given you a more gentle introduction to the sort of critique you will get in a dedicated school or later in the workplace.

joseph · March 30, 2024, 2:07pm

To add to this- and I don’t want to pile on too much, so I’ll probably stop replying after this- if I was your boss (@DrPTI ) and you replied to feedback as you did in your reply here, I’d fire you (or, more truthfully, I’d have a one-on-one sitdown talk with you where I gave you a clear warning.) I think your communication skills may be holding you back more than your art skills.

There’s a really excellent textbook I’d highly recommend you read and study: The Interpersonal Communication Book, Fifteenth Edition, by Joseph A. DeVito. (I’m not going to provide links, as it’s against forum policy, but you can very easily find a PDF for it.) I studied this textbook in my Interpersonal Communication class in college and it helped me out a lot. I was not good at taking feedback, and I’ve had to learn how to take feedback myself.

BG_Division · March 30, 2024, 2:47pm

I understand you and your pessimism about the current situation and the direction the world is taking and, honestly, I don’t dare add anything. I would just like to highlight the quality of the responses you received - I was absolutely impressed by the quality and how constructive they are. Consider that all those who responded to you did that not superficially and on topics that were sometimes delicate.
I wish you all the best in achieving your goals

DrPTI · March 30, 2024, 11:43pm

@sozap Thanks, I will follow your instructions on how to write the letter of intent.

I was surprised because I was told that the particular program I applied to was not super crowded because it was a certificate program, not a bachelor degree. I also saw sample portfolios of people who got accepted and thought that my works look prettier than them.

My motivation for making 3D is because there are things that I want to see and traditional art mediums that I learned in college and university can not satisfy me. I like how 3D can give photorealistic results. I tried to make a living out of helping others see their dream come true, but the business never took off and people only took advantage of me by giving simplistic feedback or any feedback at all and expecting me to give more free models to them. Therefore, I need to go find job instead.

Hopefully, there will be a next try next year. But to be honest, I am currently looking closely at a certain news about red heifers (cows) that may get sacrificed in Israel by the end of April this year. They may destroy the Dome of the Rock after the ceremony, and that may be the start of last part (yes, not the start, but last part) of the End Times. If some predictions come true, billions of people will perish, by human/demonic hands or divine retribution. Less than 10% of world population will survive. But somehow, the people on the other side of the veil want to reassure us that there is nothing to fear, not even death.

And even if that doesn’t happen, I don’t know if you know about the mouse utopia experiment. Humans hurt each other so much just like the mice, and eventually people will go extinct by themselves due to lack of reproduction. I know it’s true because I experience it and declining statistics prove it too. Unless people learn to love, civilization will inevitably crash and burn.

@joseph @Jvry Here is the list of advices I have accepted:

Rush job portfolio is not good.
Don’t use any bought asset.
I can’t just think that the render looks realistic and call it a day. I need dramatic lighting to impress.
It’s true that I’m weak when it comes to art fundamentals, art college and university only mentioned those in few sentences. I will revisit them.
Wood grain was wrong, that picto caught.
sozap’s advice on letter of intent.

I guess I really need to state everything clearly, no implicit acknowledgement.

The “excuses” are there to provide more context or personal opinion that I think some feedback need to consider. Like saying I can’t model anything more complicated than basic shapes. I made characters from scratch too, and it was in the portfolio. Maybe the person didn’t see or something. I believe that good communication requires accurate understanding on both sides and I try to fill the gap as I see needed. I am not the kind of person who just say yes to everything, even the things I didn’t do.

I tried to search the The Interpersonal Communication Book, but the free pdfs only have cover and index. The book itself is a rather expensive textbook.

More specifically to Jvry: I do believe that games companies do have basic 2D designs to start with? Cinema should have design/actors to copy too. Of course, if the company is small, then the artist needs to do everything. But the point was, if the work is produced for someone else, I would make any change as feedback dictates. For personal works though, I do have boundaries that I won’t let others cross.

See, what you want and what you get in life are 2 separate things. There was a time when I had career dreams, but I walked into dead ends eventually (like I really can’t do standing jobs anymore due to health). Is this a path or dead end? I don’t know until I walked it. I just know that 3D is something that I still do and can do better than many ppl if the situation allows. Of course the school is geared toward industry. I don’t know how much research you are expecting.

Do consider the fact that I learned Blender from scratch by myself, mostly just watching youtube, and I can model, texture, light (I won’t claim that I can do this well), rig, weight paint, animate, do physics/geonodes, render animations, and do compositing.

Edit: Also, another observation, game/cinema companies fail because they don’t make great products. Part of the reasons is the top-down structure. The boss has a vision and ignores the feedback of its workers and customers/players, and/or treat workers poorly. The workers are too afraid to voice concerns or just don’t care. Anyone but the management can see it’s a recipe for disaster.