New 1-day props

Y-NOT486

Okay, After receiving an abundance of great advice, I decided to take part in the 3Daily challenge and managed to create two new props so far, I may not be able to do one every day, but At least the practice is helping me make better stuff and let's me take a break from the rut of trying to make the same thing over and over till I think I've got it right.

Critiques are welcome as they will help me improve with each new project, at the end of this I hope to have several items that will serve well in my portfolio.

Sledge Hammer

Old Fashion Radio

Y-NOT486

JoshuaG said:

Quality > Quantity

You should  work on one asset and make it a portfolio piece instead of a bunch with lesser quality textures. 

Sooo, I guess these are no good then?

Brian "Panda" Choi

Quality over Quantity.  I get the intention, but I haven't seen volume work out for entry level artists yet.

Y-NOT486

JoshuaG said:

They're pretty bland honestly. The radio model itself isn't bad and has some good texturing potential, but definitely needs an extra week of work on it. Same with the sledgehammer.

I'm certainly open to sugesstions on what else can be done.

FourtyNights

Definitely quality over quantity. So, basically whatever is the next thing you do, do it properly. I wouldn't recommend this "one prop per day", because then you'll just end up having bunch of mediocre stuff done, and no one is going to hire you. Pick an interesting and semi complex thing to model to challenge yourself, UV and texture by making it the best thing you've ever done. Don't think about time limits, just work on it towards the best possible outcome. Post WIP shots here, keeps asking feedback, work, work, work and work on it until it's polished. THEN you can move on to the next project.

Y-NOT486

FourtyNights said:

Definitely quality over quantity. So, basically whatever is the next thing you do, do it properly. I wouldn't recommend this "one prop per day", because then you'll just end up having bunch of mediocre stuff done, and no one is going to hire you. Pick an interesting and semi complex thing to model to challenge yourself, UV and texture by making it the best thing you've ever done. Don't think about time limits, just work on it towards the best possible outcome. Post WIP shots here, keeps asking feedback, work, work, work and work on it until it's polished. THEN you can move on to the next project.

Alright, I think it's safe to assume I shouldn't be taking part in 3Daily any more, but I still need constructive feedback I can learn from.

Since the Radio is the stronger of the two pieces I made, how do I push that piece further? Because that's pretty much an example of the best I can do right now with my current level of knowledge. So what can I do to make it better?

hmm_rock

@Y-NOT486 there's nothing wrong with this approach as an exercise, take what everyone says with a grain of salt. You can still learn a ton from quantity > quality. In fact, I would argue that it is better for developing your eye, getting faster, learning new tricks. You can still push these further and should, but getting bogged down in polish can be detrimental and demoralizing when you still need to be focusing on the fundamentals. That being said there is a balance between quality and quantity when learning and you still have to be critical when it comes to choosing what goes into a portfolio. I can't find the article/ video but I like this quote

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

CrackRockSteady

hmm_rock said:

@Y-NOT486  "That being said there is a balance between quality and quantity when learning and you still have to be critical when it comes to choosing what goes into a portfolio."

I think this is the big takeaway here.  You'll need to develop the ability to know when you need to keep pushing/polishing and when you need to call something "done" and move on to the next learning experience.  Getting bogged down in minutiae with diminishing returns on a project can be just as detrimental as rushing through assets trying to get a new thing done every day without taking your time to do things properly.

Y-NOT486

CrackRockSteady said:

hmm_rock said:

@Y-NOT486  "That being said there is a balance between quality and quantity when learning and you still have to be critical when it comes to choosing what goes into a portfolio."

I think this is the big takeaway here.  You'll need to develop the ability to know when you need to keep pushing/polishing and when you need to call something "done" and move on to the next learning experience.  Getting bogged down in minutiae with diminishing returns on a project can be just as detrimental as rushing through assets trying to get a new thing done every day without taking your time to do things properly.

Admittedly that is something I need to figure out, because I can spend months making an environment or weeks on an asset, declare it finally done only to have it torn down in seconds by a critic (which happened at my portfolio show) and finding out I "overpolished" it to the point it became a loud and busy mess. Or, on the opposite end, I can make something in relatively short time and polish it as much as I thought was needed, only to find out afterward there were so many more things I could have done to make it better. It's a fine line that even after 4 years still eludes me.

Y-NOT486

And on the note of polishing, I've revisited the hammer and immediately recognized I needed to make the wood less flat and glossy like it's fake and go for a more rugged an natural look. While it's still not necessarily "done", I can at least recognize it's is a step up from how it looked before and how it should have looks at the beginning. Now I just have to figure out how to do the same thing to the hammer head.