Reply To: How does one “create” something?

[Grant]

Wow, a lot of this is on point. I was dreading checking this because I don’t usually get good feedback elsewhere. I need to remember that CGCookie != the rest of the internet. Thanks for the responses!

Truth be told, this post was a year in the making. I made the decision to switch to CGCookie under the premise that I did not know how to correctly approach my medium. In fact, the bulk of my thinking with this post came from CGCookie. I never learned how to sculpt or do retopology when I started Blender years ago. Upon learning and applying these concepts, I realized how woefully ill-equipped I was. Many of my past projects became so much easier to parse with the new skillset.

To put it simply, I was climbing a mountain for years, when there was an sky lift on the other side.

That’s basically where this nagging feeling is coming from. Jonathan Williamson’s Blender flows about topology exposed to me the importance of good topology. It was a concept that was entirely new, but strangely familiar. It was as if I knew, in the back of my mind, that something was wrong with my previous works, but I simply couldn’t place why.

In that flow, I believe he also says the quote:

“Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”

This quote hits me rather hard. I’ve spent much of my life using intuition as my guide, but now I’m beginning to question that. I’ve always felt like I can’t quite achieve what I’d like to achieve. Perhaps it’s a lack of knowledge? Perhaps it’s self-sabotage? Perhaps I’m completely oblivious to something? Perhaps I’m reading too much into it? I can’t really know for sure, so why not pose the question?

Having said all that, there are some good suggestions here. I’ll reply individually to posts, so as not to bloat this one.

… Oh, and uhh, one other thing…

Is it best/accepted practice on CGCookie to reply to each person individually? or simply reference them in a regular post?