Okay, I hope it's Okay to post this......

This is my Demo Reel… I’m up for hire… Kinda, if you need a project done… Anyways, here it goes… :wink:


Please, give me some feedback :smiley: (I know the intro is crap, but I didn’t have time to render it properly :()

This should be on WIP or finished projects.

Overall, you are doing pretty well for a younger user. But, I wouldn’t expect anyone to be whipping out their wallets to hire you either. Not that your stuff is bad, just that there are more experienced and professional artists out there.

My advice: bid on freelance jobs and get some experience that way, through Craigslist or otherwise. It will force you to step up your game, plus you will make money. Don’t expect clients to come to you, until you are among the best of the best.

FWIW I was in your shoes quite a few years ago. Keep at it!

Well, actually, I may surprise you… I don’t know f you’ve heard of it… But I’ve had 3 jobs on a site called CG Trader… And the site has featured me twice… I know 3 jobs ain’t much, but I have risen to the 7th most popular out of I believe nearly 3,000 members on the site, and they use Max, Maya, Mud Box, Z-Brush, etc. Anyways, thanks for the feedback… :wink:

I think that it looks great. Keep up the good work and all that patronizing rot. The whipped cream in that last food item looks a bit like white poo, though.

I’d also recommend producing a centerpiece to your portfolio. Whether it be a fully appointed house, a rigged character, or a complex animation. Just make something that really blows people away. Try pushing your creativity with faux projects. Like say you want to open your own cafe or restaurant: come up with a brand, a logo, a design, a theme. Then bring it all together. Having something like that is sometimes all you need to land a job.

Thanks! I really appreciate the kind compliment… and yes, I agree with you completely… :smiley:
PS: The ‘whipped cream’ as it is supposed to be, has since been changed… (not in the image however :() Now I can make a lot better/realistic whipped cream, so you really can tell what it is :smiley:

Keep at it man, you’ve got some decent stuff for your age :slight_smile: You seem to know the technical side of things, though perhaps lacking in artistic skill (i.e. composition, lighting, appeal, etc)

But rule number one of being an artist: don’t get cocky. Saying you’re the 7th most popular member of CG Trader only means that CG Trader is a really shitty place. Your work is not amazing. It’s decent, but not jaw-dropping. Your work should speak for itself, you don’t need to defend it.

Rule number one of demo reels: don’t show tutorial results. I’m fairly certain some of your stuff is from a tutorial, nobody cares that you know how to follow instructions, they want to see your own ability.

Content aside, lets say I’m a producer at a studio and I stumble upon your reel on youtube. My first impression is that you like cheesy '90s title intros, the colour red, and have never worked on an animation. All you have is still images, so why do you need a reel? Save me some bandwidth and give me better quality - use an online portfolio (carbonmade is a good one imo). If you’d rendered turntables of your models, or slight camera drifts of the scenes, that’d be better. Also, I don’t want to see every little test render you’ve ever done, only show your best. Ask a friend to be entirely honest with you and choose which to keep or throw out, and don’t be offended by his/her choices.

Now lets say I sit through the whole thing and decide to hire you, I don’t see your name or contact info anywhere. It shouldn’t take me more than a glance to learn who you are and what you want to be hired for specifically. The only description in your video is about some software you used.

</rant>

Excellent Info… I really appreciate it… Especially the last part :smiley: Um, ezvid is the software I used, and I forgot to replace the default description, so it took over :frowning: Um, I’ll make a new demo reel, and include what you have mentioned :smiley: Thanks!
BTW, the reason I’m the 7th most popular on CG Trader, is because A LOT of people download my free models… And I get a lot of reputation points because of it :slight_smile: And CG Trader is a quite large, and AWESOME place… So it’s not their fault…

It looks Ok. Your intro was pretty boring, and you didn’t really have to put all the categories in. For your demo reel, we don’t want to see all of the product’s you have on CG Trader, we want to see you best work. Always keep it short and to the point, the more people who watch the entire video through, the more people who see it in the end.

Also, just don’t call a thread “Is it OK to post this?”. It would be better to tell people what they’re going to see when they click on the page. Something like, “Joey Blendhead Demo Reel”, would have been better.

Um, Yeah, I wanted to make sure it was okay to post it… And I will redo this whole thing, and consider everyone’s critiques… :smiley:

Gregzaal is fully right. Put ANIMATIONS in a video demo reel, not still images otherwise it’s boring. Maybe change the music for a more sober thing… You’re young, you have a lot to learn yet, not only on blender. My suggestion for you would be to blend for fun and enjoyment. You will worry about the money later, and from experience i can tell that working for fun is way more productive than working for money (in terms of practice, experience etc…)

I plan in a full career in this, and I save money that I make off of models to get stuff to help me with blender :smiley: And here’s a quick animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilggn2WeGcI
I just did it, and it was my first attempt… So, be easy on it :slight_smile:

If that’s your first walk cycle animation, it’s a pretty decent start.

A few tips, if you want feedback for animations similar to that, make sure to enable stamp, that should put a frame number in the side of the view. You can find it in the properties panel. It will make it much easier to give feedback.

You also don’t need to do an actual render, It would be better to do an opengl render, which is almost instant from the moment it starts working on a frame to the moment it’s done. That can be found on the bottom of the 3D view. It will basically end up looking like your viewport.

Stamp??? What is that (more detail) and how do I get it?

It’s not an addon or anything, it’s built into blender. Go to the properties panel, where the render settings are. To my knowledge, it just puts the date, time frame numbing, etc. on it. There are also check box’s for what to add. I haven’t used it but Beorn Lenord (I hope I spelled his name correctly) recommended that you use it to put on the frame number in the BG Podcast.

Oh, okay :smiley: Thanks! :smiley:

hey joey, what up. when they are talking about animations instead of stills what they mean is, turnarounds of your models. just look up some 3d turnarounds and you will see different examples from noob to pro. the noob ones are simple turnaround of the model, nothing wrong with it. the pro ones will turnaround a few times, show the model solid, with textures, the high poly used to bake if used, the wireframe, ect.

Yeah, I’m not sure how to do that… Well, actually, I’m just too lazy XD LOL! Alright, I’ll do that next time :slight_smile:

I agree with eveyone else on this thread, and they are more knowledgeable than me. This last post of yours really stuck out to me though, and is something I struggled with for a bit as well. Don’t Be Lazy! It won’t help anyone, especially yourself. Take the time to do it well. It will pay off. Don’t think I am getting down on you, you are way ahead of a lot of people putting together a reel and getting critique on it. My suggestions are don’t ever be lazy, and take a project and do it better than anyone has ever done it before, if it doesn’t look good, do it again. It will be better. Then once you have that done. Put it in your reel and start a new, different project.

Keep up the work!

:smiley: Wow, that’s actually really inspiring… :stuck_out_tongue: Thanks! :smiley: