Building a portfolio, what to create?

[Creationtwentytwo]

Hey everyone.

 

I have a question regarding 'Breaking into the industry', albeit a somewhat beginner question and seemingly simple, but nevertheless it has me kinda stumped!

 

I'm interested in doing some freelance work in Arch Viz, or possibly employment at some point and obviously I want to build a decent folio for sending to potential clients/employers.

 

My background is a little mixed but fairly relevant. My degree is in Interior Design and Architecture, but my career focus for the last few years has been environment art for games.

 

With that in mind, the technical aspects of Arch Viz are not something I struggle with (although there's always plenty of room for improvement!) and really the only area I need to work on is the differences between pre-rendered stuff and the realtime art I'm used to working with.

 

Anyway,

 

The question I have is this; when I see these fantastic visualisations on CGArchitect and places like Ronen Bekermans blog, where do these guys come up with their scene designs?

 

Obviously pro visualisations are likely to be of proposed buildings for clients, but for personal projects, where do the designs come from?

 

 

Are they designing these buildings themselves? Copying photographs of real world architecture?

 

Hopefully you find my question somewhere amongst my rambling but I'm keen to hear your thoughts, I'd really love to start really building an attractive portfolio of work.

 

Thanks

[Tommy L]

Well its up to you. If you're a good designer and want to design your own, thats one route, if you want to do an Alex Roman then you can illustrate someone elses designs. Doesnt matter where the source material is from really.

[jinsley]

go to sites like:

 

http://spaceinvading.com/

 

and look around, get inspired and start building... it never hurts to throw in a few known buildings/ spaces (Barcelona Pavillion, etc.) that people will recognize. Build and render projects that interest you.