Sketchbook: Timothy "a3sthesia" Eustace
polycounter lvl 10
There's nothing like a failed art test to knock you off your high horse, make you question your abilities, and send you on a road completely decimated by epiphany's.
It's been a tough month, so in the interest of clarity, I've broken this up into separate posts, so that it's easier for readers to decide what they do and don't want to know.
#1 - this post
#2 - Where I come from *WALL OF TEXT WARNING*
#3 - Why I'm posting to polycount
#4 - sketch booking (because I don't want to show any disrespect for the purpose of this forum)...
It's been a tough month, so in the interest of clarity, I've broken this up into separate posts, so that it's easier for readers to decide what they do and don't want to know.
#1 - this post
#2 - Where I come from *WALL OF TEXT WARNING*
#3 - Why I'm posting to polycount
#4 - sketch booking (because I don't want to show any disrespect for the purpose of this forum)...
Replies
When I was a kid, all I ever wanted to do was draw, and all I ever did, was draw, imagine and play with my voltron toys. I drew and painted, every opportunity I got, even if it meant ruining someone's wall or car. You could even say I started sculpting at a young age (if you count bashing everything with a stick - still including walls and cars).
Unfortunately, I had old fashioned parents, and we lived in an old fashioned country town, and being an artist was a sign of failure, and drawing was a form of procrastination. I still drew every chance I had, but I drew against a never ending feeling of guilt and rebelliousness.
By the time I was a teenager, I'd developed a "why bother" kind of attitude towards everything I drew, because with every drawing I started, it didn't matter how proud of myself I was, and no matter how happy I was drawing, I could never see the point in seeing it to the end, because no-one was going to congratulate me, and someone was just going to tell me that I needed to stop procrastinating and do something real. Even in high school where I was top of my class for architecture and drafting, I had a teacher who hung out with the surfer and football kids all class, and did nothing but yell at me all the time, ruining any enjoyment I had while drawing. And the art class where the teacher didn't recognise any art work that wasn't inspired by Salvador Dali.
When I finally escaped home, I disappeared off to silently study at University in hopes of becoming a graphic designer. I studied during the day, and worked jobs at night and on weekends. My homework suffered, but I powered on and on until the end, when I was overwhelmed with the feeling of 'why bother.' My feeling of failure was multiplied when our teacher spent a year telling us "I'm not going to bother teaching you all these new things people are getting into, because it's just a fad and it won't get you a job," only to find the job market flooded with places wanting you to know how to do all these new things.
Crushed, I returned to my pizza delivery jobs with the intention of giving up. Fortunately, I came across a design apprenticeship, which I promptly snapped up and got heavily into. Unfortunately, there was a lot of in-house arguing going on, and it frequently became an angry place to work. When one of the senior designers walked out, I took over her role and became lead project manager and lead designer. I took on apprentices of my own, and went on to manage other divisions within the company. The only flaw, was that this was a family business, and I was not family. All of my apprentices were the sons and daughters of the people who owned the company, and who were all in training to take over the business. So after a year of training up all of my apprentices, they were promoted, and I was out of work. I applied to work as a designer at other companies, but I didn't have the motivation to attend any interviews, because all I could think was 'why bother.'
I was barely 21 years old by this time, and I'd taken a job as a junior salesman for a video games retailer. I was pretty happy of course, because it meant that I was surrounded by one of my favourite hobbies (or other forms of procrastination, as my mother would say). After a few weeks of being "top salesman" in the company, I was promoted to "3rd in charge," and following this, I became assistant store manager. I was moved to other stores where I boosted sales, and after a few more successes, I became a store manager of my own stores. I was sought out by other companies, I was offered more money, and more money, and even more money, and I pretty much felt like I was at the height of my professional career.
Then at the end of 2005, early 2006, Microsoft put together a marketing team to help promote the Xbox 360 throughout Sydney Australia. I jumped at this opportunity and promptly quit my retail job in pursuit of becoming a marketer. The thought of revisiting some of my design and marketing roots was exciting. Less than a month into the job, Microsoft decided to update their strategy, and promptly cancelled the sales team, leaving me jobless. Desperate to pay the bills, I returned to retail management, and went on to my "successful career as a retail store manager."
Sometime around my 26th birthday, I woke up hyper-aware of the fact that I was still working in Retail, and that I was no longer an artist. I dabbled in the Unreal editor, or constantly played around in Photoshop, and I moonlighted as a professional photographer, but I really was not taking art seriously anymore. I drew the occasional picture, and made the occasional art work, but it had become nothing more than a hobby - or - form of procrastination.
It wasn't until I saw a trailer for Assassin's Creed during 2006, that it finally occurred how much I wanted to turn my hobbies back into a career. I promptly quit my job, took all my savings, moved into the heart of the city, and started a Masters degree in Design Science where I was going to revisit all of the fundamentals and learn some new and exciting fields along the way, especially, in 3D!
6 Months into the degree, the University cancelled the degree due to lack of numbers.
So I went back to retail...
THEN! I found a new degree, which I enrolled into immediately, and got right back on track towards becoming a 3D artist.
Then all the teachers quit mid semester....
I did NOT go back to retail. I discovered Google, and YouTube. ( I mean...for something other than looking up spelling and cat videos). I discovered Digital Tutors. I discovered devianrtArt, and I discovered Polycount.
So I powered through my degree, self taught, top of the class - and determined never to be set back again.
The day that I handed in my final assignment, I got a job working as a Runner for a post production house. It was only meant to be for a week, and I was determined to be the best runner they had ever had. It went from 1 week, to 2 weeks, then to a month, then 2 months, and then 3 months of work. It was great, and I loved every second. After my 3rd month, they had an opening in the 3D department. It was only a days work, but I was so excited for the opportunity, that I didn't care, and the best surprise was that it was working on the Ridley Scott film "Prometheus." Of course, that 1 day turned into 2 days. Then 3 days, then a week, then another week, and before long I had 2 months of post production experience under my belt. When the film was finished, there was no more work for anyone, so I became freelance, and after a few months of struggling to find any work, I met another freelance artist who without any hesitation, started handing me all of his modeling work. During this time I got to work on a lot of models for commercials and iphone/ipad games, and even had a small opportunity making models and textures for some promotional material for Trion Worlds "Defiance." Things were looking so great!
6 months later, the work stopped. Abruptly. I wasn't too worried at first, because my partner and I were willing to relocate for my career and I was hopeful that my experience would be enough to get me a job somewhere. SOMEWHERE.
--end wall of text--
So in my failure, I wondered if I was ever going to be cut out as an artist. I'm 32 years old, and I feel like I'm competing against people half my age, but multiples of my skill level.
I read a post on polycount once, that I need to surround myself with artists as passionate as me, and I can safely say that polycount has the kind of community that I wish I was a part of. Not as a lurker, or a poser, or a wannabe, but as a fellow artist and contributor. I just can't find anything like that here in Australia, and I feel like it's time I put my energy into being as great as the people I idolise here in polycount.
I read another article once that stated the importance of reward and positive re-enforcement, so I joined deviantArt. It's full of encouragement and positive reinforcement, but I don't want that anymore. I need real, brutal critique. I don't want to be told if I'm good anymore, I want to be told how I can be better. I've read countless articles preaching the necessity of self motivation, and I've remained stubborn in never asking for help or advice because I felt like if I couldn't work it out myself, I had no place being in this industry.
I read a polycount post the other day, that said to be honest - so this is me being honest.
I'm not as good as I want to be, and I don't want to give up. I feel like I'm running out of time because my fianc
Now to hunt down more recent work...
Here's what I made while doing a quick try out of alchemy (al.chemy.org).
Then a brief grade in Photoshop -
argh, can see so many problems already
Huge thank you to Josh Jay's references
this is only the ZBrush render
Inspired by this post - http://imgur.com/a/shQD8, I wanted to get back on track with my painting practice. I've been doing a lot of 3D modelling and film layout over the past few months, and was worried that I was neglecting my 2D.
I began with an outline sketch, then began sampling the colours directly from one of the photos, but didn't like how muddy it was getting, so I ended up just choosing some primary colours and mixing them as I went.
The piano, walls, floors and windows are all done using Adobe Photoshop's square brush with 10% spacing, Transfer:Flow Jitter:Pen Pressure, and smoothing enabled.
The branches use the same brush but all of the foliage was created using a standard circle brush for the foreground plants, and "lazy brushes" by deviant - tanathe found here. Tanathe also has a great tutorial on speed painting, which I highly recommend, even if just to glean some great techniques.
All that aside, I really like it. Your rocks are nice too - perhaps showing some wires and texture sheets will help people see how you've made them?
Dang. I wonder if I could blur it...? Nah, that's probably not the solution. I might have a look at a good solution later tonight. Thanks so much for bringing that to my attention. I was so proud of myself I completely overlooked that detail
For the rocks, I was actually thinking of revisiting them. I don't think I quite understood what I was doing when I first made them, so it'd be great to revisit them with new knowledge. I'll see if I have the old model in the mean time...
Thank you again!
It's good to have you here. Sounds like you have a hell of a lot of ambition. There's nothing like working up from the bottom, scrambling for a job, and, at times, failing. If you can handle all this, you're in a better place than a lot of us young guys with more artistic experience. I kinda wish I had experience like yours to look back on and draw from, but I'm just another one of the kids half your age at this point. In some ways, though, we're both in a similar situation. I'm realizing, like you, that before I can tackle the intricate stuff in my head, I need to learn fundamentals. I also struggle with not being able to express the atmosphere and feel I want, and sometimes I ask "why bother?" Props for coming out of that rut, and getting serious. I'll give you my rather inexperienced opinion on it, though. During the long haul of improvement, mastery, and your career, you'll have to find different motivations than being the best environment artist. Being the best, being in demand, and achieving a body of excellent work won't make you as happy as the anticipation of it might seem. In the end, you'll find the most joy in the process, and the people you meet and work with, not the success. You probably have a sense for this already.
Your textures are really painterly and smooth, even the realistic ones have a beautiful smooth gradient between the colors (like the browns and greens in the moss on the barrels.) They express detail, but they aren't to busy. Reminds me of dishonored. You might want to define the different planes of the barrel by adding some different aging stuff to the harder edges. Did you do the normals as well?
Also, Props for tackling such an intense photo with what looks like very little masking. Must have taken a while. That'll really help you when it comes time to render images. If I were you, I'd learn to get the same sort of crisp rendered effect more quickly using masks, though, just so you don't have to spend hours rendering edges that could be spent elsewhere. check out shaddy safaddi's painting tutorials if you haven't already.
Good luck to you!
-Andy
@Andy Wow! that is an extremely thoughtful and cool reply! How are you half my age?? You sound twice my age talking like that! You sound like a really smart person, and I hope that it helps you get through the "why bother" phases. Looking through Polycount certainly answers the "why bother?" question for me ^_^
I think what you say about finding something more than being 'the best' is something I might not have considered, or even taken the time to consider, so I'm glad you brought that to my attention. I am enjoying the process, and I am enjoying the people I've been meeting, so thank you again for making that point. I think I'd like to add that to my faved quotes if you don't mind?
Thanks for the feedback on the textures too. I did that so long ago now, I look at it and can pick so many wrong things that I did through out that process. I did the normals using nDo and vaguely remember some masking of some kind. I would definitely like to revisit that particular exercise, with what I've learnt since then.
and lastly...Masks! To think, I'd been using them so much previously, it didn't even occur to me to use them for that last image. As you say, that could have saved me some time. I suppose I was caught up in the practice and trying new techniques, instead of recognizing the usefulness of other techniques as well. I think I'll definitely use your suggestion, and use masks a bit more on my next project. Thanks for that advice too!
I quickly looked up Safadi's painting tutorials and found some on Layerpaint? They look great! thanks for that. I'm not sure I would have found it otherwise.
Seriously awesome, Andy. Thank you for your post. Hopefully I'll get to work with you in the future too ^_^
I'm glad what I wrote got you thinking. I'm just repeating what a lot of the older artists I know have told me. I'm actually 20, so not technically half your age, just on the younger side of the artist spectrum.
Glad you dig shaddy too. He's absolutely hilarious to listen to, easily the most fun digital painting tutorials out there. looking forward to more from you!