Art is not for the weak

A couple of years ago I gave up everything to pursue a deep seated desire that I felt had to be abandoned decades ago. Creating art with 3d software was the only thing I could imagine doing for the rest of my life. Then came a family, responsibilities and immediate decisions on how to take care of them. I took advice from others and began a career in a field that paid the bills and little else. It sucked.

There are two sayings that I despise. The first one is 'it's better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all'. What a witches kettle full of boiling shit. Pain is never 'better'. But that's an opinion and can be dismissed but having had it and lost it twice I at least can provide an educated opinion.

The second saying is 'ignorance is bliss'. More of the same boiling kettle contents except this time it is on fire. Ignorance can cost you everything if you are unable to understand the importance of what you can lose. My ignorance kept me from pursuing a career in a field that catered to art or design. It has caused me more loss and more problems than knowledge by orders of magnitude akin to the space between atoms. Ignorance is a disease as far as I am concerned but its at least a curable one if given the right vaccine.

So, here I am 25 years after knowing what I wanted to do and being advised otherwise, trying to grab that tenuous rope to get back pursuing my dream. I love the work so far but there are always obstacles that have to be traversed as there are in every venture. First is the almighty of them all, time. Namely in trying to find enough of it to put towards building the skills necessary to be good at your chosen craft. And you need plenty of it because of the myriad of softwares necessary to be able to earn a living at this stuff.

Second is competition. Every kid and graphic artist out there has taken up the 3d mantle to some degree. The hard part is setting yourself apart from the noisy background that surrounds the digital art fields like cosmic radiation surrounds our visible universe (if that is an incorrect analogy I can live with it). You have to shine bright and make yourself visible to the right people to get noticed.

Third on the list is range of skill. Being a good artists doesn't mean enough in the digital arts. You have to be a good technician in order to wield the digital tools with enough proficiency to be successful against the competition. The majority of the tools available for creating digital art often requires a steep learning curve. Once you get past the curve of learning the tools you have only gotten past the basics. Now you are ready for the advanced learning curve.

Fourth, the industries have begun to take advantage of the vast numbers of artists out there. If you are freelancing be prepared to have more problems them not. So far I have worked on five project in the last year with only one of them actually paying out or even finishing. For anyone trying to get into the business you need years of experience to even be considered as well as AAA content in your portfolio to get into a junior art position. Then there is starting your own studio. Welcome to Hell.

Of course, none of this is unique to anyone pursuing nearly any vocation. This problem, the fifth, is that an artist (obviously not everyone) is generally less technical than artistic. I can create 2d and 3d art all day then go out to the garage to diagnose a problem with my car or rebuild the motor. But now, as an artist, we are frequently expected to design the car, build it and write the code needed to make it all work together. Then we have to create the marketing campaign to promote it before we begin selling it to potential buyers. Oh, and be the mechanic that fixes it when things go wrong.

F I N E. I have begun to do this (except the coding part because my grey matter would leak from my skull like urine from a 3 month old baby's bladder). But, the last, and certainly not the least, of the problems is marketing. Here lies my ultimate pain because I truly fail to grasp this well enough to do it successfully and make money. This is my next big obstacle that I hope will not lead to the same destructive power as writing code. My ego couldn't handle being ignorant and living in a vegetative state at the same time. That would be unpleasant.

Holy shit, did you read all of that? Impressive staying power. Since you were self-destructive enough to read this far how about some personal artwork? \o/

Here is one of several weapons designed and modeled for a cg tv show in pre-production that was eventually abandoned by the project lead before I could get paid. It still needs work on the textures but the model is final.