Balancing learning new stuff with doing portfolio work

3DAndy

Hi there right now still learning to be a 3D artist so I am balancing learning new techniques from tutorials and various other learning materials then applying it to my own work. I'm getting stuff done but also still trying to get better with other things and trying to to learn stuff that I don't know. I'm unemployed which is a bad thing but at the same time a good thing because I get to put a lot of work in to my art. My question is for any one in my position or someone who had been in my position, How did you balance this? For me I split this in two weeks, one week learning one week doing nothing but portfolio. Reading the 'It seems to be impossible to find a job as a Modeler in this industry' someone posted it should take a month to get work done for someone in my position so I also wanted to know if when working on portfolio do you stop everything else and just work on that?

Any advice is welcomed and thanks for taking time to read this.

gsokol

In just about every portfolio environment I've ever worked on there is at least one new technique that I've never done before. I usually balance learning new stuff by incorporating it into an environment that I want to do.

it should take a month to get work done for someone in my position

I'm not sure what part you are quoting from that thread...and frankly...I'm probably not going to look in that thread. But are you referring to how long it should take to do a portfolio piece? There is no right amount of time to get work done. You can do a portfolio piece in 3 days...or you can do it in 3 months. Its very subjective.

JonathanLambert

I've been focusing on making portfolio pieces and I stop to learn whenever I run into a problem that I don't know how to solve. For example, I am working on a scene that has foliage and I had stop and watch some tutorials, because I couldn't get it to work right until I learned about editing normals.