rant: tripples, nipples, and technical art
polycounter lvl 19
im gonna make a rent
u wont see this very often from me,
but ye
i have to get this out of me
and this is a place i call home online so why not
nowhere like home!
the inet is spreading with talented artists
and these talented artists, and i mean fucking amazing artists, post their work and share with us the gift their soul brought to this world
and its a wonderful thing indeed
but these people are always a minority, to a majority of what i like to call "technicians". there are different levels of course, like u have different levels in just about anything, but at the bottom of it - they r still technicians. and when i say technicians i mean ppl who are *really influenced by those creative souls out there, and by their technichal skill they reproduce it
they dont create, they reproduce
and they r fucking everywhere
god damnet
its just frustrating to see it so much
even if this fucking school (ringling) at least HALF of the senior illustration show consisted of manipulated from photo self portrait. not creation -- ReProduction
it happens, or has been hapenning in games for a long while, weve all seen it, game after game looking the same... saying the same shit, playing the same shit
and like everything else it starts from the little details, the people behind it, individually being technicians and not artists.
its a fucking tripple nipple
jesus,..
u wont see this very often from me,
but ye
i have to get this out of me
and this is a place i call home online so why not
nowhere like home!
the inet is spreading with talented artists
and these talented artists, and i mean fucking amazing artists, post their work and share with us the gift their soul brought to this world
and its a wonderful thing indeed
but these people are always a minority, to a majority of what i like to call "technicians". there are different levels of course, like u have different levels in just about anything, but at the bottom of it - they r still technicians. and when i say technicians i mean ppl who are *really influenced by those creative souls out there, and by their technichal skill they reproduce it
they dont create, they reproduce
and they r fucking everywhere
god damnet
its just frustrating to see it so much
even if this fucking school (ringling) at least HALF of the senior illustration show consisted of manipulated from photo self portrait. not creation -- ReProduction
it happens, or has been hapenning in games for a long while, weve all seen it, game after game looking the same... saying the same shit, playing the same shit
and like everything else it starts from the little details, the people behind it, individually being technicians and not artists.
its a fucking tripple nipple
jesus,..
Replies
u'r right
i didnt mean to make it a joke,
i was being really quite serious
just in my own corcky way
go ahead man
what r u a grammer teacher
dont look at the vase look at whats inside it, did they teach u that at grammer class?
Shoty, i'm with you man. Refrence is good but simple photo maniplutalion is not art, and it never will be for me. As for the games all looking the same well shit thats what happens when everybody is too busy to care how the game looks.
dont look at the vase look at whats inside it, did they teach u that at grammer class?
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The incidence of people who communicate like drunk redneck felons but are actually brilliant, sensitive, likeable people, seems vastly lower than tracers who call themselves artists.
But then in a less homosexual erotic way.
feeling like everyone is copying is normal matey, but there is no original, just an ever changing mass of reproduction and evoloution. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
Unfortunately lots of people seem to have a tendency to steal ideas from cheesy films these days
There is still plenty of creativity out there however,lots of it appears on polycount
Unoriginal games are are different matter. No one wants to take risks anymore.
perhaps because of the inet i feel that it has evolved and massed together so coherently
like i feel if u look out there now and u have an art field which is in fact reproduction art: ppl using the same concept over and over and over and pimping it around like it was fresh and original. like its da shit, thats what its all about, thats what u need to be able to produce if u want "in". look at conceptart.org, ppl r hax0ring each other like theres no tomorrow. but what happened to the CONCEPT? the better artists in my school are pretty much kevin lewellen ripoff-ers
same shit, different technique
its just very disappointing
now i wont say id didnt affect me at all personally, but i do try and be aware of how "influenced" i get and let me own personal emotion and desire guide my rather than the mainstream norm
KDR 11: honestly man, like in most things in my life, i care less about the techniqual side (like using caps and full words) and concentrate on getting my point across and waste little time on anything else
if u find it difficult to read my posts, what can i say man
dont read it,
or at least reply to the point if u have nothing better to say.
no offence man, no flaming, but wtf...
I think if someone sees something in another piece of art that they can adapt and use to improve their own artwork, it's acceptable to me.
But the problem is people like seeing what is familiar.
VW Bug, Converse Sneakers, PT Cruiser, Pendleton shirts....people like reinforcing the same style or design decade after decade.
Change is not abrupt. And you sure as yell won't see abrupt changes in the 'big' gaming companies. The big companies will play it safe and sell you the same stuff over and over again until you finally get sick of it and want something new.
In the meantime, they'll want technicians.
[Edit]I reread this thread, and I have no idea why I mentioned games?....maybe there's a correlation.[/Edit]
On a side note....I was told Kevin Lewellen takes days to do his figure drawings?.....that's too long for something non conceptual, it's more about rendering then ideas.....plus I don't like mohawks.
Let me refrase this: I don't like mohawks on artists....it should be your art that draws attention, not your "I'm so cool looking bullshit hair style or clothing."
I'd rather think about something to draw, then what I'm going to wear.
I should make a rant thread about that.......OK, I'm a fashion Eichmen. But you city folk dress weird.
I fear I am one of these "technical artists"...
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No worries, MoP. I'm one of those people who thinks doing your best, even with something as simple as grammar, is not a waste of time, so we're both out of luck in this thread
good topic though shotty, I have to agree, but I have a problem with the concept when looked at a little more closely
*raises hand
I am a techy myself.. but when I think about it, what the fuck is the difference between someone who is and who isn't?
when I re-create an arm in 3d, for example, I can do so accurately not because I'm ARTISTIC, but because I have a library of reference material in my head, (and on my god damn desk, some of you need to learn this) and it's a matter of expressing interesting forms because of what I've learned.
is conceptualizing any different? I know a lot of artists out there who can draw amazing stuff because they started drawing the ninja turtles, or the predator, or blah blah blah and amassed this wealth of conceptual ideas that they can spawn more off from. is that any different than me having a wealth of ideas as to what a human arm should look like, for example, and being able to slightly exaggerate that?
like where do these ideas come from that make the artists actually "artists" and not just recreating what's there already? and what is this what and where is there? are you responsible for ideas that your unconscious throws at you outside of your conscious awareness?
what if you use a conceptualizing technique to logically think your way through a character design, and you come up with something totally original, and kick ass? (for example: where does this creature live.. what are it's natural predators, etc)
the problem I have with this is that it's too loosely defined. yes, I agree to a certain extent, and I see it in myself that I need to devote the next few years or so to becoming more expressive with 3d, and not just creating cool models, but I think that when you really look at the subject, the line becomes a bit blurry...
edit: i want to add something that's a tiny bit OT. For my job right now, as my entry level position, i'm modeling world objects, or in most cases, breaking up objects that have already been modeled/textured. in that case, not only is there almost zero artistic merit, but there's also very little creation of any kind.
in a way, i'm glad that i'm a tech-head and enjoy the process of creating art. if i wanted desperately to express myself in my work, I'd be shit out of luck and probably frustrated. iiinn fact i'd probably start making threds like these. :O
No apology, thats how your work has always appeared. So ok, now you have changed your aims and you are pissed because theres so many others not living by your 'new' ideals ?
The price of discovering moments of brilliance in the art field is that it makes the banal majority all the more boring. You just discovered that? And you've been doing art for how long? heh
Seriously, the glass is half full, its those rare moments of brilliance we discover that make it easier to tolerate all the formula out there.
I know you are at college now and it seems almost required of students to adopt this hard done by, unappreciated artist motif but you're just as much an imitator by spouting the opinion you are in this thread.
This is the way it has always been, it will always continue to be this way, find some way to make peace with that situation by simply doing what you love and make the effort to type if you want more people to make the effort to reply.
Its an incongruity to rant about laziness in others when you don't bother to type even 2 extra letters to spell you...
We all make typos, but come on!
PS It's worth pointing out that over the last few months , looking at your occasional sketchs I was gaining more respect for you as it was clear that you were experimenting and just letting out what was inside without thought for fitting it into a nice established medium or genre.
But after making a post like this, the respect you were gaining has backpedaled.
I love clever technical ideas though, seriously I think technitians is a wrong term because technitians and coders are still creative, all of the technical shit that we have today came from someone having a clever original idea, doesn't matter if its art or tech or whatever.
I think copycats would be better, we're all copycats though, and thats mostly because when you start learning something you immitate the things that you consider good, you can't start by making this new badass original ... stuff. You can eventually grow out of that though. I personally haven't been doing this long enough to do that, and I think there are very few on polycount who have grown out of immitation into innovation. its hard and most jobs don't encourage it.
I think there are very few on polycount who have grown out of immitation into innovation.
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exactly. I'm *somewhere* along this route myself, but i'm still waaay back in the immitation phase hehehe
but hang on here! oh no! if learning to be innovative is some kind of process that you go through, then that's technical! oh no! I'm fucked! if i dont draw like dali RIGHT out of the birth canal, then i'll never be an artist, no matter what process i go through.
i'd like to also say that ror just pwnzored.
I just thought I'd jump in here and say that while I applaud innovative ideas, and fresh creativity, I enjoy concepts & media that "evolves".
I like a few TV shows. Not every episode has to have fresh characters & plot devices. They simply need to be well executed. Small changes on an existing paradigm can be more meaningful sometimes than something wholly original.
Shotgun: You act so excited about my Syndicate Remake...BUT ITS A REMAKE! The exact thing your apparently so against! Now I'm delivering it with a heaping helping of my personal style, but I take my cues from the media that influenced me.
I like sequels. I like re-designs.
As for Ror's statement about Shotty imitating Ken Scott...well I thought the same thing about much of Ror's work at one time (chitenous armour, etc), and how his 2d illustration style was a nearly direct rip of many comic artist who were popular at the time. None of us are innocent on that score, and if you really think you are then you need to take a hard honest look at your work, because your kidding yourself.
Something we all need to face is that we are all imitators of differing degree's. We all imitate life & other artists in various ways, and we always will. Is that really something negative?
thank you for your reply, honesltly man.
and its nice to hear you say your opinion like that (how unusual)
shame this thread makes me seem disrepsectful to you though, but hey we dont really know each other so the virtual image is a very fragile thing, I guess.
anyways yup thats where i started from. the q3 textures he did was the first ive ever seen, and naurally i attempted to do the same. i never had anything to do with drawing or art before that point so naturally, like rockstar said, we do start from somewhere. i bet u EDIT you started from comics art, right?
but you have found some way to channel more and more rorchach into your 14 years old drawings (whenever you were doing it, no disrespect intended) until a certain, more distinguished style has reformed. let's say, then, you (generally) start as a technician, and you evolve from there.
that's pretty natural I believe since mastering a certain level of technique is required in order to be able to express yourself.
the thing is, a lot of "bigger" names do *not evolve from there, they imitate the even Bigger names and that's it, that's what they sell. and people look up to it, and reproduce that same concept and spend so much time aquiring techniqual skills, truly believing "thats da shit".
it's like half this board creates heads, heads and heads. well thats great, you can make a nice head, z brushed pimples and rendered per pixel hair. where is the concept?
Hey, I'm not ever pretending to be anywhere above or below all this, I'm just a victim like anyone else and I'm holding up a mirror here in this thread. that's it.
and yes you are right in your observation ror, as ive spread into new directions (it took me a while ye, I had to do army 3 years in the middle you know) this situation has just become more and more obvious, and frustration gradually built up and there you have it. I've been trying to make little comments here and there recently, but I decided I could stirr some things if I go bigger (by making a whole new thread, oh my! white house here I come!)
Rockstar made a good comment to me over icq, there's also the "what sells" issue, and if you want to get around out there you have to be at that general, unwritten "techniqual bar"... thats understandable i guess
astro zombie: give me a break man, dont think like a little kid. not everyone are about ego. though if You are, youll see everyone the same way, really.
john: like I wrote in the top (ye ye with really bad english) - there are different levels
and this connects to what scoob said. dude your stuff has a lot of scoob in them, it has evolved "enough" beyond the 'im just learning how to use the damn software' or whatever basic phase you started from. so ye, syndicate recreate, but your style is distinguished and wonderful, and I love it.
as I see it, you are recreating syndicate, not reproducing
pure creating, like raw revolutionary stuff, ye that's out there but pretty rare. I'm not naive guys, Im not expecting this.
but I feel the balance has swayed far more towards reproducing rather than re*creating
And yeah, what Scooby said. English is not Shotguns first language. Criticism of the spelling and grammar therefore, seems unfounded, but I'm not so sure that criticism of the rant is
Shotgun: perhaps I've misinterpreted what you're saying, but you need to realize that we can't all be Brom, and nor do we need to be.
The CG industry is plenty big enough for those of us who aren't, but have different skills to offer. I work with many talented technical Artists where I work, that write amazing tools for us to make our lives easier and keep the pipeline flowing. Can they make an amazing model or texture map or painting or other piece of Art? Nope, but they don't need to, and I wouldn't be without them.
Scooby: I don't think its valid to cite Rors work as being derivative, since he only brought that up in response to Shotguns own < potential > hypocrisy.
Besides, Ruz said it best: "you always subconsciously 'appropriate' the idea from somewhere." We're all guilty of duplication wether intended or not.
I think you're over worrying Shotgun, so yeah. A case of the mondays
you are so britishly well mannarred
i love ya man
Do you feel that others are required to conform to your Interpretation of what constitute art?
If thats the case then there is no need to examine, experiment, expand, talk about or even criticize because we would all think the same. Thats not art, thats Conformism.
sounds like someones got a case of the mondays!
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Be sure to have those TPS reports done by the end of the day. Oh and don't forget the new cover sheets! You did get the memo, right? I'll send you another one, just incase.
Regardless, yes, I have plenty of influences, whether I'm always aware of them or not, the point being I was point out to Shot that its dangerous to shout about the lack of originality in the world when we all start off as wayward, unsure and in need of mentoring through the study of others better than ourselves.
I personally started out more enamoured of cinema and comics than of game art and I think that is still the case. My first Quakelord skins were based on the Minbarri warrior cast in Babylon5 and the Punisher uniform. I've never imitating other game artists styles of bowed down to whats popular or stuck with any kind of niche that I become known and popular for doing.
You'd almost think I was trying to avoid popularity because as I wrote the above I noted that those are the things that all artists are eventually pushed towards in order to make money and not alienate their audience.
Shot: I dont think this thread makes you sound disrespectful to me, it's only Scoob that is implying that I might be trying to hold you up to a higher standard than I am willing to hold myself and Daz countered that before I even looked back.
It's fair comment that my earlier stuff was more wilder and less controlled. I was actually looking over it recently and I could see a lot of the threads that lead me to where I am.
I think my early work was mostly pretty messy, I was so focussed on emoting a certain type of power and brassy aggression into the work that I didnt take enough time with each to focus on my refinement.
As a result, there are few pieces that I can look back upon with untainted pride.
What you are talking about changing ( I think ), or lets be frank, you are saying I have watered down my own style right?
Fair call, I have. Noone wants my own style other than me, you may find the same will become true of your own style when you find it and I think the search does sort of continue or at least evolve throughout our lives.
I like money, I like to live in a comfortable house and be able to afford the materials that I am either interested in or know will aid me in becoming a better artist.
I also NEED to be able to provide the same for my wife and my daughter for a long time to come.
It is because of these reasons rather than some self driven want to imitate others or round off the rough edges of my own personal style, that my style has changed.
Doing things too differently will always alienate and worry potential employeers. There will always be trends and popular styles and those are always the things we have to bend toward, or we will be broken.
I guess its a simple choice.
You can be the intense, lonely, driven, poor starving genuis stereotype that is appreciate only after his harassed and threadbare existence is ended.
OR
You can be the savvy flexible artists with enough wisdom and salesmanship to self promote themselves and what they do to the right people and thus eck out a comfortable living.
Of course, there are various stages between these 2 extremes and as long as I don't feel I have gone all the way over to either I am content with my work.
Now this trend has been around forever, that was what inspired my comment about 'You only just noticed?'.
Not all artists are even capable of being savvy because they don't really understand other people; to be savvy, you really need to make a study of the average person much more than of other artists. Its not other artists that buy our work and pay our bills.
Most real journeyman artists agree that you learn to work faster so you can go home earlier and do more for you. Working faster is NO a means to doing more for the company you work for, thats a one way path to burnt out, a place I have visted a few times and I have no intention of living there.
I hope this makes some of my choices which you appear to have noticed, clearer to you. I am not the only one that is or will still, make these choices.
It's great that you are where you are right now, but after time in the army, you must be able to concede that a big part of the reason you are so enraged by the way of the art world right now is that you have the luxury of enough time sitting on your ass to get all overworked about it right?
I've been there too! I'm pretty far away from the land of do as you please now though
So just experimenting and enjoying what you do, there will always be others who share whatever POV we have, but that doesn't make it worthwhile to espouse that view loudly and in anger because many don't share it.
I guess I just wanted to remind you of that.
Oh and it's normal hours Ohhh kaaay? Not at 10:00 am or a half day, Ohhh kaaay? Great.
frankie: fair enough,
so to make sure we are all conformed, I will state that I consider good art, the art I wish there were more to see of, anything that expresses one self.
emotion is a genuine thing
its perfectly pure
and the more honestly you express it and less techniqually you depress it, so to say, the less i think the art stands on its own. when i say "techniqually depress" i mean a misguided - imo - focus around the techniqual side of things rather than self expression. dont get me wrong, they 2 go well together naturally, but there r priorities and there is a balance to be found. I dont cosider per pixel rendering of z brushed pimples on a referenced head art. its unfortunately, it seems to be, thats what many people strive to create.
you see, if the preception of the community changed, and let's say the contests here were all about concept, creativety and self expression, just thing of what people would come up with. if that was the emphasis we would set, rather than pimping your z brushed pimple mlik, people wouldnt strive for that shallow level of techniqual art making space marines because it would be considered purely pointless
since mastering techniques is so challanging, we have given it too much important, too much meaning, and too much credit
ror: haha, too much time ye could be. but you can make it out there with the balance shifting more towards the self expression than working for Them. it *may be just the bad side of your experiences talking, I am not that versed in your history as you seem to have had the impression of.
i was saying, btw, but in better english now, that its a shame you had said this thread has made u respect me less.
However the current weekly polycount challenge is "draw a concept for a mad doctor" ... I want you to enter it. There's a couple of days left before deadline (Sunday), so I think you can get something done.
Put an original twist on the mad doctor concept, let's see something productive come out of this.
And hey, I really appreciate the effort you put into typing your last post very clearly and understandably... good stuff man
fine, but let me clarify, again, i did not mean to say "i can do better" than anyone else. i am no different and no better, perhaps only more self aware
bah, problem is that when we non-english speaking people, make thread, people end up missunderstanding anyway.
Thats why i dont post more then 5lines ya know Lol
b1l
... it's only Scoob that is implying that I might be trying to hold you up to a higher standard than I am willing to hold myself and Daz countered that before I even looked back.
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I suppose I should have been more clear. My statement about your influences wasn't any attempt to point out hypocrisy in your post. My intent was to show Shotgun how everybody, I mean EVERYBODY, even those who point out his quite obvious influences, have themselves been influenced. I was sort of taking it upon myself to say "Don't feel bad. lookie, he's one(a psuedo-emulator) too...and so am I."
I used you as an example. It could just as easily have been somebody else. I dont think I made any inference about your feelings on the matter one way or the other or by what standard you hold him or yourself.
After Daz's post I started to type to clarify, then you(Ror) posted, and I realized how easily what I said could be misinterpereted.
Let me say this, if my pointing out anybody's influences causes offense to their ego, then they are just as guilty of this creative-origins-misconception as Shotgun apparently is/was. None of us create in a vacuum, and the sooner we all cop to that, the healthier and happier we'll probably be.
And yeah, what Scooby said. English is not Shotguns first language. Criticism of the spelling and grammar therefore, seems unfounded, but I'm not so sure that criticism of the rant is
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Sorry, Daz, but that doesn't cut any ice with me here. If shotgun had said "English isn't my native language, sorry about the mistakes," that's cool and I totally understand. Instead, he wrote "i care less about the techniqual side (like using caps and full words) and concentrate on getting my point across and waste little time on anything else." Second language is no excuse, he's just being lazy. I don't care what country you learn the language in, no English instructor teaches his students to abandon grammar or spelling because it's a "waste" of time.
As usually, I'm keying on a tangent rather than the original point, but I think shotgun's lack of respect for technical issues is so apparent, there's almost nothing to discuss. No wonder he gets his panties in a bunch that more people here aren't the high-concept artistes I think he wants to be, because he's even dismissed simple rules for written communication as unnecessary. How do you debate against that?
I don't consider myself an artist the way many of you here do - I'm a designer by instinct and by degree. I don't try to emote the inner struggle of man in shades of ochre paint on heavy canvas; I deal with communication. My work is about making one person understand another person's thoughts or ideas as clearly as possible while maintaining some sort of desirable aesthetic. I've had more arguments in art and art history classes than you could imagine over my belief that art fails without technique. I think Pollock was a poser, Duchamp a bullshit con artist, and that any art that happens without some sort of technical proficiency is as much a product of luck as anything else. That's me, I've been up and down the aisles about this with two universities worth of art professors, and I don't try to fight that battle anymore. I'm a designer lurking around in an art world and I accept it. But, to obscenely paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the fucking message, kids. Innovating is great, but if you abandon technique such that no one can relate to what it is you think you're creating... hey, you can spend your days trying to throw rocks at the sun too, for all I care. I'm not going to tilt at windmills with those who don't understand why writing has rules, or why imitation must be the foundation of all successful innovation.
b1ll: you are right. your english sucks!
too much english mistakes, not to mention its easy as it is to be misread virtually.
scoob: no offence taken to my very small ego anyways man, dont worry. you know me better than most ppl who posted here..
generally, ill just say, i think kenneth scott has *techniqually influeced me, more in a teaching sense than anything else. i honestly dont think stuff i make these days has any kenneth influece -- concept wise.
so ror, when you say you still see him in my work, what exactly do you see? its probably the techniqual side, or at least id like to hope so. and thats cool, honestly no ego offended and no nothing. he was a good "teacher", one can almost be proud of that.
but please lets try and keep this not personal and general on our community, this is not about me or you compared to the rest.
to those people here who DO see this thread as a pretencious act of myself dabbling with my ego all day,
its not. what actually is true, is thats exactly what YOU are: dabbling with your ego measured to others, and having your that blind and twist your preception. and so, you read things in the wrong way. if you are honest enough to admit that to yourself, you can fix it.
vermilion: for god sake, just so not to make yourself known as the official polycount boards human fart, delete the two first paragraphs from this thread.
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Haha - never been called that before
However, I do agree that the whole conceptual community has gotten seriously incestuos. It's not like people are just copying Ken Scott's style anymore. People are copying a dude, who immitates another guy, who was inspired an artist, who copied Ken Scott. Or Jim Lee, or Brom, or Doug Chang, Paul Steed, or whoever. It is getting pretty bad.
But remember that even these famous "art" guys were inspired by others. Jim Lee was into anime, and was influenced accordingly. I'm guessing Brom liked HR Giger, and read a lot of Clive Barker books. Etc., etc. Sure, some of these guys have evolved to their own recognizable style after some time, but chances are that they were just hacky technicians at some point too.
I consider art to be the "Interpretation and effective conveyance of an idea." Just because it is not your own idea, does not make it bad art.
My point is that it can still be well done and look pretty, even if the idea is not original. But recycling the same ideas over and over again can get pretty boring. (Space marine, anyone?) Nevertheless, there have been some great artists over the course of history who did the same shtick over and over. Portrait artists are a good example of this, where some of them would pose the subject the same way, under the same lighting conditions each time, then begin painting away. And some of them were frigging amazing at this.
You choice of shading style, your choice of colour schemes ( though you are moving a little away from that now) and originally your subject matter too though again i think you are moving away from that.
As for my own movement between 'me' and 'them', as far as my professional work goes, I have no choice but to be a whore and do what I'm told, I don't really have many chances to be creative like I used to be or like I want to be but I have stability and I work with great people and I'm getting a hell of an education and although I think FPS games are mostly generic swill, many thousands of people enjoy them and I take pride in their enjoyment and my own ability to not give up on quality , I always do a job professionally.
As far as my own work goes, there has been a lot of wandering or searching ( if you want to be arty!) in it the last few years.
Of course, my time is split between family and art now and even Lennon admitted his work went down the shitter once he became a family man.
I think when my daughter is a little older and I have more of a chance for longer periods of time to myself again, my own work will make me happier again.
My opinion about art is that its like a quest. There is this region of space in our minds (I will call it the void)
that we travel through in search of ideas.
The Void is vast, huge, immense and the further we travel into the depths of it, the richer the ideas we can mine.
Travel within the void requires time, long , concentrated amounts of time. I have time only in portions of 1-2hours atm and thats how it has been for the last 3 years.
So mostly i experiment with little ideas, I never finish, well never truly finish things to the standard I can if I had time. It's no good spending 1 hour every couple of days for a month on one piece; that method does not create passion in me, it creates apathy.
Oh and dont worry, anyone, I'm not taking an ego hit over anyone speculation on my inspirations and I don't require sympathy for my artistic shortcomings the last few years because the family side of my life balances out the hit my creativity has taken.
I guess this is why I can rage at the younger members ranting about concerns I no longer have, concerns that I see now as being more trivial than I used to.
I think there are a lot of seasons to an artist; thanks to this, it will always be unwise to mock those seasons currently alien to ourselves.
I know I have spent a great deal of time so far working up my technical abilities, because I wasn't quite sure (and still am not) what I want to do with my life/artistic abilities. But I know that no matter what I decide, that technical skills will serve me well in those endeavors, so it is a safe investment of time. It also pays the bills, as Ror has mentioned. Proficient technicians will always be in high demand in the entertainment industry.
I've just recently started investing more time into the conceptual area and the idea phase, and I'm finding I'm but a mere baby in that area because of my lack of practice. It's gonna be a long road, but it's one worth investing time into. I do feel glad that I've spent a good chunk of time on technique and execution, because as my ideas and concepts improve, I already have the means in which to bring them to life.
Also, Vermillian, I agree with you almost wholeheartedly.
Also Shotgun, if you goal is to communicate, than you should make more effort to communicate clearly. I've talked to you in person before, and your understanding of English is good. Don't just throw your thoughts out there and force us to interpret them. They aren't gold nuggets, despite the fact they are interesting. Make it easy for anyone to understand, and it will only generate more interesting dialogue. It's a small investment of time with great dividends.
While it's cool to have your own style, this often does not fly in a production environment. If you're working on the character team, and each person imprints his own style on the characters that they do, you're going to get a whole lot of mismatched work. Cartooney characters, painterly ones, bland realistic ones, stylized hyper-real characters, etc. Unless you are the game designer/art director, you're really not going to get a lot of say in the overall style of the game, or even the assets that you contribute. You'll have to adapt your style to fit in with the overall vision.
It's just the difference between fine/personal art, and production art.