Reply To: How to get an exactly a oaval shape like this?

[Charles]

I realise this is a very late reply but I saw your post and wanted to offer my take/experience.

First, if you can, try and reframe your achievements simply in terms of the attempt and not of the final result. Showing up each day and trying to model something is what you need to try and focus on. As long as you’ve shown up and tried, you’ve succeeded. Don’t worry about the end result and if you think it is good or bad. Beeple’s Everydays are a great example of this played out over years. There’s also a great little book I recommend everyone read called The War of Art that encapsulates this into a formal set of thinking. It’s very motivational. 

Second, in my other life I train dogs. What you learn training dogs is how to break down a complex behaviour to its most basic parts. To begin with the dog might get rewarded simply for looking at us. Then once we see that they understand and can confidently produce this very simple behaviour on cue, we raise the criteria that gets the reward and slowly build up. If we see that the dog is struggling to succeed at the new harder criteria we reduce the criteria for success so the dog doesn’t get discouraged and frustrated and then to raise criteria again. All of which is a possibly overly laborious metaphor for where you’re at with modelling. It’s natural to try and jump forward and want to model more complex things, especially when those complex things still seem incredibly simple. The way you’ll get there is by succeeding repeatedly at the simple stuff and slowly building up. You can WASTE hours/days/weeks trying to fix something you’re not ready for when that time could be MUCH BETTER spent modelling simple things that seem too simple. If you’re struggling with modelling something, just try and reduce the complexity of the challenge. I’m reminded of someone who was stuck modelling a door the other day. He was trying to do model a door with debossed curved panelling and struggling. My advice was to simplify the door down, simplifiy the panels to rectangles or remove them entirely if he couldn’t do that. As above, the attempt is what’s valuable not whether you can do it. WIth enough patience and enough attempts you will be able to do it at some point. 

Not long after i first started once I’d got the basics of the tools I set out to model a pair of pliers. That’s a simple thing I thought. How wrong I was. I’ve now tried 4 or 5 times and still haven’t managed to do it properly. However each time I try I get a little bit closer. I learn a couple of new things and realise what to improve/change for my next attempt.

The world is competitive. There will always be someone who is better/faster/smarter. Try and block all that out and just focus on what you want to do and the progress you’re making.