Tom K Port

[Tom K]

Hello all and thanks ahead of time for viewing!
I currently work for Viacom as a children's website illustrator/animator (Neopets). I've been here about 4 years now and I've been really trying to move on to something more...mature in the gaming industry. I just feel like I'm doing something wrong and possibly missing pieces or strengths that a gaming studio would look for. I ultimately would love to be in concept design and illustration. I've attached some work on here and my full port can be viewed at

Tomk-art.com

Again, thanks for checking out my stuff and any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Tom K

[Giacomo]

This stuff looks good.

I realize it's probably the last thing you want to hear, but: you need to spend some time working on the basics, especially human anatomy, basic design, drawing, painting, and color theory. Right now your style is very comics-based, with all the usual pluses (clean lines, dynamic gestures) and minuses (formulaic poses, weak understanding of 3D form) that comics artists usually have. Get yourself to a figure drawing class with a good teacher, stat.

As always, just my two cents.

[Tom K]

greatly appreciated! that's the point of putting my stuff on here is to get those 2 cents. Thanks for the advice, I'm looking into courses right now

[Sizzle]

Hey Tom!

First off, you have a very solid style in terms of the more bouncy colorful animated work. Just, yeah, damn. In terms of more realistic work? I agree with Giacomo, you need some more work

In terms of courses, you may not need them as much as you just need to study. A good method I've found is this: What kind of games would you like to work on specifically? Final Fantasy, Dead Space, Gears of War, Katamari Damacy, and Arkham City all require concept art and design, but they're all obviously different. Be really specific with yourself on where you'd like to end up. Next, take a look at the concept art that game or series of games.

http://www.creativeuncut.com/game-art-galleries.html

This site is a goldmine of concept art and promotional illustrative work for almost every video game ever made. Find the game(s) you want to work for and emulate, and start analyzing what they specialize in. Do they need a lot of crazy creature designs? Mech and car designs? Environments and props? Become an investigator and personal wiki on all of the work in that game that gets your creative boner going, like why it looks the way it does, how it works, WHY it works, and how it could be better.

And at the same time, work on the basics, like loomis, environment paintings, etc. I recommend checking out the free tutorials on artbyfeng.com.

Also, take a good look at your portfolio and it's presentation. If you were a potential client that knew nothing about this Tom guy, what would you honestly think of the site? I believe it's passable, but looking at your flash work, I'm wondering how much effort was put into presenting yourself to prospective clients. And this is meant to be helpful and guiding, I don't want to come off as a condescending douche or anything (even though I feel I just did D

Hope this helped! And hopefully I don't look too douchey.

[Tom K]

Sizzle,

Thanks a ton! this is actually exactly what I needed to hear I think. I kinda feel like you pointed me in a good direction and thanks alot for the reff links. This all makes sense and was very helpful. I think I'm going to have a busy year now.

Thanks again,
Tom

[Sprogis7]

Hands dude, show them. If you cant draw them really well, get better at them and show them off.

[Sizzle]

Hey tom,

No prob, always here to help. And make sure it's a busy year. It's up to you to live your story how you see fit.