How much of your success do you attribute to talent?
polycounter lvl 14
Thread title says it all.
Really curious to hear what the artists of polycount have to say about that
Really curious to hear what the artists of polycount have to say about that
Replies
I attribute it to "hard" work and interest in the subject.
Some people are really good at working on cars, doing quantum mechanics, or being ballerinas. Some people have a natural aptitude for those things, but they never actually get good at them. What separates the people who are actually good at those things from the people who have natural aptitude but aren't actually good is hard work.
So, to answer the question: 100% of any and all of my successes have come from hard work.
Two Guys on Your Head: Praise
People who believe in talent hit a ceiling and give up, people who believe in skill keep on truckin!
both my parents are traditional artists and it would be very arrogant of me to take all credit myself. from a young age i been able to draw, recognize shapes better and use color better than most of my friends in school without any training or coaching from anyone, not even my parents. it just came naturally. so thanks to them for the head start.
Finding out where the Chinese keep their Gnomon videos online without understanding Shanghainese, Cantonese, Mandarin, etc.
But I got busted by one site...
"谁是这个聪明的家伙从我们的服务器浸出和看理查德·威廉姆斯动画的生存工具包的视频"
Got IP locked soon after.
As for myself, I've always considered myself to be pretty smart and pretty good with art, but it wasn't until I found true skilled people that I realized that I'm probably not as smart as I think nor am I somehow better at art than others.
At a game-development studio, I usually feel dwarfed by the skill of others. Which is a really humbling and a little bit of a scary experience.
These days I've come to think of myself as average but with a fierce determination and discipline and most of my success comes from hard work and a little bit of luck.
Now if such comment comes from a layperson I'd say let it slide. But from one artist to another I would find it quite disrespectful. Or maybe, ignorant and naive.
Now of course the nature/nurture question is never quite clear cut. But I honestly don't think there is any genetic trait dealing with how to break down and distribute a value palette between 1 to 10, or another one dealing with how to construct an accurate curvilinear perspective template
I don't believe in natural talent, however I do believe that people have a better aptitude to develop in certain areas faster/more successfully than others (either due to genetics or upbringing). You can learn anything you want, but for some people it might take a year and others a lifetime.
(Edit: pretty much what Chris said
It's nothing to really brag about it s just how is your brain build. What is worth also pointg out, is that bain is like clay. You can shape it with enough hard to work, to make it work how you want.
The difference is that some people start with base mesh and some with sphere (;.
Well what I said was basically what the others said before me sooo what we can determine from this is that most of us feel the same way about talent xD
I would say my "success" (if it can even be called that..? What defines success?) would be 60% hard ass work and 40% networking. Not to say that I don't bust my ass off most of the time, but I'm trying to emphasize how important networking and building relationships is.
As for talent. Fuck all to that, at least for me. I had no artists in the family or even extended family, and only really tried drawing halfway through my first year of college. It's been nothing but an uphill battle I'm still struggling with, and anyone that tries to attribute my ability to "draw" as natural talent is sorely misinformed and basing that on pure assumption.
Anyway, boobs!
But, regardless of a persons aptitude for such things there always reaches a point where they will plateau and the only way to make any gains is to work hard and keep working hard. The truly successful people are always the ones who work hard and keep trying, regardless of whether they INITIALLY found it "easy" or not.
Music is probably the biggest place where you can see these examples. Guitarists like Slash, or Stevie Ray Vaughn are fantastic guitarists, capable of creating immense pieces of music. However they're both eclipsed in technical ability by guitarists like Steve Vai who admits that he's always struggled and that he practiced 8 hours a day every day for years over a multitude of techniques and styles to get where he is.
The same applies to art... there are many artists who join these forums, who have some "talent" and are pretty good to begin with, but they never get any better after a certain point and give up and we never hear from them again. Interestingly this seems to be linked to another thread we've seen here recently about unwanted feedback... Quite often "talented" people are only interested in praise, and don't want feedback unless it's positive reinforcement. The people who stick around, and welcome critique are the ones who also work hard and don't stop working.
/endramble.
"Oh I wish I was born with pro art skills like that", "I'll never be good at art, I wasn't born talented like them" One stab after another is how it feels to me, but then my personal experiences are my own and naturally different to others so I could just be overly defensive about this specific topic haha.
Sure I'll admit tho some peeps are quicker than others or grasp problem solving better but that doesn't equate to instant awesome art skills.
Do skills = success? If by success you mean well payed, high ranking position and or of leadership, then being good at art alone is not enough. There's a whole barrel of communication skills needed for any kind of team interaction and leadership potentiality.
I would say almost every job I've ever had has been due to the fact that I happened to know the right person at the time.
Don't overlook networking, its vital to a successful career. But I still think no matter the amount of people that you know, hard work is a necessity.
Blood, sweat, tears, and beers (aka hard work & networking).
As for what everyone else seems to be taking this as-I have a light dusting of art skill and everything else is an obsession with working hard and being better. I do believe it's genetic somewhat too-any creativity I have is from my mom (she was a writer for awhile and has that...aloof creative brain thing I've seen sometimes).My dad is an engineer and the least observant person in the world. So I've been trying to refine and shape up my genetic deck since I was 14 lol.
I think we tend to gravitate towards things in life that we enjoy and are good at -
Its human nature surely?
I put my so called skills down to about 51 percent talent and 49 percent hard work,
some people may have 70 percent talent and work damn hard on top of that. they are ultimately the ones who succeed more.
Maybe also they have great interpersonal skills and great organizational skills too
I find concepting next to impossible, but enjoy texturing and sometimes sculpting. I just figure my brain is wired a certain way which forces me down certain avenues.
Imagine I was determined to be the next great maths genius, but I am lousy with maths,it just would not make sense to pursue that as a career.
+1 to this, that annoys me as well, people banging on about how others are just more lucky - it has nothing to do with luck, just a case of investing a lot of time in your craft. You reap what you sow.
Although I still have very little talent (and only a modicum of success) :P
what's that quote?
"Amateurs need inspiration, the rest of us just get to work".
you can disagree all you like but creativity never entered into the hard work the hard work was getting to know understand and sync with the technical systems, replicating a sword, or gun or level from concept or RL isn't being especially creative, I think most people are creative they just filter out their own ideas as nonsense or give up after the first iteration.
nearly everything I do creatively starts off with a thick layer of crap and getting through that crap faster towards something less crap, then eventually good is where the hard work pays off, creativity to me is just another aspect of hard work, a willingness to shovel shit.
I sincerely believe most people will make excuses for themselves and even create these mystical systems to absolve themselves of responsibility of failure because they simply didn't try hard enough, or their Ego couldn't take that they would suck in the beginning.
some people just cant stay focused long enough or stay determined no matter what the circumstances are.
i see the ability to work hard as a talent or a natural ability as well.
i think it is more of an ego issue when you deny all science and genetics and just think you are that awesome by your own will power to hard work.
just be honest to yourself, be humble with what you were born with and put it to hard work on top of that. if you dont work hard then it doesnt matter what you were born with.
talent + hard work = success
no talent + extra hard work = success
talent + no hard work = failure
you still have to work hard to use your talent but there is no shame in accepting what you were born with. it is what it is.
But that was only after doing a lot of research and learning from my mistakes.
This is from a song but reflects a decent breakdown of the stats for success.
Pain is not necessarily a bad thing either... pain is following through with stuff.
Luck plays a good bit too. Just happen to be at the right moment at the right time.
5% pleasure yeah that completion goal is tiny compared to all the pain and concentration that went in a project, but that 5% is really valuable also weirdly enough it keeps me going.
I think it more humble to accept that I am not naturally superior to others, and must work diligently to improve. I'm not sure how this perspective is ignorant of science. I don't think geneticists have identified the "make art" gene yet.
Anecdotally, I grew up being told that I was talented. Friends, family, teachers, always told me how "creative" I was, or how I was "gifted" with drawing. Over time, I began to realize the only difference between them and I was the amount of time I actually spent drawing. An hour or two a day for my entire life meant that by the time I was ten I had already spent thousands of hours drawing. The people praising my talent thought I was just born that way, but the reality is that the first drawing I ever made was likely just as bad as their first. I just kept doing it.
When questioned about it, the people who claim that they can only draw stick figures always admit that they've never actually taken the time to try to do better. Their stick figure drawings rarely take more than ten to fifteen seconds, and rarely have they ever spent more than ten minutes on a single drawing.
Additionally, isn't it not a more useful and encouraging viewpoint. Your equations put it quite clearly: no success without hard work. Doesn't matter if you're talented or not. So I choose to omit talent from the equation all together.
hard work = success
no hard work = failure
Generally speaking yes, but I agree with Robeomega to a degree because the flipside is people who have zero natural talent, and who just can't get there even though they struggle and try. Most of you are 3d artists, which tends to be more forgiving in terms of talent because a lot of the work is about knowing procedure rather than about creating from thin air. In the 2d world talent and the lack thereof really shines through a lot clearer. You can see some artists who are just immaculate. They have "something" which just sets their work apart; a little bit of motion, the right posture, some form just right, or colors that are just so. Then you see others who have worked for years as well, but they just don't have it. Others have been at it for decades and they're as stale as the day they started.
I remember 10 years ago or so when conceptart.org was getting big the Daily Sketch Group was underway, and the sketchbook concept was catching on and there were a few users who did studies and DSGs and worked their nuts off for the 4 years I was there and they stayed flat out terrible. Other guys did studies for a year and exploded from kindergarden to pro level. It's not the even playing field a lot of people here seem to believe in. Talent does factor in.
It's no excuse for being lazy of course, that won't get you anywhere.
Yes, and there are more genetically superior people than me and you who posted in this very thread. It doesnt bother me, why should it bother you ?
there is no "art gene" and that is never what i said. art like any other mental activity requires COGNITIVE skills. some people are just born with better cognitive abilities than other. simply put, some people are born smarter than other.
Like i said, I am being brutally honest about it and not trying to be a motivational speaker here and tell everyone that you are all born equal. that is utter bull shit.
MM, I hope I did not come off the wrong way, I certainly meant no malice in my response to your post.
Now we can dance around the topic of nature vs nurture endlessly. That debate has been raging for much longer than I have been around, and will likely continue well after I'm dead and gone. At the end of the day the only thing that I am interested in is improving my skills to the best of my ability. For me to accept the idea that I lack some genetic gift that others posses, is to accept that no matter how hard I work, I will never be as good as those I look up to. It bothers me because it is something that is completely out of my control.
Now, lets say that I just ignore that whole concept. The only thing standing between me and my goal is myself. That is so much more empowering. No room for excuses. Nothing and no one else to blame. Either I put the time in, or I fail.
Maybe you're right, maybe, no matter how hard I work, I will never be as great as the masters. But at the very least, if I pretend that I can get there, I will continue to work to achieve that goal. Maybe I wont make it, but at least I tried, and at least I didn't let something that is out of my control stop me from getting there.
when did i say anything like that ? you came here with a misconception about my opinion and did not bother to read carefully what i wrote. either that or my english is worse than i thought it was LOL.
i never said some people are born with a limit. i said some people are born with an advantage. there is a difference, try to understand what i am saying here.
there is no limit to one's capability with the proper amount of hard work.
that does not mean you can also deny the head start you got from nature.
25% skill, 25% hard work, 25% networking and 25% right place right time
I feel like all of these things have factored in equally to my "success". In different quantities for different things. I'm not super skilled or hard working so I must be making up a lot of the rest elsewhere.
In terms of job success it's been more like 50/25/25 for networking, skill and hard work. For Dota 2 workshop success, which is what I've been doing for a while now, it was like 25/50/25 for networking, skill and luck. I knew someone who was involved with early behind the scenes Dota 2 workshop stuff that wanted to get me into it and then I did pretty soon after it opened up. At the time I was more skilled than most of the other people working at it and had a good early run. That's definitely not the case now though and I am certainly not as skilled or hard working as most others currently having success.
I don't really consider myself an artist. It's my job title, but in my mind I'm not an artist at all. What I do is more of a craft, a specific skill that I've developed over years and years of hard work and dedication to wanting to be a "master craftsman." I don't think the "success" that I've experienced has anything to do with a genetic make up, or some kind of natural ability..if anything it's just the result of a genuine love, passion, and obsessive interest in the industry and the job that I do. While, obviously, that practice does equal talent eventually..there is clearly something to gain from a certain way of thinking that we all - here - have which makes the craft come more natural to us. Like, if you were to lock me in a room with a computer, and a hobo in a room with a computer, we'll both probably make something eventually..but I'll do it faster and hopefully better...because I've been stewed in this "stuff" practically all of my life.
That being said, even if I did "care" about the craft/job, and was just naturally good at it...my actual success - like you're asking - would never have happened without the thousands of miles traveled to better my career, the thousands of hours spent to get where I am "artistically," and the other things sacrificed along the way.
And, i think luck does factor into it. sure, good people will always find work..but the opportunities I've been fortunate enough to take all seemed to work out really well. Being snatched up from QA to work mobile, being taken on to an idnie company as their only character artist, learning stuff fast, all of the freelance gigs, and the 3 bigger studios I've been a part of...It just kind of happened and I fee like a lot of it was "right place, right time." As in, i never really searched for a job, they just kind of happened - they came up in conversations or phone calls - and I acted on them because they felt right.
I just put a cube together with a cylinder and they make a baby and boom you either like it or you hate It, what opposites attract.
If you define it like that then I'd say 90% If, on the other hand, you see it as a fru fru notion of a special gift from the heavens then definitely 0%...
It's all hard work, sweat and tears with an occasional sprinkling of luck.
In this medium I think talent can help funnel you onto a desired path, but that's where it ends. From there hard work, focus and patience are what counts. Being able to reflect on what you've done and adapt/learn is also super important.
I really very strongly disagree with the creative thing. I know what we do is commercial and a lot of the times you are working from concepts, but that doesn't mean you are mindlessly recreating this stuff, you need a hell of a lot of creativity to bring that to life, areas need resolving that concepts don't cover or even completely redesigning elements that just don't work. I've worked from intricate concepts to scribbles to smudges to nothing at all.
If you think of yourself as a worker monkey and an asset that can be easily dropped in and out of projects then that is what you will become. I don't think I would do this if I couldn't be creative with it. I don't know if this is just because I do a lot of 2d concepting or design resolving and others don't get the chance to but in my eyes it's another string to my bow that makes me valuable to a production and a good team mate. This doesn't mean I'm redesigning everyone's work haha, just if I have a suggestion I'm allowed to roll with it and as a team we resolve it and see what the devs think, if it doesn't work it doesn't work but atleast we tried and you can see the passion to make a good product. Yes you aren't allowed free reign but that's what personal projects are for
As for the OP, [HP] summed it up beautifully for me. I come from an artistic family, so it came easy but I drew all the time and got better without even realising what I was doing, just like the kids outside playing football didn't realise they were getting better the more and more they played. Now I'm an adult and doing the same thing, being an artist doesn't stop at 5pm
So yea for me it's a bit of talent and a bucket load of hard work. I used to think I had a bit of luck but now I think we make our own luck. I am quite introvert and shy so I've always let my work speak for me. I network a bit but it's not on purpose, joking on Facebook or just showing some work here and there. In the end I put in a lot of hard work behind the scenes and I hope that's what people see when they look at my work
I attribute a huge part of my creativity to being raised in Jamaica and not having certain things readily available to me. i would roam the forests and climb trees to play with iguana's and such. I had a ton of animals around me which i fed, helped delivered their offspring and such... I remember vividly at age 5 taking a bucket to dig my own clay which i then used to sculpt my own toys.
Now imagine someone who was raised in a place with none of those experiences or environmental stimulation and wonder how much of a role that plays on their mental development.