So, how has your life turned out?
polycounter lvl 19
I was thinking today while inhaling some sushi with some work mates that I love how my life has turned out in comparison to how I thought it would be when I was younger.
When I was young and would like with my friends about what I want to do when I'm older (I'm talking 8, 9, 10 years old...) it involved "I wanna make video games!" but that was more of a pie-in-the-sky thought. I also talked about following my dads foot steps and becoming a cop, working at Disney as an animator (so awesome!), starting my own videogame company with all my friends and making the SWEETEST games EVER! At that age girls were icky so having a steady girlfriend wasn't exactly in my head (seeing "boobies" for the first time was though!).
I never thought I'd actually be a 'game artist', live on the opposite side of the country, and be in one of the most beautiful cities on earth. Maybe its the nice weather today, or the sun shining, but I'm pretty damn happy with the way my life has gone.
You?
When I was young and would like with my friends about what I want to do when I'm older (I'm talking 8, 9, 10 years old...) it involved "I wanna make video games!" but that was more of a pie-in-the-sky thought. I also talked about following my dads foot steps and becoming a cop, working at Disney as an animator (so awesome!), starting my own videogame company with all my friends and making the SWEETEST games EVER! At that age girls were icky so having a steady girlfriend wasn't exactly in my head (seeing "boobies" for the first time was though!).
I never thought I'd actually be a 'game artist', live on the opposite side of the country, and be in one of the most beautiful cities on earth. Maybe its the nice weather today, or the sun shining, but I'm pretty damn happy with the way my life has gone.
You?
Replies
I would never have imagined I'd be on this path a few years ago, and yet here I am.
And I'm totally enjoying university, I've made lots of great friends, got a great girlfriend and I'm in a great town with a great rock/metal scene.
Could say my life is going great so far!
I spent 5 years in the USMC, have done construction work, computer tech support, worked for LEGO, and now make a living brokering 3D files for Poser.
I've studied theater and performed many times on stage, learned Russian while in the Corps (but have forgotten most of it), and been from one side of the US to the other.
I've fallen from a rapelling tower onto hard packed earth and not broken anything. I spent nine months in Scotland and a month and a half in England. I stood outside and played flag football in the middle of a hurricane, and months later watched as a tornado literally hopped over the building I was in - destroying the buildings on either side, but I was untouched. I've flown on more different kinds of aircraft than I can count, and even learned to fence for the sake of learning.
Would you believe I''m bored right now?
I had always dreamed of becoming a game artist. Although those dreams did not come to pass, there will always be a part of me that wishes I was doing what I loved. But I believe there are some things more important than one's own dreams. For me, that thing is my family. Perhaps I play life "too safe." From the outside, companies in the industry appear unstable and short-lived. And the hours of operation (cruch time in particular) sound rough when considering time for one's family. I want to be a "little league dad" and "scout leader" for my kids. I suppose I feel the duties of a game artist would not be conducive to having a lot of time to spend with my children.
Is there regret? You bet. But I think the trade off is worth it. I currently work for the University of Houston-Victoria in Victoria, Texas as the PC Technician. I am also furthering my education by taking master's courses towards my MS in Computer Science.
Maybe if everything works out down the road...I'll be able to teach as an adjunct professor. I would love to be able to help get a program started to give people in this area exposure to the artistic and technical sides of game art.
Life is good...and Tuesday I'll be celebrating 26 years of it.
I think I'm doing pretty well so far. Ask me again in 8 months and I hope I'll be able to say it's even better.
After 5 years of searching and many mistakes, I think I know who I am now, and where I want to be. I'm more in touch with my childhood, where video games and art were my life. I have a future, good friends, and an amazing woman, living in a great town. I have goals, and purpose. I know I can get by when times are tough, but life appears to be getting better each year. I've put my reckless school years behind me. Nothing can bring me down.
So, all good here.
I've been chasing the carrot of 'being the best artist I can be' all my life and slowly realising that its not an actual goal that you can reach.. its just a continual process that stops when you die
I expect that urge always to do more is what's allowed me to do as much as I have.
r.
Looks pretty good to me so far! Can't complain.
To play devils advocate though, I'm a bit like Ror I think. Once I reach certain goals, the goalposts shift, and I have higher goals. It's never really enough. As you suggest Rooster, you're sort of just forever chasing your tail. I guess that's quite common with us artistic types. Last week I woke up one morning and decided that my demo reel was crap, and now Im revamping half of it. Sigh.
Regrets? I wish I'd gotten married allready but alas, I just haven't met the right gal. If I could do it all over again, I would procrastinate less.
It's not really what I pictured as a kid ( although to be fair, daydreaming in that crappy council estate in south London, I never dreamed I'd be living in California ) but I can't really remember what I pictured. Oh yeah I remember, I wanted to be one of those artists that draw criminals based on peoples descriptions, hah! So yeah, spose Im doing ok. Kinda
Since 16 the only goal I had was to get to Japan. I was working for probe at the time on some SNES games, doing pixel art. They offered me a full time job and I turned it down. At 21 I got to Japan and since then it's been a ping pong of coming back here. Finally I am back, but at almost 28 I feel like the good days have gone.
Sure it's easier to get work and money now, but before I could sail through life and mess about. For some reason I want kids more than anything, and may well have found the right girl to make them with. Although I guess we're just going to practice for a few years, because shes six years younger than me
In all, life has been good to me. Some say I'm lucky for having a tallent. I think it's just about being interested in something. Theres so many out there happy to smoke weed and play playstation when they get home from the factory, in fact thats 90% of people I went to school with, I'm glad it didn't turn out like that.
I wanted to be an architect like hawken...but I guess the quake modding community helped me realise I wanted to make games instead...and now I do.
This last year my life has turned out well. I like the way things are going, though I too would like to start a family.
Wow hawken, we're in the same boat.
-R
twilight zone!
I've got a pretty decent (and easy) job, IT department for a mac based office, I'm living rent free until all the paperwork goes through and my house gets bulldozed for an apartment complex (which should take about a year). So I guess I'm doing pretty good.
haahah that sounds like some sort of self-help slogan. wonderfly lame. i'll leave it.
At the moment everything is going Milhouse for me
Oh yeah and enjoying all the fine greenery doesnt hurt either.
When I was young and would like with my friends about what I want to do when I'm older (I'm talking 8, 9, 10 years old...) it involved "I wanna make video games!" but that was more of a pie-in-the-sky thought.
You?
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I was the same way.. I used to draw out my own mario levels on copy paper. I also wanted to be a mad scientist and an inventor.
When I was a child, I thought working for a toy company would be the greatest thing in the world. Been there, done that. And it was interesting. But I would not do it again.
As a teen, I wanted to make comic books. Did some comic strips and found that it really wasn't what I wanted to do.
As a college student, my dream was to be an illustrator and paint book covers. Been there, done that (and have the T-Shirt!) and discovered that it became boring after a while. Not enough variety.
Ended up making games ... always something different from month to month, year to year. Has its ups and downs, but generally always good. I'd like to finish out my career doing this.
Never really wanted (or liked) kids when I was a young man, but I have two (both young adults now) and they are easily the greatest accomplishment in my life. I love them dearly and miss having them around.
Thought I would be married forever to the same woman ... but ...
I've had happiness and sorrow. I've had as much fame as a man really needs. I've both been poor and had lots of money (though never been really rich).
Important things I can share:
Being wise is better, long term, than being smart.
Owning or having things does not make you happy.
What you do for others will be more fulfilling than what you do for yourself.
But don't feel guilty if what you do for others also has a selfish component to it. Even saints have to eat.
You don't really need that second serving of pie. Trust me.
Joe, I still want to be a mad scientist and an inventor
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keep the dream alive, man. keep it alive.
I went to college, got a job afterwards, live alone in an apartment. I get to eat, sleep, do whatever I want whenever i want. (something that always was a goal of mine)
Never had a girlfriend.. I think this might be a big problem.
Whats the frickin point..
Won't an asteroid hit the earth already? If you're lookin for me I'll be on a hill in a lounge chair with a shiney pinwheel and big novelty foam hand.
One last word of advice (well last word this time around): Live in a way that makes NOW the best days of your life, regardless of how young or old you are. "Glory Days" (as in the Springsteen song) are for losers who never do anything after high school (or university).
I guess I've accomplished a lot in my 26 years, but accomplishments mean less and less the older I get. I'm most content when I'm focused on the work, whether it be painting a texture, building a level, or attending a figure drawing workshop. The end result doesn't matter much to me anymore, I just like to do it.
Friends are more important to me than ever, and it's a priority of mine to find the time to get together. I've lost too many due to work and personal ambition.
I'm currently struggling with chronic migraine headaches, and it's unfortunate that I've finally realized just how important personal health is. You only get one body (well, until cyborg replacements hit the market) so take care of it.
And on that note...
http://www.idealist.org/
Oh, and you can't totally live in the moment (too many people do this these days, and look what its allowed to happen to our world).
You need your past to know where you've been. You need the future to know where your going. You need the present however, to enjoy what you have now.
Regrets, Ive had a few; But then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course; Each careful step along the byway, But more, much more than this, I did it my way.
Yes, there were times, Im sure you knew When I bit off more than I could chew. But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out. I faced it all and I stood tall; And did it my way.
Ive loved, Ive laughed and cried. Ive had my fill; my share of losing. And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing.
To think I did all that; And may I say - not in a shy way, No, oh no not me, I did it my way.
For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels; And not the words of one who kneels. The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!
I have a great family, and working advertising was fun- but I'm all about landing a game gig one day...
I suppose I make an effort to be grateful for what I have now, while still looking forward. I guess that's the trick isn't it?
You?
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It's not what I wanted. Two mistakes have largely determined my current situation in life, good things I let pass me by because I was afraid and didn't understand or appreciate them at the time. I'm four days out from my thirtieth birthday, single, significantly in debt and effectively unemployed. The regrets I've learned to live with - it's not knowing what path to take out of here that literally keeps me awake at night.
But I'm not giving up
One day when i was 17 I was sitting at a train station in Brooklyn looking at all the sad miserble people around me and it hit me, you know, why not do it, its my life good or bad i might as well do something fun with it.
So i just decided that i would try and be become really good at this 3d/game art thing because that seemed like a really fun thing to do with my life. And i've been kind of dabbling with mods for about a year or two before then.
fast forward to 3+ years after that. Its been good and bad, it wasn't all as awesome and glorious as I had imagined, but what is? its all alot more real now. I've met everyone who i used to idolize when i was getting into this and they all turned out to be approachable and nice people, which was really an inspiration all in itself. If theres one thing i've learned is that no matter how much skill or talent someone has they are still just human, and you can achieve anything if you work hard.
I first started playing games and dabbling on the computer in the early 80's, just before the great "crash" of video games. The first thing I ever did on a computer was try to recreate Donkey Kong on the Apple II(unsuccesfully). Then I successfully recreated Centipede and Phoenix
I suppose in high school I dreamed of the white picket fence house, beautiful wife and family, like most people do. It started out on that course, not long after graduation. Went to college on a scholarship, fell in love, got engaged, and struck out on my own. The problem was, I had no sense of balance, no idea of "who" I really was, or what I was about. I was overconfident to the point of cockiness, and a few years later found myself alone, dropped out of college, laid off, and drinking heavily. I spent 10 years recovering from that night that she came home and said "we need to talk". Most of my 20's were a dark period, mostly drunk or high, playing guitar in metal and punk bands(the only thing that kept me going actually). Finally after all that time, I had rebuilt myself, and by the time I was 30 I was much more focused, sober, and able to harness whatever talents I had musically or artistically to the best of their potential, which at long last, gave me a sense of worth.
It was the right time to meet my wife, a few years later, who made all the suffering of the decade before completely worth it.
Now with that sense of restlestness gone, I was able to jump back into art and video games, as a hobby, and at the same time get my professional life back on track. I got the dream house, cushy job, and loving, beautiful wife, and family. Well, the kids are actually cats, but that's plenty for me
So strangely, life has turned out the way I thought it would, it just took a very strange, morbidly interesting path to get there.
I get what enjoyment I can, but for the most part, my life is not what I expected it to be. Of course, I am one of those classic 'always greener on the other side' types, so I have no idea how I would think about things from the other side, the one I think I might prefer. But there really isn't any going back now.
I had a startling epiphany the other day. I Googled the name of the one good friend I had at school in the sixth grade. We had ended up in the same college, by some strange synchronicity, and I hadn't known where he'd gone from there. But his own web site was the #1 hit, and I discovered that he's gone and done exactly what he'd dreamed about. You may laugh, but he was a Creative Director at Henson Productions, working mainly on Sesame Street, eventually winning an Emmy. Startled, I realized that he's had the exact level of success I expected of myself, many years ago. Put me in my place, to be sure.
So, the mid-life crisis is upon me! Whee.
/jzero
Somehow I don't think you can top early childhood. I remember rolling around on the floor, playing with the carpet, sucking my thumb and kicking my feet around all day and being happy as hell.
I suppose I could still try that, but I somehow doubt I'll get the same kick out of it. :P