Reply To: Struggling as an artist

blanchsb start today. one hour practice. just a head, or a hand. just focus on it. and after hour what ever it looks. let it go. even if it turned out great. 

point being, its practice, its not meant to be finished. and more importanly, it teaches you to abandon your work and not get too attached to it. because next one will be even better. 🙂

This was the comment that Kaj gave to me when I told him that one day I hoped to be as good as he is at sculpting. I think it holds relevant to you, and everyone. The art of abandonment is an interesting perspective.

It has taken 2 years of pain and anguish of struggling as “a beginner” in my minimal free time. I still consider myself a beginner but I have learned a lot too. I have taken breaks here and there and found myself wishing I could be great overnight, but the truth is I’m not that good yet and the overnight thing is just a pipe dream (for me at least).

But I am at a point to where the pain of not doing anything was just as great as doing something, so I might as well work to be productive and slowly get better. To me CG is like art on steroids because I am making something that artists 20 years ago could only dream up on paper or by sculpting/building clay. 

I understand and have lived your frustration. If you have what it takes to be great then you must do what it takes to be great. There is a saying that it takes 10,000 hours to become expert at something. So don’t kick yourself if you aren’t seeing the results you want just yet. I think that is life. But this is a great community. Start off by working on your crap-tastic models and submit them on a polybook or similar. Offer them up for some useful critique if you plan to improve them and give the context that you are still not that good but trying. No one here will fault you for that and you may find people are always willing to help out a bit.

Last quote: “Don’t let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game”