Hobbyists/hobbyists turned professional: How do/did you make time?

hannya84

I'm trying to build up my portfolio enough so that I can safely apply to work in the industry. But it keeps feeling like I have to work hard at sacrificing a lot of time, and upset people around me, in order to make time to work on both 2D and 3D art.

Working 40 hours a week, sleeping 7 hours a night, hour long commutes to and from, self preservation, and then spending some time with my partner, family and friends. And on top of that, there's all of the little things which stack up to eat up the days. Laundry, groceries, car maintenance, managing finances, etc.

All in all, if I put things to the wayside, like cutting down time on my meal preps, sacrificing sleep, or ignoring people. I end up with some more time, but it's sporadic between work shifts. It just doesn't feel like enough. Maybe it's because I was so used to University last year, where lectures took up about 2 hours a week, and I could work on 3D and 2D art 24/7. 

How do others manage with allocating your time? Do you just stick exclusively to small pieces to build your portfolio? Or did you just cut out literally everything?

RustySpannerz

I'd honestly love to hear this too, before I got my first job I was lucky enough to be able to work on my portfolio full-time. I'm not sure what I would have done if I had to work full-time and work on the portfolio. Now things just take so long that half way through a personal project I'm bored and want to start something new. 

Taylor Brown

Im in the same boat but with a 3 year old thrown in. Ive accepted that it's just going to take me longer to get to a hireable level. Stick with community's like this and Dinusty´s to help get through the low points and don't give up. 

zaha

What works for me is having a fixed schedule for everything. So I'm working at least 30 min. on my projects on tuesday, thursday and sunday morning. Doing the same with sports the other days. Saturdays are mainly reserved for friends, sunday afternoons for family. Also spending some time with my wife every day (some days more, some less). That way I can slowly chip away at my projects. This means it takes a long time to finish them, weeks and months depending on the size of the project, but in the end I will get something done.

Most important rule: Only one projec at a time and don't leave projects unfinished. If you start that habit, you will never get anything done because everything takes too long and you eventually lose interest. Stick through it. The feeling when you finish something is way more exciting than starting something new.

Building good habits is really key here. This requires patience and endurance, you are in for the long run in this anyway. This is a marathon. That's why I think compromising on stuff won't work for long. You can do short sprints here and there, but not over an extended period of time. You need to have a good balance to keep this up.

The transition from university to a working life can be pretty draining at the beginning . But you'll get used to it and even manage to cram in some time for hobbies after a while. Don't give up!

PixelMasher

Some solid advice from Gary V, guy runs a 200 million dollar agency and is contantly putting out content, so probably a few gems you can pick out here. 
https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/6-time-management-techniques-from-a-guy-who-has-no-time/

carvuliero

You can pretty much cut all the leisure time down and most importantly use weekend to work for yourself aka learning and building portfolio .You could wake up one hour earlier just to work on your portfolio also depends on what your work is you could take 5 min every hour to draw plan and write ideas for how to improve and what to learn next

You could probably watch/listen tutorial while traveling to and back from work

If you sit down and thing about it there are a lot of ways to cut corners and use your time productively and with good planning and organization you could do as much work for 2 hours as much ppl do for 8 -> you could research some of most successful companies how they cut working time and up the production value

If there's a will there's a way

Haytch

hannya84 said:

I'm trying to build up my portfolio enough so that I can safely apply to work in the industry. But it keeps feeling like I have to work hard at sacrificing a lot of time, and upset people around me, in order to make time to work on both 2D and 3D art.

Working 40 hours a week, sleeping 7 hours a night, hour long commutes to and from, self preservation, and then spending some time with my partner, family and friends. And on top of that, there's all of the little things which stack up to eat up the days. Laundry, groceries, car maintenance, managing finances, etc.

All in all, if I put things to the wayside, like cutting down time on my meal preps, sacrificing sleep, or ignoring people. I end up with some more time, but it's sporadic between work shifts. It just doesn't feel like enough. Maybe it's because I was so used to University last year, where lectures took up about 2 hours a week, and I could work on 3D and 2D art 24/7. 

How do others manage with allocating your time? Do you just stick exclusively to small pieces to build your portfolio? Or did you just cut out literally everything?

I'd focus on one amazing piece, something that'll take you about six months to do, Environment artists are always sought after but they're different roles in different studios, Focus on dressing environments, creating assets, detail, story telling and have a large before, after, during and wire frame render collection, this'll help you understand the process and the studio hiring will also look at this.

superdroso

I agree. It's not easy. I am 34+ yo and i've a full time job faaaaaaaaaar away from this industry which doesn't allow me to train/gather enough xp during day.
Moreover I have a wife and a little son (and a part time job too ^^). So i schedule my week acording to demand and jobs opportunity. I mainly do my stuff/work over the night ( between 11pm to 1am).
Over the past few months, it became quite complicated. My wife got a new job, and finish to 9 pm everydays  (and 8 the saturday !!). I spend mostly of my time with my little child, which is great but difficult to combine with my desires.
i'm considering to quite my job the next year to embrace a full freelance position but i have to gather some xp and connections before to take the plunge.

hannya84

Haytch said:

 I'd focus on one amazing piece, something that'll take you about six months to do, Environment artists are always sought after but they're different roles in different studios, Focus on dressing environments, creating assets, detail, story telling and have a large before, after, during and wire frame render collection, this'll help you understand the process and the studio hiring will also look at this.

carvuliero said:

You can pretty much cut all the leisure time down and most importantly use weekend to work for yourself aka learning and building portfolio .You could wake up one hour earlier just to work on your portfolio also depends on what your work is you could take 5 min every hour to draw plan and write ideas for how to improve and what to learn next

You could probably watch/listen tutorial while traveling to and back from work

If you sit down and thing about it there are a lot of ways to cut corners and use your time productively and with good planning and organization you could do as much work for 2 hours as much ppl do for 8 -> you could research some of most successful companies how they cut working time and up the production value

If there's a will there's a way

PixelMasher said:

Some solid advice from Gary V, guy runs a 200 million dollar agency and is contantly putting out content, so probably a few gems you can pick out here. 
https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/6-time-management-techniques-from-a-guy-who-has-no-time/

Solid advice all around. Very appreciative.

Maybe not as good as using a secret time capsule to practice art 24/7. But the three of you definitely give some solid points to work on for time management.

hannya84

Haytch said:

 I'd focus on one amazing piece, something that'll take you about six months to do, Environment artists are always sought after but they're different roles in different studios, Focus on dressing environments, creating assets, detail, story telling and have a large before, after, during and wire frame render collection, this'll help you understand the process and the studio hiring will also look at this.

carvuliero said:

You can pretty much cut all the leisure time down and most importantly use weekend to work for yourself aka learning and building portfolio .You could wake up one hour earlier just to work on your portfolio also depends on what your work is you could take 5 min every hour to draw plan and write ideas for how to improve and what to learn next

You could probably watch/listen tutorial while traveling to and back from work

If you sit down and thing about it there are a lot of ways to cut corners and use your time productively and with good planning and organization you could do as much work for 2 hours as much ppl do for 8 -> you could research some of most successful companies how they cut working time and up the production value

If there's a will there's a way

PixelMasher said:

Some solid advice from Gary V, guy runs a 200 million dollar agency and is contantly putting out content, so probably a few gems you can pick out here. 
https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/6-time-management-techniques-from-a-guy-who-has-no-time/

Solid advice all around. Very appreciative.

Maybe not as good as using a secret time capsule to practice art 24/7. But the three of you definitely give some solid points to work on for time management.

Ryusaki

Stopped playing video games.

Stopped watching Movies and Tv shows (they are mostly shit anyways).

Kicked Energy-Vampire "friends" out of my life.

Also i stopped doing ANY amount of overtime, no matter how much resistance i get. I don't care if they fire me.

That gave me back 10-15 hours per week.

I am using all the time for my project and learning software/techniques.

I still move slow like a glacier, but i do move and i can see the results compared to the past.