Have a look at this. https://www.andrewklein.net/

Originally Posted by Sircharles

If you were in my web design class I would have failed you

---

https://cgi.ink
https://www.mduque.com

Hey Steve just went for a walk...my only complaint is the images are not in a 'playable' format...ie having to go back to the main paige to peruse the next image...or am I missing a click somewhere??? Other than that it is nice and clean and upfront.

cheers bullet

hey Genny he was an Aussie kid!!!! crikey!

---

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

ha,ha, your probably right. Not the best example.,

@nov2011: Cheers. Yeah, I'm going to drop Tesco and AJs. I will change the production to post-production VFX. That would be a good idea to break the freelance work up into individual jobs, but I was doing the freelance stuff a few years ago when I was a kid. I worked on maybe 3 projects And two of them I lost contact with... long story. But, they basically hired me to make a bunch of web banners, paid me $40 and a dvd of pirates of the caribbean lol Then thought that they owned me now, and wanted me to work on their game for free. The same story almost for the second, only it was a mod group... good times. And the third was a friend, and it was unpaid. I'm already exaggerating having it on my CV as it is... I wont break it down any further... great idea though, cheers. Plus the work sucked.

@Dom: Yeah, cheers. "Post-production VFX" sound good?

@Graham: Thanks mate. I'm not a fan of the portfolio you posted as an example... sorry. I know what you mean though, and it's something I've been thinking about, have a pile of thumbnails on a single page with contact info stored on a separate page. I don't like the lack of refinement though. It's hard to break individual projects down, renders, clays, wires, etc. Maybe loosing the contact bar, and adding more thumbnails to the homepage is a better compromise? Something for me to think about at least. Cheers.

If you do have any more examples, I'd love to see them.

@Mark: Cheers. Yeah, the fate of that side bar is hanging in the balance lol. But, I agree, I will add a darker stroke to the text and turn the opacity of the background images down. Thanks.

@Gen: Wow, I missed all that. Thanks for the history recap.

@cgisoul: Yeah, I didn't like that one too much, but I get the idea behind the layout. Would you loose the side bar and add extra thumbnails?

@bullet: Ahhhh, well spotted, or not spotted... however that works I will add those, a very good idea, thanks!

Thank everyone!

---

www.stevenegan-cgi.com

"Your weapons are no match for ours! People of Mars, surrender!"
"Um, this isn't Mars. This is Earth."
"Earth? Earth-with-nuclear-weapons Earth?"
"Yes."
[long pause] "Friend!!"

The one thing I might change is the top three buttons and the back button. Improve in the button design to match the overall look and feel.
Remember that you are not designing a website for web designers. Your target audience is for people who just want to see your work and not how good your web skills are.
I would keep everything as it is.

Things that you could improve:

1. Top main buttons design.

2. Add a top button that moves along while the page rolls down and remove the BACK word. We don't use "Back" anymore nowadays.

3. Add a copyright word in every page you have.

4. Add a link to "Home" in your Logo (Steve....character artist..)

5. Add a short / long description of your work (e.g. how did you achieve this / that), to make it more interesting and people can understand more "your way of thinking". These can spice up your work.

6. Remove stevenegan-cgi.com in all your images. Anyone who wants to steal it just need to crop the bottom, so it makes no difference really, unless if you add it on your image bottom. I leave that to you.

7. Add a Contact button that leads people to a Form so they can send you an email through your website. But make sure to add a CAPTCHA to prevent spam bots.

I personally like the signature. It gives personality to your site. Just my opinion.
Design wise, I like the look and feel overall. Nice work and site.

Hope that helps mate.

---

https://cgi.ink
https://www.mduque.com

8. The most important one.
For each character page you have, you should add a side navigation bar... you don't users to have to go back to the main page all the time. It's a pain.

The side banners images of course should be straight and not side ways. This is just a rough sketch to give you the idea. Remove the BACK button too.

---

https://cgi.ink
https://www.mduque.com

Another way is to keep a top menu bar, so users won't need to click on the Logo (steven ...character....) all the time. A good usability / accessibility is always good thumb rule

---

https://cgi.ink
https://www.mduque.com

Wow! Thanks for the detailed crits cgisoul! I agree completely. I love the idea of having thumbnails running down the side of the page. Very cool.

Would it be an idea to have a single image of the character, then have small thumbnails underneath that with further images, such as clays, wires, anims, etc? So, when you click on one, it loads it into that single image space? If that makes sense.

I would like to put a contact page in, an auto-form page or whatever. But I know nothing about java, or flash, or how i would go about implementing something like that. Basic html code for me I suppose I can look up some pre-built ones I can bolt on, just change the colours etc.

I will remove the stevenegan-cgi bars from the images... I think they look ugly, I just see them used a lot. Maybe a less obvious one running vertically down the side? I just don't want someone to save an image if they like it, then not be able to get in touch should they want to after reviewing the image again... and not remembering my website or name.

I agree with the rest of the crits too. I will add a "home" button. Or would it be best just to turn the whole banner into a home button?

Anyway, I'm going to do a paintover in PS with a couple of change ideas, I'll post them here for your thoughts.

Thanks again!

Oh, and I've been contacted by an animator from Crytek who wants to animate one of my models whoop! That should look cool in the portfolio!

---

www.stevenegan-cgi.com

"Your weapons are no match for ours! People of Mars, surrender!"
"Um, this isn't Mars. This is Earth."
"Earth? Earth-with-nuclear-weapons Earth?"
"Yes."
[long pause] "Friend!!"

Ok, a quick play and came up with these.

Home page. No navigation bar, as everything's on this one page. No need to muddle around pages, everything you needs is here. The contact link leads to a contact page where you can send an email directly from the page, and also view my email address, should someone want to do it manually.



Here's a project page. Navigation panel on the right to other projects. Thumbnails under the main render. Not sure how well that would work, but would it be better than having them all in a long line? Or would this be preferred?

---

www.stevenegan-cgi.com

"Your weapons are no match for ours! People of Mars, surrender!"
"Um, this isn't Mars. This is Earth."
"Earth? Earth-with-nuclear-weapons Earth?"
"Yes."
[long pause] "Friend!!"

i've only seen the front page but it took me ages to realise one of the bottom links says 'hard surface', something about the font and it being on the side makes it so I have to spend effort reading it... I got stuck reading the first part as 'Haz' and then i gave up trying to read the rest until it made sense...

Other than that it looks pretty sweet on the front page

---

that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

I would not be in a hurry to change to much around Steve, I think your first front page is good may be a little change to the signature to make it readable.............dave

---

Avatar Challenge Winner 2010

Or you can either go this way.

I don't think the small thumbnails will look good or make any difference.
Not that you are planning to show 20 images in one page. For the few images (color, sculpt, wire) you posted, they are very good quality that already represent you as the Artist and your capabilities in the area.

Remember, be too much of a hard-sale is not always a good thing. Keep it clean and stylish.

I did another rough sketch. Few things to remember is text alignment. Don't have a title centered and then have the other title left aligned. Or either you center everything (titles), or you left aligned.

Main top banner as the "Home" button will do too. For aesthetic reasons, the footer (copyright... etc etc) can be a tide smaller.

---

https://cgi.ink
https://www.mduque.com

You can either use the one above, where you have a much smaller image with the title of the work, or you can keep that long banner image. The shape of the banners are rectangular, BUT the image inside the banner should be in vertical. You need to work on that mate. If the height is too tight, you can increase it.
I think you should actually do it this way.

I hope my inputs helps out mate. These are just my opinion / suggestions.

---

https://cgi.ink
https://www.mduque.com

P.S. Also, try to be consistent with your font type. The last thing you want is to use 10 different font types. For the size of your site, I would keep it 2 font types max.
1 for titles
1 for the text

---

https://cgi.ink
https://www.mduque.com

Cgisoul, you're giving some great crits... I would love for you to check out my portfolio site I just launched and perhaps share some crits here: https://simplymaya.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37534

Mayaniac... great site look. I don't know if this is mentioned already, but I'm not a fan of having the portfolio page and the about/cv/contact pages combined, it splits the attention. Give your portfolio the whole page and combine your other information in a single page elsewhere.

---

-stwert

Website - Blog - YouTube - Vimeo - Facebook - Twitter

-->How to Effectively Ask Questions on Forums<--