I also have a regular job and just take my first steps in CG, because I want to work in CG and quit my current job. Well.. anger at my job is strong motivation to practice in something I really LOVE. I don’t have enough free time to practice at work, so I do this at home. I wouldn’t risk my life saying to my wife “Hello honey, this evening I’m not gonna spend time with you and our daughter because CG Cookie lessons are waiting” – so I work in Blender at late evenings and even night hours when everyone is sleeping.
And sometimes it’s really hard especially when it’s not weekend, and I have my alarm lock-n-loaded on 6:30 AM. So I usually practice from 10-11 PM till 00-02AM. It’s hard to sleep 4-5 hours per each night, so I use usually 4 days per week for Blender. (My record was to start at 22 PM and to go to bed at 5AM. And then after an hour and a half I heard my alarm rang and went to work).
Later I noticed that my activity lacks of structure, I tried to learn of everything at a same time. So I’ve made some schedule (e.g. Monday – modeling, Wednesday – texturing in Substance, Friday – animation, and so on), because I think 3 hours of “scheduled” work are more valuable than 6 of “random”. I get involved in the mobile game project, just with 4 enthusiasts like me, so I have quite a tight schedule, and my motivation is not to let the others down.
