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

[Omar Domenech]

Most of the time it feels as if you’re fighting your biology, like you’re predisposed by your genes to procrastinate, some weird glitch in the brain that is running the wrong lines of code and some subroutine that is supposed to kick in, isn’t kicking in. Then at the end of the day your brain runs the “lets make you feel guilty for wasting so much time” code. And you’re like “oh thanks brain, why throughout the day didn’t you ran the “lets make good use of our time” code””

So you have to make a very conscious and hard effort to get into that headspace of “Alright, lets do some work!”, only to have it last for an instant before you’re browsing through some news website and looking at countless headlines and youtube at the channels you’re subscribed to. 

So for me, personally, is a balancing act, you have to make some sacrifices, because it feels as if modern life routines are highjacking your motivation.

I believe a big one is doing a mayor cut off the things that create those small dopamine dependencies that make you doze off into nothingness. Those are all inside the computer and cellphones, “social networks” youtube rabbit wholes, web surfing, reddit, etc. It is so much easier to sit in front of the computer to watch a tutorial when your day has been spent off of the chair elsewhere.

It is not being physically tired that gets you, is being mentally overwhelmed that is the problem. Tired muscles are nothing, keeping the mind sharp is the key I think. Out mental wit is what we work with in Art and most of the things these days suck your mind dry, they require mental awareness and before you know it, you deplete your days ration.  

Hacking you brain also works I think. There’s the simple act of just starting, just start, as simple as that, start. Turn on your computer and have CG Cookie as your default starting tab, make it a habit of the first thing you do is to open Blender, just have it open there, quickly start a tutorial in the background, open Artstation, etc. Another thing I like is holding in my head the feeling of a finished project, of how awesome it’ll turn out. It is a hard path from stat to finish but the thought of getting there is motivating.

[Jasmine Wongus]

Wow, such good insights, and I have little advice that differs. I started using Blender in 2005, because I wanted to do 3D and didn’t have money. Plus I wanted to show my classmates at university some cool things I could do! I got into tutorials and such, but a big habit I’ve gotten into since then, is trying to learn every facet at once. Never failed, and I ended up progressing so slowly from then, till even now, that I feel like I’ll never be a master at anything.

I sometimes hate liking so many things, because my discipline flies out the window! However, I like that I like many things because I can understand a good amount of the things I enjoy. So Blender, with all the modelling, lighting, rendering, sculpting, that iota of animating… I love playing with it, but can get tangled in the decision-making of focus. What thing shall I focus on now?

I also love to draw, but I’ve had to ease down on all the things that I work on, because I end up overwhelming myself, then envying those who have mastered so aspects of their work. Even when I have plenty of time, thinking too much really has gotten in the way of doing a lot.

I did make a “Sketchule” that a friend and mentor taught me. It was for concept art, but I could incorporate whatever practice I wanted, plus free days of fun. That might be a good idea, too! So, I’d practice on character, figure drawing for humans or animals, environment, objects, composition, colour, etc. I’d break this practice down into different days and durations. While I was really disciplined, this helped a great deal!

Now, when big things happen, whether good or bad (in which both happened and shattered my world in different ways), I won’t lie, it was really hard to climb back up and have the energy to do anything. But I’ve started again, and I feel like I’m new at Blender again, and everything else I enjoy. But I like the climb! I’m enjoying it this time, and I’m unsure why. 🙂

[killer-wolf]

i don’t keep up the pace. 3D is just one of my interests, i  don’t have the luxry of working a 4 day week or less so things get left  to gather dust. still haven’t been able to make a start on my spider  animation, have left a plane in mid-build and several other projects  haven’t even been started, on the 3D side. on the art side, i have about  8 pictures thumbnailed and on the writing side my novel is being worked  on now, and i’m plotting another couple of screenplays.

not enough hours in the day or days in the week.

[Thibaut Bourbon]

@sweenist many thanks for sharing, I can relate to most of what you describe indeed. What currently helps me is to accept that what I’m producing right now will not be perfect but I must be done with it regardless its quality. That way I believe I will avoid fine tuning over and over the model.
Then I can move on to a new project which hopefully be 1% better than the previous one. That’s what I understood was a good way to progress, but the theory to application gap is pretty large !

Do you write your goals down? When you are not motivated so much, is there something small you can do?

I have my own goals but not written, maybe it could a source of motivation to see them written black on white, good point!

Thanks again for sharing, and good luck to you too!

[Thibaut Bourbon]

I believe a big one is doing a mayor cut off the things that create those small dopamine dependencies that make you doze off into nothingness. Those are all inside the computer and cellphones, “social networks” youtube rabbit wholes, web surfing, reddit, etc. It is so much easier to sit in front of the computer to watch a tutorial when your day has been spent off of the chair elsewhere.

I think Simon Sinek describes it super well, check it out if not already done 🙂 I disconnected for social networks a while ago and it’s crazy how tempting it gets anytime. There’s peak and plateau as well, moments when you just want to space out on youtube… Good tips and habits you describe, just updated my default starting tab 😀 Thanks!

[Arthur Shapiro]

The greatest obstacle on my way of learning, developing, producing really good things in CG – as well as keeping the pace – is “Launch Fallout 4” logo on my desktop.

[khemara]

Hey, it may be different from other members of the community but whats driving me is really my standards and dreams,s.

Im currently a media design student, that said, i prob have more time than ppl having to work in their jobs. But since it is really my passion, i want to be an expert in every aspect. What i think most people don’t realize is: Success isn’t a straight line. Once you commit to succeed the line gets all shaky. 

I really searched a long time for a thing in my life which really sets my soul on fire.

Its CG, its creating worlds and influencing peoples emotion with it.

That said, i did realize that i really started to hate going to sleep. I sleep for 6 hours. Wake up in excitement and go on improving skills on this website. Seeking answers, asking questions, researching information on other websites. Trying to fix problems on my own.

After i get back from university around 5 PM, i Review the stuff i learned from university, then i just open blender and start working. I realized that i at least spend 3 hours learning and improving my skills. EVERYDAY. On the weekends i wake up early just to work on blender, reviewing the things i learned the days before, maybe rewatching videos if i don’t remember something. On weekends i just split my time in two 3-Hours session. One in the morning and one in the evening. 

Dosent sound very healthy since my sleep schedule is messed up right? But i can see my progress and feel better everyday. I realized once i get started, which is the hardest thing for many ppl, it just takes over. I forget the time and have fun. 

All in All its a combination of dreaming, and working towards it with everything i have, and accepting the fact that it isn’t easy. On some days i don’t feel like it too but u just have to start.

Also im not someone who is sitting all day in my room as u may think, i am able to keep my social contacts going and have a loving girlfriend in a happy relationship.

Time Management and sacrifice is a part of it.

[Gabriel Garcia]

It inspires me how thorough schedules some of you here have, currently I’m learning Blender and I’m almost done with the fundamentals learning flow (I love the learning flows btw, they’re great for when you need guidence) so far it’s been about about a month since I’ve started CGC and I’ve been doing generally about 3-5 hours a day, what really slowed down my progress was that I would take through notes of each lesson, but I found myself growing tired of doing that and instead have just decided to do many small projects that incorporate what I’ve learned so they settle in my mind better. I also generally tend to put alot of time into the exercises because I generally enjoy them and like to put my own spin on them as well. I’m hoping to get into CG professionally and CGC is defintely a nice stepping stone to getting there.

[Fletcher Li]

I have a normal job in security (I work 3rd shift, 11 pm-7 am). I have been learning 3D for about close to a month now so (obviously) I am very new and green lol. I am in a somewhat difficult life situation right now because of trying to fit in life responsibilities, family time, and personal learning. (No kids yet, just a wife.)

I get home around 7:30 AM and i get started on my courses whether its here or from Udemy. I learn and do as much as I can until 11:30 AM where I put up shop and go to bed. I then get up around between 3:30 and 4 PM, get myself situated to go to my mother’s house for dinner and time with my wife. To explain, right now my wife lives at my mother’s house because they work the same hours and same shift and my wife doesn’t drive so my mom is her only transportation. The only time she gets to live in our apartment is on her days off.) So after dinner I spend much needed and limited quality time with my wife before I get back home hopefully before 8-9ish PM where I take either a power nap or get household (as much as I can) before I leave for work, about 10:20 PM before the cycle starts all over again.

On my personal days off (my days off and my wife’s days off don’t sync up) I like to keep to my schedule so I stay up the time when I’d normally work and I crack open blender + Udemy or Youtube and learn as much as I can. So I pretty much start my Blender kick from 10:30 PM is to 11:30 AM with pizza roll and Game Grumps breaks in between to keep myself motivated.

 I realize my time management needs improvement but there are a lot of personal history with me, myself and my discipline to persist and finish what I start. Recently I have become fed up with myself and I really want to finally do what I’ve always have put off and said “tomorrow” for the past 5 years. So right now I’m on a a educational sprint to learn and improve as much as possible but man am I really starting to feel the candle burn at both ends. I know I’m at risk of total burnout but I’m tired of my job, I’m tired of not achieving my dreams, I’m tired of putting things off, and I’m tired of not getting good. It’s just really hard for me to put the wacom pen down whih I suppose is a good and (really) bad thing? I’m just afraid of slipping back into my old ways. I’ve spent the last month on Udemy+Youtube(Blender Guru) so my CG cookie stats and progress is on the leaner side but I hope to change that.

I’m so sorry for spilling my guts out to you guys, I know you guys didn’t sign up to hear my life story so again, sorry guys..but thanks for hearing out my story if you stuck with me this far. I guess telling someone my story makes me feel better, a little more hopeful motivation that someone out there knows whats going on.

[duketogo]

Why I chose cgcookie was mainly Blender course.

Not many choices when I wanted to learn 3D software. 

I wanted to develop games and create animation on my own, and had little fund for living and not much for industry standard software. So I wanted legally cheap or free software.

With searching, I realized Substance painter and Blender could do professional jobs enough for me. Substance bundle is less than $200 when it’s on sale.

Another problem was difficulty of learning Blender. It seemed less artistic and more mechanical than others. I learned Unity Editor and C# for few months, Blender was still hard to understand.

However, after watching Andrew Price’s video and some cgcookie tutorials, I feel comfort to learn. (Funny point is Andrew have his own site and recommended cgcookie. Blenderguru is also awesome, but It doesn’t offer all fundamental things)

So I started membership, decided to be a 3D artist, bought display tablet.

So, $1000 for getting started(substance + membership + tablet)

It’s less than half of 1 year subscription for Autodesk things.

I believe that dedicated artist on this site can surely succeed.

I’m starting to wonder if our “buffet” approach to offering training is more negative than positive.

Buffet style is fine for me. Just doing beginners course by force is maybe boring and offer poor vision for result. If I want lip sync, I look over it first. If I’m not ready to do that, I’ll go more fundamental. Motivation initiates like that.

Maybe it could help if community members share his or her own progress on courses. I would share it and it’s what community is about.

Showing some statistic data will help people feel overwhelmed. Though I don’t need it and I just do what I want 😀

[Heather Peterson]

I’m starting to wonder if our “buffet” approach to offering training is more negative than positive. A huge collection of courses can be distracting and overwhelming, as you imply. It makes me think that reformatting course offerings into guided learning flows is best. I.e. Learning Flows on steroids.

Do you think that could help keep you on pace and motivated?

I definitely fall into the “hobbyist” category. I have no plans to be a professional 3D artist; I’ve done the pro designer thing as a theatre set designer (why I wanted to learn 3D in the first place — soooo much easier to visualize that way) and a freelance graphic & web designer. It was a ton of fun, and I still play in that sandbox, but it’s cured me of any need to insert myself into a full design pipeline. I like working quietly out of my own studio around my family’s schedule. Most film or game dev jobs don’t allow for the flexibility my life requires. 

That said, I still like learning new things and have found digital art to be a great way to visualize my “real world” projects — not to mention more easily explain them to others. (It’s also a whole lot easier to clean up after than a full paint easel or maquette build.) I’m also a “grazer”, so I don’t actually find the “buffet” style to be a problem. But, then, I tend to digest one thing at a time and come back for something else later, once I’ve satisfied my current needs. Consequently, I work on stuff here on CGC in fits and starts, “as the spirit moves”, so to speak, but always with a goal of learning something specific pertaining to an off-site, unrelated project I’m working on. Once I’ve found what I was looking for, I go back to that original project. So, you could say I use CGC as a sort of library, rather than a college.

Thus, I find the Learning Flows as they stand really helpful. Most of them are concise enough I can scan down, find what I need, and implement it in fairly short order. When I have the time, I go through the lessons in sequence. I don’t always complete the exercises, because I’m extrapolating and applying what I learned or refreshed to an off-site project, but when I know I have a good block of time, I go through the videos and resources. (Christmas vacation for the next 2 week! Woohoo!) 

I, for one, though, would like some of the Learning Flows to be fuller — or at least to point to “where to go next” in a more sequential or even a branching fashion. I’m methodical (and somewhat completionist) in my approach, which means I ultimately go through even the most basic courses in sequence, even if I’m already very well familiar with and practised in the techniques they cover (e.g. a lot of the concept art traditional art techniques and colour theory stuff), before I go on to the intermediate or advanced courses that are closer to what I’m actually looking for or the level I’m actually working at. And sometimes, I pick up a technique on CGC that I research elsewhere for a fuller or deeper dive into the subject, if I haven’t grasped it well here. 

(E.g. I’ve recently been poking around the Unity flow, but find that jgonzalez can sometimes speak too fast for me to easily follow… and I get impatient when I have to rewind and listen too many times just to sort out what’s being said. So, I go back to the Unity site and poke at their tutorials for a while, before I come back to CGC and pick up where I left off.)

TL;DR:

Basically, I like the “buffet”, but I’d love to see some fuller, deeper Learning Flows, too, to improvethe somewhat hit-and-miss coverage of topics.

[Daniel Marti]

Hi Kent,

I have been taking your courses since a year and a half now. I feel at the very beginning the big offer of courses was a little bit overwhelming but by the other hand I decided to become a citizen because there was a lot of courses. When you are paying, you want to take advantage of your money, so the big variety of courses from the selling point of view I think is attractive.

Once I started to take classes, I was totally a newbie in Blender and Unity, I didn’t really know what to do, the offer is big and confusing, so I was taking all kind of classes, from modeling to sculpting, and I didn’t really know how to use what I was learning, so I discovered the Learning Flows, and that was really helpful because organizes the classes and gives you a goal. So you know what you will learn.

As a conclusion I would say, for a beginner the flows are great, it’s probably the best way to go, for more advanced users, when you exactly know what you want to learn, the single classes are better. So maybe you guys only need to communicate that in a clearer way, so when you get to the site you know which your options are. 

And to make everything a little bit more complicated, hehehe, I would like to suggest even a new format of course. I realized I often don’t have enough time to take a full course, but I do have time to take 10-15 min classes, it would be great to have really short classes explaining for example how to sculpt a nose, eyes, etc. not in detail obviously, but to have a good foundation. And then those short classes can be a part of a flow, for example anatomy.

Hope it helps 🙂

[Jonas Grund]

I like your spirit but keep in mind that you need at least 6 hours of sleep a day.

And if you don´t take breaks regulary you will start to lack efficiency in your work. As a human being we can only concentrate 100% for 45 min. After that we need a 5 min break to refresh our brain. The longer we work a day the longer the breaks should get.

So keep in mind to refresh your energy and take a day off. The sunday is there for a reason 😉 

[Jonas Grund]

Hi Kent,

I am new to CG Cookie since a month and I have to say, I am really in love with this. I don´t have a problem with the buffet of tutorials. It gives me the freedom of choosing what I want.

But I would appreciate more learning flows as additional option. Some structure for newbies isn´t bad at all.

I guess the major problem with people loosing the motivation is not your structure of the side. Moreover it is their organization talent and mindset. We all get overwhelmed by the demands of our daily life. Sparing some extra time for self development can be too streßfull in long term. It is not their lack of motivation that makes them loose track. It is their lack of knowledge how to organize and/or schedule themselves. Because all good will is meaningless if you don´t have the tools to make it.

So how about you and your team try to give your students this tools of selforganization. Help them to relocate their mindset and priorities. Maybe by an well writen article, by introducing the people to your daily routine and organization methods or even by a own tutorial. 
We as artists have one of the most demanding and stressfull work. If we don´t master ourselves and our work we going to work incorrect, loose motivation and loose track of other important part of our lives such as family, relationships and time for ourselves. But these are essential to deliver quality continuous.

I personally use the time around christmas and new year to reorganize myself and my priorities. I try to establish a schedule for tutorials, studies and exercises so that it correlates with the demands of my daily life. It is a time consuming work to get your own priorities and values straight. But it´s worth it.

[Jonas Grund]

So – As mentioned before I am currently working on my selforganization and I´ve done some research for that. So let me share with you the method that I found myself useful:

• Get your values and priorities straight. Define what you want to achieve and what you want to learn. Write it down. Get from general to more specific. Do that for all areas in your life: “I will learn blender” (specific: “I will improve in modelling.” “I will become a master with color and lightning.”), “I will take care of my relationships” (specific: “I will spare some time of the week for my wife…”)  …
  Once you know exactly what´s important to you, you will have an overview of your tasks that are important to you and you will stay true to them. Take your time with that and really find out, what´s important to you and what really matters.
• Prioritize and sort your tasks. There´s this method. It sorts the tasks we have to accomplish in a matrix of four sectors categorized by “urgent” and “important”.
  “important” means all the stuff which has value for yourself. Like investing time in your skills, spending quality time with your family or doing some exercises.
  “urgent” contains all task which the daily life is demanding from you. Things that need to be done as an adult 🙂
  
  – The first sector is Important and Urgent. This is the place where all your running deadlines which are coming closer belong. Thing´s that need to be done! And quick! This sector is the most streßfull and many people overload it. They are doing crisis management and are stumbling from one streßfull project into another catastrophy. Don´t overload this sector and plan in advance.
  – The second sector is “not important but urgent“. This one contains all the task we need to get done but are not important to our life goals and values like going to the doctor, answering urgent mails and paying the bills. Try not to spend too much time there.

  – The third sector is “important but not urgent“. This is where CG Cookie belongs and all that stuff that will pay of long term if you invest in it. These are your heart projects and your skill development.

  – The last sector is “not important and not urgent“. Put all the unnecessary daily tasks in there. Don´t waste your time with them and throw them away if needed.

  I set the goal to spend at least 1/3 of my time in the third sector “important but not urgent” to develop my skills and spend time with my family and friends. I really need to discipline myself not to waste time with the sectors two and four.

• Make a weekly schedule. Plan your time on a weekly basis and set a specific date to think about your week. A weekly schedule has his advantages. I take my time to relax and do stuff for myself on a Sunday. This is the time where I get inspiration and look at some art magazines and other artists. I need to work in a supermarket during the week. So I have created a schedule to get a small amount of exercises and tutorials done each day.
  You can and have to adjust your weekly schedule on a daily basis.
• Do the unpleasent and biggest tasks first. We all have limited energy throughout the day. At the start of our work day we have the greatest concentration so attack the hardest work at that moment. Don´t waste your time and energy with answering mails or doing phone calls.
• Treat yourself. Doing creative work is a lonely job. If you don´t treat yourself and take breaks, you will loose motivation and your passion.

So. This is the stuff I have worked on the last days. Maybe you find it useful. If you want to dive in deeper, you can read “The 7 ways of highly effective people” by Stephen R. Covey. It is a bit idealistic and too philosophical sometimes but the essence seems pretty handy to me right now 😉

[Author]

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