Have you people reached your limits in terms of skills?

Blond

Yeh I know the old saying ''There's always room for improvement!'', '' You never stop learning''

But I Have the feeling that in an artist career,after years, there's a time when he reaches a Plateau and only improves slightly from there, never really surpassing his previous works. It's this plateau I am talking about and do you (especially seniors) feel like you have reached it?

I'm still a junior and consider myself as a newbie so I'm not too much bothered by it (yet) but I wonder if I'll be someday...

Honestly, I don't think it,s bad thing..All the greatest draftsman,painter,musicians, crafters reached their limit at some point in their life. I just watched a documentary on the Life of Picasso and despite having made some breakthrough in the artistic field mid-20th century, his later work was not as popular since he was basically doing the same thing as he did before despite the consistency in quality (he would just do them for himself)...

I'm just wondering how it feels. Can't imagine working and not being able to drastically improve as I do now after each work...Thinking about, it probably must happen after years of experience, especially in an industry where sometimes, you feel like you're doing more of the same.

MikeF

No way, not going to stop trying to do better until i'm dead.

I wouldnt have much motivation to get up in the morning if i thought my best work was behind me

JordanN

My benchmark is to model an entire city. If living expenses/looking for a job wasn't an issue, I would actually get started on it right now.



Oh, and for a greater challenge, it would also be stylized. Yup, a cartoon Toronto that you can explore would be my absolute limit!

Joopson

I really do firmly believe that there is always room for improvement. Even long after the drive for improvement is gone.

Even if your work never looks any better, surely there are always efficiency changes you can make, etc. But also style changes, medium changes. You can always expand your skillset.

slipsius

I really hope no one replies with yes here. Especially with all the tech that constantly comes out in this field. You may master some tools you use, but as you said. There's always room for improvement. Yes, you may become a master, and others may not be as blown away with their stuff as they once were, like your Picasso  example. Doesn't mean his later work was bad, or even worse than his most popular stuff. Just means people had seen it before, so they weren't as impressed. I think the same applies with game dev. There have already been times where I've thought holy shit, how much more real can it look, just to be blown away again a year or 2 later. 

Im still early in my career, so I know I still have a ton to learn, but that's why I love animation. Because I dont think I`ll ever get to a point where everything I do is perfect. It will always be a challenge, and there will always be room for improvement. Even with mocap, some people consider it the easy way out, but if you ever have to edit the data in a heavy way, You now have the challenge of making your hand keyed stuff look like the rest of the mocap, or it stands out to even the untrained eye.

Bring on the improvements!

Spoon

I absolutely believe you can ALWAYS improve. I cant even understand why anyone would think otherwise.

What changes, from what I see around me, is simply people lose the motivation\time. Getting families, kids, dont want to move anywhere new anyway, etc.

beefaroni

This is a silly thread..

lotet

well. obviously there is never a limit, but yeah, the improvement rate is definitely getting smaller and smaller the better you get in a non linear fashion. 

but as others mentioned, there are always new software and new tech. and then there is different styles, different disciplines, different subject matter. hard surface realism really is a different word compared to stylized Pixar/Disney style. 

look at Picasso, he got bored with realism and started doing cubism. when you get bored, you move on to the next thing. with that said, I dont think you have the luxury to do that more then 1-5 times in your life tbh.

stickadtroja

Blond said:

there's a time when he reaches a Plateau and only improves slightly from there,

i dont think there is a plateau. i think you see it that way because you look up to those with greater skill than you. for you, that stuff is so distant that you think its a very narrow space where all have the same skill level. but ask the people in it, and they would surely tell you they see huge differences in skill between them.

basically you lump them together as "really good". but they most likely dont think of themselves as "really good". they think, some can do hands really accurate, some have studied anatomical poses a lot, some have a really different cartoony style. so for them they have tons of different directions to go in, even more so than when they where beginners.

the only plateau is if you are getting paid or not.

sacboi

 @Blond

"Yeh I know the old saying ''There's always room for improvement!'', '' You never stop learning"

Yeah as pertinent today as ever it was 600yrs ago when my artistic idols plied their trade. One such titan of the Italian High Renaissance period, Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni commonly known unto history as the Sculptor/Painter Michelangelo, towards the end of his life worked upon his final marble sculpture, the "Rondanini Pietà". For 14yrs on up to the day before he died, had hacked at the marble block until a vestige of the original idea remained. It is acknowledged not to view the piece as 'unfinished' but rather when viewed from different angles a continuous process would be then made evident through his interpretive exploration of the subject matter's religious nature. In an aligned personal perspective after 30yrs as a trained Portraitist prior to crossing over to game dev and the broader digital realm, there's so F'ing little time to progressively learn within the lifespan allotted too one. 

  

Shmaba

There isn't really a limit in skill that people reach in their life if they are ambitious enough to keep trying something new and unfamiliar. There are some people who reach a level of quality that they might decide is satisfactory and just don't put as much effort into improving. Thats just personal choice though, if someone says "I like where my art is, I don't really need it to get better/different" then that's up to them, however tons of other people will keep trying to find a new way to improve themselves or learn a new skill that they haven't tried before.

Also, thanks to the improvement of technology an artist is always being given new tools to work with, which can allow them to create entirely new things. Did you think the architects of old Rome would have designed towers like some of the ones planned for Dubai? Movies, video games, and other fields of artistic expression are still extremely new in the recorded history of art. There hasn't been an actual limit in what people can achieve so far and even if there is a hypothetical limit to what a single artist can achieve in skill you better believe you'll never reach it even in the currently most optimistic lifespan a person can have these days.

Blond

oh wow. so many replies and lots of counter arguments too...yeh Maybe I tend to have a very limited mind myself...

Magihat

No, and if you think you do then you have given up on your art.

PolyHertz

I think you're confusing limits and bottlenecks. Most artists hit multiple bottlenecks throughout their life, and the better one gets the more insurmountable they may seem.

Francois_K

Yes.

I'm the best.

kanga

I believe there are no limitations to personal achievement in an area that minimizes the need for physical aptitude. Even then, an athlete that breaks records for running the mile may switch to coaching others when he or she no longer can perform, and there is no limit on how effective they could become in that field.

I come from a time before computers, and the first games I played were pong and space invaders! Look at us now. High resolution graphics, VR, AR, 3d printing. Just being a part of it is simply breath taking. When I whack a cube in the viewport (zsphere, dynamesh whatever) all I see are endless possibilities. Whether others feel I have reached my limit is another story. Personally I'm having too much fun in this profession to worry about that.

Nam.Nguyen

Francois_K said:

Yes.

I'm the best.

Me too! I have reached the limit and I'm modeling in the 5th dimension now.

All jokes aside, I understand what you mean, and I think "limit" is not the right word for it, but more like "Expert".

Expert level is where you had a good understanding about art fundamentals like colors, shape, light, perspective, . . . . and practice them for a good amount time, so no mater what technologies come out, you'll be able to adapt and make great art

Eric Chadwick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGzTfjqNZPA

Ruz

I improve 10 percent very year. been doing this since 1995 so if I started at 50 percent then I am above 100 now:)
nahh still crap but working hard to improve still.never give in:)

Blond

Damn...Makes me ashamed of even thinking about making a thread like this...And I'm still in my 20's and I'm already thinking about limits..I shoudn't. 

Back to my work then!!