Comments | reflectedeve: you better bring your own sun

reflectedeve

you better bring your own sun

Jan 12, 2010 11:08

Say, artist-types, do you guys have any advice on portfolios (virtual or otherwise) for someone who's never been an art student?

The nontraditional cartooning program I plan to apply for is having an open house/portfolio review day in early March, and I'm trying to figure out what I should be showing them. ( A portfolio? What's that? )

art meta, real life, friends

Comments 5

ballatetta January 12 2010, 16:15:24 UTC

Thus far I've been pretty satusfied with the dA portfolio site--I pay the cheapy subscription fee per month for a snazzier domain name, and is easily updatable. http://orlinativ.designbinder.com/ For to check out. You can only have 18 items per gallery section, but I think that actually leads to some nice self-curation.

myaurasmiles January 12 2010, 16:43:03 UTC

IDK about online stuff, because when I was applying, slides were still preferred by all the art schools and non-art schools and I had to make slides of everything. Don't bring more than what they want. Less is more. Bringing too much shows that you can't tell what your best work is. They don't want to see everything you ever did. They want to see your 8 best things. Choose the things that show off your abilities the most. It's also good if they are somewhat unified, because if you have 8 totally different styles, it looks like you don't really have a style of your own yet. If you are bringing the pieces in person, invest in a nice portfolio to carry them, because it looks a lot more professional (the kind with clear plastic pages, not just something you chuck them into). Unless your pieces are huge, it shouldn't be terribly expensive. I think my 9x12 one was like $12 and my 11x17 one was a little more, like maybe $25. Make sure the images are centered if they are smaller than the portfolio and look neat. And I think it ( ... )

myaurasmiles January 12 2010, 16:51:12 UTC

Also, I just looked at your links. Don't use deviantart unless you pay extra so that it won't say deviantart anywhere on the site or in the url. It's considered a really unprofessional website. I don't know what level this program is aimed at, whether it's supposed to be an alternative to ungergrad or semi-professional or what, but either way, I wouldn't risk it. I guess some schools won't write people off for using dA, but at the professional level, it's really not okay and will lose you most, if not all real jobs. It's fine as a personal art site and a lot of professionals post a lot of things to their own galleries there, but it is not okay as a portfolio site that you send for professional purposes. It's actually singled out as a bad idea by most of the profs here in illustration, sequential art and animation.

Here is the sum total of my portfolio advice! laura_redcloud January 12 2010, 17:06:18 UTC

I'd focus on making the work look pretty in person and not worry about the Internet portfolio unless they specifically ask you to make one. They probably would prefer to see digital work or scans on a disc anyway, since it can be at higher than 72 dpi that way ( ... )

Re: Here is the sum total of my portfolio advice! laura_redcloud January 12 2010, 17:13:22 UTC

Just read the poster above me - with all my craziness about breadth and being a jack of all trades I didn't even think about having a unifying theme or consistent style! Augh!

Oh well, picking your best stuff is the most important. (But if you have, say, six really great works and you need to choose the final two, that's when you could keep those things in mind - "What skills have I not already shown off?" and "What would go nicely with the other pieces?")