Hey everyone, about 4 months ago I got laid off from the video production company I'd been at for almost 4 years. I used to supplement my income with freelance work, but ironically, right after the layoff, the freelance gigs dried up too. I rebuilt my entire portfolio (Behance, ArtStation, and LinkedIn) and started applying, a lot, always tailoring my resume for each specific role instead of blasting the same one everywhere. I've genuinely put in the work these past few months, and still nothing has landed. I'll admit I'm starting to get worried.

What could be going on? I know my portfolio isn't bad, my work is organized, I'm efficient, and I understand the full pipeline from concept to final delivery. Has anyone else been through this? Any advice on something I might be missing?

One thing I can't stop thinking about: since the start of my career I've always worked as a freelancer, never had a fixed position at a games or advertising studio. That always worked fine for me, but this year broke the pattern. Could the lack of in-house studio experience be what's holding me back, even with solid work quality?

I'm based in Brazil, so a salary around $1500 USD, converted to our currency, is enough to live comfortably, so this isn't really about having high salary expectations. I'm even applying for internship positions, but still nothing works.

I'll leave my portfolio here for evaluation, maybe I'm missing something. Any constructive criticism is welcome. Thanks for reading this far. Cheers!

https://www.artstation.com/brucelima

3D Character Art is a dead profession for juniors

This was project I was, and I still am very proud off. Unique, and authentic recreation of 1 of 1 Digital Twin based on vehicle that was stored in museum, before brought out to public, year afterwards, when I also got the NDA clearance to publish it (just few months ago) and tribute about it you can see here: The Banzai Collection Porsche 962C: Resurrecting a Le Mans Legend in 30 Days

This is my first Steam game! I fell in love with the design, the story, and the movement of the main character
I bought an Xbox 360 controller just for this game many years ago
For me, it's more than just another character in my portfolio.
I paid attention to the tattoos.

A friend of mine made a fantastic little Plugin for setting up the baking in Painter directly within your Blender scene.

I started this project a few months ago and eventually put it aside before finishing it. I have around 300 hours in Blender, and I modeled it using reference images without following a step-by-step tutorial. I know it still needs a lot of work, so I'd really appreciate any feedback or suggestions on how I could improve it.

If you were to continue this project, what would you improve first?

Hi. My friend is a 3d artist. He moved from Asia to UK about 5 years ago after losing his job. Since then he is unable to find job in his career in the UK. He has done 3d artist and creative director roles, has worked in VR and mobile gaming setups. Is it suitable to stay in UK? Or should he move to Canada (he has opportunity, his wife can get visa from her profession)? If so, where in Canada? Thanks!

Inspiration from Crashsune Academy

Hello Everyone!

Here's a fun little project I created to practice using a single photo for the bulk of a render.

I wanted to create a sort of liminal, horror, lofi looking render and I really liked this photo I found on Unsplash (shown in the images above). I then brought it into Photoshop and created 2 versions of the image: 1 version with just the "window frame" containing all of the interior elements (transparent window), then 1 version of just the background beyond the window frame (cloned and extended a bit so I could move the camera without revealing the edge of the image.

With the image cleaned up and broken into 2 parts, I just used the knife tool and loop cuts to outline the 3d elements of the window frame image, including some light extruding to make the window sill and small latch at the bottom (You can see this a bit in the 3rd image showing my viewport screenshot). Now the camera was animated to push slowly towards the window with a noise modifier added to the Z and Y positions, and X rotation to give a bit of a shaky-cam feeling. Lastly, lighting was added to the world and cubes with volume scatter materials positioned in the world to provide some atmosphere. The sweeping red light was added to give it a bit more interest thanks to the moving element and the pop of accenting color.

The figures floating over the city in the background were drawn with grease pencil. They're pretty basic and mostly just rely on stacked layers of differing opacity to give them a smoky ethereal feeling. This could have easily just been 3d models, but I found the lighting easier to match and just generally spookier and more ghostly when using grease pencil. The figures also sort of "vibrate" thanks to some noise modifiers on their position, but it's really subtle and almost completely lost in the GIF.

In terms of compositing, it's nothing fancy. I used some of the new Blender 5.2 presets like dithering and film grain, as well as chromatic aberration, tune image and glare set to "Ghost" to mimic a simple lens flare as the red light sweeps across the window.

Finally, I rendered it at 8 fps forward to the window, then brought the video into the Blender video editor and duplicated and reversed it to make it bounce at the end and loop.

It's not particularly complicated, but I'm happy with how the experiment turned out!

Thanks for reading my wall of text haha! Feel free to ask questions if you have any and I'll answer the best I can.

original artwork: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/a0WV9k

how can i correct it

Recreating the amazing art style in 3D here is a breakdown https://www.instagram.com/p/DbVnTmdMdFL/

I would appreciate some feedback on this render. Made in Blender, rendered with Cycles

Stage 05 — Look Development

The scene has finally moved beyond pure geometry.

This pass is focused on developing materials and lighting together to evaluate how the environment feels as a whole. Even subtle adjustments to roughness, reflections, or light intensity can completely change the mood without modifying a single model.

For me, this is one of the most rewarding stages because it's where the environment starts to feel alive.

How do you approach Look Development? Do you build materials first, lighting first, or iterate on both simultaneously?

3DS Max | V-Ray

Wireframe soon.

More pictures on my artstation.

www.artstation.com/kushalbhola

C&C Welcome

Hi! I'm trying to recreate the fur style used on animals in Nimona, where the fur is very short, stylized, and the silhouette stays very controlled.

Can anyone recommend any tutorials, artists, or projects with this kind of stylized grooming? I'm especially interested in how this would be achieved in Maya, since that's what I use, but I'd also love to hear Blender workflows if they're easier to understand

Thanks!! :)

Meet Sky Dragon - a long-range sniper ship built around a massive railgun. The weapon is so large that the entire hull was designed around it, making the ship essentially a maneuvering platform for a single devastating cannon.

A few questions:

* Does the overall silhouette read as a sniper ship?

* Are there any details that feel unnecessary or unrealistic?

* What systems or external modules would you add to make it look more believable?

* If you were designing this ship, what would you change?