Reply To: Your CG routine – how do you keep up the pace ?

[Ryan Sweeney]

Hi Thibaut,

I have experienced and still experience your pain. I was deeply engrossed in CG as a hobby a couple years ago. In fact, my engagement in CG has peaks and steep valley plateaus where I won’t touch Blender for months at a time. I have a 40 hour a week job and three school aged children. 

Here is what I noticed personally: I will start learning something specific. Like modeling, for instance. In the course of modeling, I want to delve into some other discipline, like texture painting, or sculpting. I think, because I expend so much engagement in modeling, when I go into something else, it feels overwhelming. After all, I just came out of developing muscle memory for all the keyboard shortcuts. But when I expand into another area, I just quit. 

But then, I pick it up again, because it is fun to create things. So I wake up early in the morning and I have some “things” that I want to make. So I get back into using Blender. I hone different skills to reasonable competency and then I get trapped in this weird space. With my limited amount of time to develop these skills, I also find I’m engaging with the CGC community or digging into a new tutorial that comes out.

Now I’m back after about an 18 month hiatus. I want to make a game and I am doing it presently using Blender and Blend4Web. I create. Then I realize, I don’t really texture paint things so good. I have to learn that. So it has been a balancing act of working on my project and yet, learning something new. And when you lean on tutorials, there is a comfort in the tutorials and it’s hard to escape. It gets better as you gain competency.

So what I need to do is time blocks. I evaluate on a daily basis. I have the mornings and the evenings after the kids are in bed. I will use those bookends of the day to either plow forward on my game or engage in an exercise. I can certainly stand to do this better as I fall to the temptation of catching up to @theluthier on the CGC Leaderboard… (shakes fist vehemently)

Do you write your goals down? When you are not motivated so much, is there something small you can do? Often, when you start doing something despite not feeling motivated, you’ll find the drive to keep going with it. Try to get away from doing tutorials if you can. I know, it’s so tempting. I see all sorts on BlenderNation via my twitter feed that are enticing.

Sorry for the ramble. I feel like something in my experience for the last 7 years as a hobbyist with a full time job is not uncommon to other folks out here. And, I just don’t know how to “fix” it. There is probably not a magic solution. It will take self-discipline and just pushing for your goals. It ain’t pretty. 

I’m rooting for you!