Project Struggles
polycounter lvl 3
You ever work on something and get stuck on a project for too long you move on to something else? Then when you working on the new project you get stuck on that too and repeat the process? I try to go back and fix the problem and don't make no progress. I been having this problem for a while now and I learned some stuff from my mistakes but I still feel like having incomplete work isn't good as well. I was wondering if yall go through the same problem sometimes?
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This is non-medical professional speculation, but it seems almost like this personality type is so obsessed over possible poor reception or rejection of their work, that they actively self-sabotage their efforts to actually finish a thing. There is always some excuse why they don't finish, but over time it becomes clear -- the person is too focused on what others will think of their work, to the point of absurdity.
Learning from these people, it seems clear to me that you've got to focus on one thing at a time and finish it. Whether this comes natural or it's like pulling your own teeth, it's just what you've got to do. Being the best in the room doesn't count for nothing if you don't have work to prove it.
That said, I don't mean to suggest you do something akin to pulling your own teeth by sheer force of will. People often misconstrue this kind of advice to mean that. But what I mean is, whatever means necessary, you find a way. It means learning everything you possibly can about yourself, so that you can overcome yourself, and transform yourself into the body of work you dream of.
It's a combination of learning new art principles, boredom from staring at a monitor for hours at a time, evolving hardware requirements, and having a lot of patience and concentration.
This was my first car I made in 2013. It took a month and I still had no clue what I was doing before I moved onto something else.
Fast forward to 2018, and I've gotten use vehicle modelling. I really want a job in the industry making 3D art, so I just had to put my struggles behind and just focus on getting everything right.
https://polycount.com/discussion/98654/super-summer-character-art-boot-camp
Just stick to making 500 polygon 256x256 Diffuse Only texture models. Make one a week.
Ever since I stopped trying to make AAA characters and just started making shit tons of 70% characters, I am making visible progress daily. And I'm having an absolute blast, whereas before I was always disappointed and frustrated.
Some people warn against this approach, but it works for me. And I remember, when I was in the army, I was a paratrooper and was a decent marksmen, but I had an opportunity to work on a range with some special forces guys and I was so impressed by their markmanship -- it was godlike. I asked them about their training and they said they didn't do anything different than anybody else, but they did a lot more. They were shooting 10,000 rounds in a day sometimes. We never shot that much in a year.
It seems clear to me, repetition and refinement is the best way to get better. Granted, no matter what kind of training you are doing, it falls on the trainee to pay attention and constantly assess themselves to get the results. Mindlessly going through the motions is useless no matter what you are doing.
Unfortunately, a lot of quality comes out of that last 10% of the process, editing and polishing. When you're just bored of a project, you tend to blow through this stage, and later in hindsight realize that you could have done better.
If I find I'm getting bored with a big project I will pretty often shelve it and bang out some work that I know I can get done more quickly. Or just don't work on game stuff for a while, read more books or something. Then when I pick it up again it's with a replenished energy reserve and fresh eyes, and I can put way more effort into that polishing phase. The longest I've shelved a project before coming back to it this way is about a year.
I think it may be different when you're still very new to game art, because you're learning new things all the time, so your shelved projects might be more effort to fix up than it's worth. I think people who are newer should probably focus on smaller projects so they can gain experience evenly across every phase of production, as well as get over "shipping anxiety." When you're new you need to rapidly make a lot of mistakes rather than agonizing over one asset for 3 months that turns out not great and discourages you. The advice Jacque gave upthread is pretty much what I'm saying here.
Well said.
It was a great fallacy that I thought some of my first works would be "awesome" if I just tried really hard. But there is too much you don't know so early on -- it's just not possible.
After just a few weeks of making faster models without agonizing over making them perfect, I now make better looking models in a single day that what took me 3 weeks just a few months ago. It's really encouraging.
Character art is a abyss to be honest. You tend to get stuck on anatomy. I made some progress with anatomy, but it is still bad.
but i hate sitting on unfinished work because i know that the longer i sit on it, the more the original concepts and ideas will start to change, and the general trend of the audience will also change.
not that im in a position to pressure the client to give me feedback faster though..