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A Story of How I Became a 3D Artist

rayle1112
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I believe that a great artist is a person who knows how to inspire and motivate others. My whole purpose of this post is not just for me to achieve my personal achievements, but also help others to reach there goals and purpose in life. In this blog post, I'm going to share with you everything that I have learned. My Tips, learning method, techniques, philosophy, and finally a story of how I became a 3D artist. 

I will begin with some tips for new artists who are struggling at the beginning of their journey.

TIPS TO GET YOUR ARTWORK NOTICED

You want to succeed in this industry? First thing to learn: SELL YOURSELF. Many artists are so afraid of putting their art online. You are so wrong if you think only good artists can share their work. No matter is is good or bad, WIP (Work In Progress) or finished. Just share it with the community. Tell people what you are working on, share your progress with them, and ask for critique and criticism if needed. Knowing that someone is waiting to see your results can help maintain your motivation. Just make sure you do not put everything in your portfolio, but only your best work.

  • Artstation is the best platform for artists to showcase their work and engage with the community.
  • 3DTotal It is very valuable if you can get your work on 3DTotal because they only pick the best work to add to their galleries. 
  • Facebook: Follow your favorite artists, share your work on your page and art groups such as:
    • Ten Thousand Hours: This is the best facebook group for 3D artists at the moment. It's very active, and you could find all the top artists here.
    • Pixologic Zbrush: A group to post your Zbrush stuff
    • Level Up!: Mostly for 2D artists
  • Twitter same idea as Facebook
  • Pinterest is like "Google" for artists. It is one of my favorite place for collecting references.
  • Linkedin is a platform for professionals, and recruiters use Linkedin a lot. It is a good idea to post your work here.
  • Zerply is like a Linkedin for artists. I actually like it more than Linkedin because it allows us to display our work in a more creative way.
  • DeviantArt is probably the oldest and largest online art gallery and community, but not the best. There are some really good artists and resources on there but the community is not really professional because it has lots of different kind of people on it. 
  • Polycount is the best forums for game artists. The community is super nice and helpful. You could find a lot of helpful resources on their wiki page. 
  • Zbrushcentral is a really good place for Zbrush users. However, I really dislike their forums because it is too difficult to use. I don't often post my stuff there.
  • CGSociety  seems more about VFX and Pre-rendering. I don't use it too much.
  • CG Plus is an alternative for Artstation.
  • 3DArtist posting your work here to have a chance to get your work featured on 3D Artist Magazine.
  • Behance mostly for Graphic Design and Illustration, I don't use it but I heard it's okay.
  • Sketchfab the best place and the only place to share and embed interactive 3D files.

TIPS TO STAY MOTIVATED

Personal motivation is the key to accomplish your goals. Without it, you won't get anything done. Here are some tips that have helped me to stay motivated over time.

ELIMINATE PROCRASTINATION 

This is the number one killer of motivation. If you want to achieve your goals, you have to eliminate procrastination from your life. The biggest goal of being an artist is to be better everyday, and the only way to get better is practice. You need to study and train to level up your skills. Please don't say something like "I have a full-time job, I'm so busy, I don't have time for other stuff" or "This is so hard, I'm not good enough, I can't do this". 

I have a full-time job and I can still spend 3-5 hours for personal projects after work. If you really want to do something, you will find a way. If you don't, you will find an excuse. 

NEVER GIVE UP AND NEVER BE SATISFIED

Nobody was ever born with an ability to make good art. Everybody sucked at first then got better with practice. Everybody has to start somewhere. I was so disappointed with my first sculpt that I thought of quitting the school, and changing the industry. However, when I think about it, I found that being dissatisfied with my work was a good thing. Because I will always have a feeling that I want to get better, and it is my drive to improvement. Never be satisfied with your work because it will limit your possibilities to grow and innovate more, even if you are at a level that others consider good.

Do not give up if your work disappoint you at the beginning. It's normal and everyone has to go through this phase. Remember the 10,000-hour rule, you need to practice 10,000 hours to master a skill. It would be more dangerous if you don't see any flaws in your work because that would prevent you from growing. 


LEARN THE INDUSTRY

The industry is changing so fast everyday. In the next few years, it is going to bring huge changes in technology and advances in game art as well. In order to adapt to these changes, we need to keep learning, improving and pushing ourselves to the limit. Connect and follow your favorite studios and artists on Facebook, Twitter, and Artstation to update the latest news. Here are my heroes:

PODCASTS / INTERVIEWS / ART BOOKS / ART GALLERIES / MAGAZINE

Read, watch, and listen to others' success stories is a good way to get inspired and stay motivated. I use Artstation and Pinterest everyday, in the morning before I start working, in lunch time, and before going to bed. Ash Thorp is hosting a podcast that brings weekly episodes of discussions with industry professionals from around the world. I highly recommend you should check it out: The Collective Podcast. Listening to success stories and looking at other people's art make you realize that you can't be satisfied with what you are right now, and you have to practice more and more.

There are two major magazines for 3D Artists. They are 3D Artist and 3D World. There are a lot of tutorials, interviews, industry latest news, and free resources in these magazines. I also created a playlist "Motivation" on Youtube, which contains all the inspiring videos of my favorite games and studios. Feel free to add more videos to the playlist.

Collecting art books if you can. Parka Blogs is an amazing blog about art book reviews and art products. You could find all kind of art book reviews here from East to West, Film to Games, Manga to Comic. I love this blog so much, I highly recommend it to anyone who love collecting Art books like me. Here is my collection so far!

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THE POWER OF BELIEVING

If "self-doubt" is a virus that kills an artist silently, then "self-affirmation" will be a vaccine for it. Do you ever feel like giving up when looking at other people's art and there's a voice in your head constantly saying "you can't do this" or "you are not good enough"? There's enough people out there want to bring you down, telling you "can't do", why do you want to tell yourself that?

There's a psychological technique called "Auto-suggestion" which helps people can concentrate upon a given desire where it becomes a healthy obsession. At first, this technique sounds silly, but when this practice is mastered, you would be impressed how it works for your success.

If you want to accomplish big goals, learn how to believe in yourself first. Get rid of all the negative thoughts. Create your own self-affirmation, and tell yourself that you are good enough, and you can do it! You are what you think you are. Believe in your dreams, and they will believe in you!

*Although you should tell yourself that you are good but it doesn't mean you can disrespect others. If you want people to respect you, then you have to respect them first. This technique was developed to build self-confidence, not arrogance.

DREAM BIG

Dream big, plan small, and track your progress. While you dream big, it is important to have small goals first. For example, your dream is to create your own game IP. You would start with a goal of becoming an artist first. Next year, your goal is to get a job in the game industry. Then ensure you track your progress regularly to see how you are progressing. If you are doing well, make sure to celebrate each milestone along the way. This will help keep you stay motivated and working hard.

You might want to know how I applied these tips and techniques to my own life, you can visit my personal blog.

I don't want to post this part here because it might be not interesting to read, and also quite personal. It's just my story of how I became an artist. If you would like to read, visit my blog: http://www.raythucle.com/blog/how-i-became-a-3d-artist.

HELPFUL RESOURCES

Online Tutorials/Workshops

Textures Library

Others

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