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WHERE TO PUT YOUR PORTFOLIO

Nowadays, most companies will do their portfolio requirements via a link to your portfolio. This isn’t ideal if you’ve formatted it like a PDF, so today we’re going to go over some of the best ways to make a portfolio.

So, how do we set up a good portfolio website? The first thing to look at is the website itself. Having your own website is great and extremely customizable, but it can be very costly in the long run to keep going (especially if you’re already short on funds!). Website-builders such as Wix and Weebly fill this problem, but even then it can take extra money and even not quite be built for portfolio managing.

When I had the amazing opportunity to attend Montreal’s Game Summit in 2024, I asked an outsourcing team member of Riot Games a question that was important to my job search: homemade website or hosting site?

Her answer was simple: Artstation (a professional portfolio hosting site) was the way to go. And even better for us, Artstation is 100% free to use and can allow us to follow, comment, and connect with other artists.

Artstation.com requires little setup and looks clean and extremely professional. Many industry-known talents upload their contributions to games from indie to AAA here.

SETTING UP YOUR ARTSTATION

The first thing you’ll need to do is create an account. This will require a username that becomes a portion of your link. Some folks use their online artist alias and some use their full name. I use my online alias of Knightsicle but also ensured to include my professional name I’m known by as it appears in both the title and header of your page. Since my linkedin has my photo, I use a simple logo/icon here. You can also customize a header at 2660px x 1140px minimum to add some fun to your page.

Keep your information short: what do you do, where you work, and a small bio are great. The highlight here is your portfolio.

It’s recommended to keep the amount of portfolio pieces short and varied (around 5 pieces), but I have also had success with 6-12. Currently, I have 12 varied pieces on my Artstation account ranging from 3D to environments. That being said, I truly recommend you stick to the kind of thing you are highlighting to what you’re applying for. You may love an environment piece but be a character artist; these things wouldn’t appeal to character art applications necessarily.

WHAT PIECES SHOULD YOU INCLUDE?

Of course, you should only be including works that you are proud of and ones that are relevant to the fields that you are applying to. I focus on character and concept art, so the majority of my pieces fall under that umbrella. Each portfolio piece will have a customizable thumbnail: this should be the best and finished shot of your product. WIPs are not welcome here, save it for social media! For 3D art especially you should show that you can do all the steps of design from start to finish; professionals state that most companies are looking for someone who can do it all: Sculpt, UV-wrap, Texture, Colour…all of it.

Another piece of advice professionals in the industry have given me is that you should always describe and show your workflow. Here’s a great breakdown:

In addition to this, you should have all of your information accompanied by a brief blurb of text explaining what you are doing and how it’s important. You can add this text directly in artstation while uploading your piece.

Finally, be sure to give your piece a nice title that explains exactly what it is! Below, I’m including the step-by-step information for my piece Asonides Boss Card [Doodle Deities]:

It is also important to point out your specific work if it is not clear or you didn’t do all of the illustrations shown! I have additionally listed that I “only completed the card illustration and the rest was completed by other studio team members“.

FINAL TOUCHES

It’s always good to upload your portfolio regularly, including pieces that are now with updated skillsets or challenging your range of ability. Your portfolio shouldn’t for example be all one character, all one animal, or all one style. Show the people looking at your application FAST what you can do.

For the arts, portfolios are the main thing you need to showcase. Let’s make sure it represents you as best as possible! Good luck, and happy portfolio-ing!