Make a KILLER PORTFOLIO in 2023! ( Essential guide)

hey guys let me ask you today do you know what a concept art portfolio is do you know what it should be is it a place that we can showcase our work archive everything we know and have done is it a place to upload our daily sketches I'm going to answer no to a lot of those and I think that's a huge issue with a lot of the submissions that I get for portfolio reviews and we're going to look at one today but there's a lack of understanding on what a portfolio is or should be and if structured right I mean it should establish connections we should build our reputation and of course bring on a much better stream of clients and essentially with a good you know concept art portfolio we really need to show that we can not only understand but we can solve our potential clients needs after all they come to us the designer and the artists with specific sets of problems and they're looking for someone to solve that and if your work is not showcasing that then there's a huge disconnect and that's probably why you're not getting callbacks so let's get into five really key important things I feel that your portfolio needs to have to make yourself not only stand out but to be more successful let's go [Music] thank you all right so today atanas writes us and he says he's a 2d concept artist and he's very new to the industry and he needs some help he he needs some kind of feedback on his portfolio I do get these all the time and as you can see I with with his permission of course we're going to break it down and hopefully give everybody a little bit more of an insight as to how we can show clients we can not only understand but solve their problems and what we can do you know in regards to that so let's take a look at his work today so right off the bat looking at his work here I can see and take away one big thing that is going to be my first key point with today's lesson and that is consistency and what you'd want to ask yourself if you're making a portfolio if you're in a similar position you want to ask yourself what kind of clients am I looking for what kind of jobs do I want to receive and because when I see something a little more like this with you know given that he wants to look for concept art jobs I'm not seeing a ton of concept art on page and if I did see a lot of concept art on page here you know what kind would it be would it be for for characters you know like like a piece like this would it be for illustration even you know something like this we have a mix of of fan art in here there's um graphic you know illustrations in here as well so like if we're trying to Market ourselves as a concept designer but we're not showing much in regards to concept art do you see that there's a massive disconnect there but coming back to my point it's consistency because we see you know line arts and we see um you know kind of nicely painted environments we see sketchy characters we see almost like comic like style character uh illustrations here my first takeaway is that this work could have been done by four to five different people it lacks that consistency so really with this consistency we want to hit a few big points and the first one of course is technique or style technically not everything has to be the same style not every image has to be built the same way but there needs to be like a little bit of consistency throughout and that needs to work in your favor meaning the biggest consistent thing I can see with this body of work here is that there's a lot of Unfinished or kind of sketch-like ideas and you can kind of see that in a piece like this right like it's it's like okay it's a sketch but how is this gonna how are you showing with this piece here that you can solve someone else's problem right that's that's what I'm talking about here today you have like a bunch of cool there's a lot of creativity here on display this is not about that um you know and you can you clearly got the ideas in your head but it's like what is this piece showing what is how is that really marketing you know yourself that's where the issue is and again like that piece is very different from this and like then this PC it feels like a it's a Sketchbook dump you know that should this should be like on Instagram or Facebook or heck even Twitter right like there's the only thing consistent is the inconsistency in this work and that's the issue of course if you have other areas of consistency like theme and genre like you do all environments or all characters or all dark fantasy or all hard surface sci-fi right like that would essentially establish your Niche if you so you're taking concept art building it with a purpose double Downing on a niche I'm not saying you have to start off the gate as a specialist and I do have videos on that but like you want to kind of advertise yourself ideally like this is what I'm really good at and this is what I can do for you so that's going to lead us to our Point number two today that I feel it's really easy if you just take every one of your pieces that you're going to consider to put on your portfolio and categorize it in one of the into one of these three categories now the first one I'm going to call Technique or raw rendering right like just making a beautifully artistically sound image and again I feel you you have some stuff that are pretty close to that see like this is pretty good I think it's very interesting very artistic very graphic um so that could potentially fit that bill if we're going to use one of my own examples here for a moment it could be something like this this Castle piece here right like I spent a lot of time making that look good it's got some cinematic value to it it's got really nice lighting and compositional skills like all these technique things now the next big category that I feel like again is the most important particularly for concept art would be your problem solving stuff right this is kind of how we started off that video what can you show in your your portfolio that shows consistency to problem solve and that would be like a piece like this this missile launcher here done uh by my uh artist Tyler Bourne right so this is just that cut out stuff that call out stuff it's it's lots of props it's lots of ideas it's showing like okay if someone comes to us and they need weapon designs if they need vehicle designs against something kind of like this that's what this would be it's showing that you can comprehensively get into an idea and really just break it down I actually had a job offer this week just with this one vehicle design is my only vehicle design in my whole portfolio but they liked it so much they're like I think you'd be a great fit for this project so it's as simple as that in in some instances and the third one is a novel or clever idea right like something doesn't necessarily need to be the prettiest picture or the most artistic thing in the world and it doesn't necessarily even need to show you could solve everybody's problems but if it's like a really kind of unique or clever idea in itself that adds value right and we're all and we're talking about how does each individual little piece of your your portfolio add potential value to that portfolio so again like I said kind of an example like my little novel idea and this isn't super novel but it's more unique compared to a lot of things I have is like a coral monster and like this underground or this underwater race and this whole Summoner thing I thought I had a kind of Novel idea certainly not showing I can solve a ton of problems inside illustrating you know fairly competently uh so ideally if if your work is not going to fit into one of those three categories if it fits into multiple categories then Bingo right there's a there's a good thing to aim for so again coming back to um the city example here which was received pretty well for for my audience and it you know it some really nice clients reached out after I had posted this but okay so it it's checking box number one right nicely rendered box number two it because I showed all the work in in this particular process here it shows I can solve problems and I I can really lead into like iterations ideations I can come up with multiple solutions for a problem and of course it's a slightly novel idea like there's a lot of castles out there there's not too many Coral themed castles so it's see it kind of ticks that third box therefore for me it hits all three criteria and in a perfect world I'd have nothing but work that's solved all three criteria but it's very time consuming right very laborious so coming back to your work here if you can try to ask yourself like again like this is like the the closest thing that kind of feels like a piece of concept design but again the issue is nothing's been fully solved they're very kind of first pass sketches again that's something more of like for a Sketchbook or this would be something that more can supplement a higher or more finished idea but on its own doesn't necessarily stand all right so next up we're on for Point number three and for me that would be shows your thought process which I feel is more important nowadays than ever with the amount of AI art leaking out there with the amount of pre-bought assets you can just quickly Stitch the scene together and toss it on a portfolio I think it's very important to show potential clients that thought process so for example right if we look at this idea here you got like a cool Star Wars base I'm all about Star Wars bases and we can see you've got a bit of a final result here now this is what I'm talking about um instead like we don't necessarily need to see this part of the process and that like we can almost see your step by step like on how you built this image that's not terrible but it's not as good as like okay like if this is your base idea where's your sheet of like eight different versions of that base so we could see like okay you went through this process here's your roadmap you you chose this one for this reason and and then this one's stronger over this one that's what I'm talking about in in regards to showing your thought process right like it's like back when I was in school and I had a TI-89 Calculator and Calculus class and I didn't know calculus but heck I could just punch that algorithm into my calculator it solved all the problems for me I could get every answer on a test correct but you know what I'd still get 60s because I didn't show the work so showing the work adds tremendous value in a concept art portfolio specifically again I try to show this on as many projects as I can here's a again a brief example from the old arc Arc Meadow area see like I would show like okay even though I arrived with this Hut next to this Temple right I I did like eight different Temple sketches I messed with five different compositions I came up with right like 12 different hot designs and I I chose you know through the process of elimination and iteration of course that this was the best solution for this problem that's the stuff you want to showcase in a concept art portfolio so that brings us to point number four does your portfolio show any kind of adaptability and flexibility and I I do think yours has that you know to a degree again and part of that is the variety of things that you do have you know from you know some robots again nothing really comes to a finish here and that's more or less my my bigger issue with that and um your your ability to do design languages as well that that's a huge thing because like when you get on projects especially if you're freelancing you're constantly making subtle style shifts and have to understand what the restraints and what the parameters are for projects um so for example let's let's look at a body of work that really um uh showcases this so back like a year and a half ago when we were developing this area for um fortnite and this is Jersey Savio Canada's work here one of my my colleagues you could see here like nothing's like super finished to like a high high degree but it's good it's clear stuff and of course that it um shows a variety of these Solutions and breakdowns for potential options but like there's a consistency to like okay like if this is all for this settlement I think it was the seven Sanctuary here so you can kind of see that um it there's consistency everything's ellipsed if there's a lot of circles right there's a design language so showing your ability to not only create but adapt to the specific design languages is a real key benefit and a lot of concept our portfolios these days you can kind of see the unified color schemes and like when I was brought on to this particular season right I had to adapt we had to do that my team Tyler and I had to adapt to these design languages as we were fleshing out what this island settlement means and that and that means like earlier on you know with this it looked a lot rougher right and of course there was different the buildings looked differently entirely I kind of missed the mark initially with the design language but you know through iterations and feedback you know I was able to get that a lot closer to what they were looking for as well as design you know it you know again adapting on a project that means okay like we have antennas on these buildings so like let's give them you know 10 or 15 ideas this is just a small sampling them of what various types of antennas could look like if they were built by these people right likewise if they had artillery guns what would they look like and just to show you an example of an opposing design language that would have been like the i o faction right like very different shapes very different forms it's a different design language so if your concept art portfolio shows your ability to adapt to these different types of design languages out there and there's an infinite number it's just a again it's a consistency thing the show right oh yeah we're looking like at pillars and Rift generators but they'll look like they belong you know to the same group of people or faction that kind of stuff in a portfolio is very very important um and yeah that's going to lead us now of course to number five and this is a bit of an over simplification of things but almost if you kind of like gamify or RPG yourself and your skills um where would you fit on a team you know in in a greater sense are you going to be the go-to 3D guy or or 2D guy right a specialist that means like okay you can just model things and ideas so quickly you can provide a really awesome service to other people's I have a go-to 3D guy he can whip up scenes and props very very fast and you know were you a 2d the 2D counterpart to that can you can you paint and articulate ideas so well like oh I gotta be the person on team that's going to paint a beautiful face I can paint any material meticulously give it that nice handcrafted touch so right are you going to be the go-to 2D or 3D guy the next thing is or you know are you a master of color and light right that the person on the team doing gorgeous beautiful Splash art and see that's like my issue with like a lot of these again it's not necessarily design it's not even you know the presentation but it does have a fairly inconsistent if not unfinished look up there for what like a 2d artist should really be able to specialize so that you know they again the composition is fine but the lighting gets a little flat some of the clouds get a little too repetitive in this so like if you're aiming for like a you know Court you know P key uh a core piece of Splash art how can you really get you know like that nice even level of finish on something that really sells it with light and again composition again I think lighting and composition is a strong component for almost any portfolio but if you're like really to showcasing to a you know particular uh client or even a team that you can have a strong narrative and sell that with compositional lighting I think that's really good and of course the other person or the other kind of person I want to talk to about where your art and where you could fit in as a role could be are you the idea Factory that means you don't necessarily need to be super good at 3D you don't need to necessarily be able to out paint the other guy but you can crank out ideas you're a thinker you're always thinking outside the box right you're the person that's sketching out hundreds of ideas dozens of ideas oh they need a gun design and they need a blaster here's a page of 20 blasters by noon you know okay you want a b and c let me get those refined and cleaned up by the end of the day all right guys so as we wrap this up let's go for a brief recap first thing I recommend is consistency first and foremost the consistency of quality the quality of all the work should be really good the technique the theme and genre that that can all help but not of course is is necessary the second thing is does your work fit into one or three camps you know is does it really rendered well is it uh artistically very sound is is the idea right kind of Novel or fundamental or does it show you know number three is problem solving with that so the other big point is thought process does do you show your creative process and can you break things down that goes what I would say especially in nowadays the 2023 portfolio environment and of course number four would be flexibility and adaptability does your work display that you can adapt to design languages does it show that you can use historical contexts even to uh you know imbue in your design to enrich it and to basically push its quality using our own history and our own human context that means if you're doing a Sci-Fi design it doesn't look like uh you know was entirely just made up out of thin air there's relatability to it and of course the last element I went over was what kind of role could you fit into on a on a production team are you the go-to you know 3D or 2D guy are you the idea person are you just do you have a really good eye for art can you do composition and color and light better than everybody else on the squad so guys I hope that these tips helped you out today and of course thank you again antennas for submitting your work I hope this helped as many people as we could possibly reach and I just wanted to make a brief announcement that I've hired you know my extremely talented and former student Zhao fan to she's going to be mentoring in the character design and illustration um categories and areas uh with the brush saw studio now and we're starting anyone that signs up that has an interest in that immediately as you guys know with with me right now there's a current uh like six month wait time I think we're booking out into July or August at this point but if you want to start in those two Specialties we could sign you up today um with gel fan so again you can check any info you want below and I'll catch you guys next time

Channel: Tyler Edlin

Views: 98,802

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Id: QoYLKXeiYu8

Length: 19min 41sec (1181 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 04 2023