Guide for Building a Portfolio

The concept of the word portfolio referring to your art gallery comes from the same suitcase you’d bring with you to a job interview. That “portfolio” contains your work, but not all kinds of work, just the one that is relevant to the client you’re selling your services to. Hence, you need a set of guidelines that can help you understand the role of your portfolio.

Consistency

Not all your works fit into your portfolio, some are better just on your social networks, like drawings from your sketchbook, practices and concepts. What you really want to show in your portfolio, is the artwork that shows the type of service you’re selling in the best way possible. Even if you’re a versatile artist that wants to work on all sorts of things, focusing your portfolio on one aspect of your talents, like drawing backgrounds, or making characters, will make it easier for your clients to hire you.

Concept art for what? There could be many answers to that question, for characters… for environments… Whatever it is, there are notable disconnections between styles, projects and techniques. It looks like this is a portfolio shared by many artists. *Source*

The most important qualities you should be trying to show your clients about you are your style, which breaks down your lineart, your use of shapes, and use of colors, and your technique, which shows your use of brushes, textures, details, and the general quality of your artwork. You don’t just want to show that you can draw a sketch of anything you have in mind, you may as well give them realistic expectations of your work.

The style is consistent, you can see a focus on the aspect of landscape design, someone who is well known for composition and a lot of detail. You can see exactly what kind of product this artist dedicates to. *Source*

Problem Solving

Your client wants a product outside of your work, they already have an order in mind, sometimes a need or an idea on their own, and without this, they have no reason to need your services. So, when a client is viewing your portfolio, they want to see references to things that look like the product they want, instead of simply “art”.

Practical

For an art director to request your job, means they are most probably looking for character designs, landscapes or other skills you may have. Having a portfolio ready to show real examples of these products is the most efficient way you can let your clients know what they are hiring you for and what level of quality they should expect.

*The artist has a full exposition of artworks that are the most requested in his field. Do you want characters? Maybe sci-fi tech designs? Here you can see exactly how I do that.* *Source*

Reliability

Some clients may be interested in hiring you for long-time projects or ask you to cover a role in a company, but they need to trust your examples to know what they should expect for the multiple products you’ll have to deliver. Your examples should provide a clear and honest view of the final product. No promotion can best reliability.

*The artist is showing the use of his abilities in multiple types of products and exposing them with diversity, same style, same technique, a realistic example of what can be delivered.* *Source*

Uniqueness

Of course, your client could choose any artist, but why would they choose “you” over other artists of the same or even higher quality? That’s where your creativity comes to stand out. Your portfolio needs to have a touch of personality, not to show just that you are capable of making it, but how you reach the final product and how good you can do your role as an artist.

Your class

For this you need to choose a class in the role-playing game of being an artist. Perhaps you are interested in Cyberpunk style, maybe you are passionate about Cartoon. It depends on how you make your style show it’s yours. Look at what you specialize yourself in and try exaggerating it to a point it really is a strong trait that only you have. Going subtle will most of the time make your work look flat and boring.

Where to build a Portfolio?

The following options take consideration from the most useful to the least useful. But you shouldn’t stick with only one! The more presence you have, the most reach for your brand.

Presentation (.pptx) or PDF

Honestly, if you’re contacting your clients directly through private message or mail, a good way to have a professional portfolio is to, unexpectedly, have a presentation. A way that your client can see your trajectory and your selected artwork, that they can download and share within the team anywhere they want.

Your Brand’s Website

If you’re an individual or a team going by a professional brand name, you should consider holding your own website with a section holding your portfolio. This is one of the best ways to hold control over how you present your work, since you can build it the way you like (or hire someone who can make it look the way you like). However, this is mostly recommended for professionals that want to make a strong presence with their label or company. If you’re an indie that doesn’t know how to set up your side and think this is a headache, maybe go with something more simple like a page made with WordPress, Wix or hold no site at all.

Cara App

Fresh, anew, and with a lot of potential. Cara offers a mix between professional gallery (like ArtStation) with the community interaction that you could have on socials like Instagram, Twitter(X) or Tumblr. You can upload your art, see other people’s art, manage your gallery and interact with others. Honestly worth giving it a try.

ArtStation

It’s a platform used by very talented artists to show their best works and connect with big industries. It has a cool way to display your works, but it has an elitist nature. If you just want to hold your portfolio is a good option to consider, but getting in ArtStation will probably not provide you any other help than that unless you have a good lot of contacts and a top-notch quality.

DeviantArt

One of the best places for indie and casual artists, it’s a free place, maybe “too free”. You can hold your gallery and sort it through folders, which is very useful if you want to offer different types of commissions and still publish all your practices like in a social network. DeviantArt also has a community that you can access at any time through seeing other people’s drawings or navigating the forums and groups.

Socials

Instagram, Twitter(X), Facebook… These are not recommended for hosting a portfolio. Yes, you can, but it’s not only way harder to manage compared to the options mentioned above. It also makes it hard to make it look professional, since it can mix with other posts, tags and comments, or it could limit your interaction with your audience to keep things “business centered”.