Anxiety ( I am lost)

General Forums Off-topic Chat
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Preface: Sorry if wrong section to post on but it made the most sense since it involves blender n’ stuff.

I’m 25 now. I’ve made some pretty daft choices in life. In turn I have set myself back in terms of what I enjoy doing Art and coding. I’ve been learning to draw since I was 11. I became pretty good but when I became 16 I neglected it all and ended up doing something completely different due to a mixture reasons but I regret it all. Long story short I’m 25 and I just wanna start doing things that make me happy but also think in the long term.

I’ve been learning Blender for sometime now (and want to try Maya/zbrush when I get a better PC). I really enjoy it. I also enjoy 2D art mainly character design, people and painting digital portraits (this is my stength but there is a lot of room for improvement). I’m trying to get better at at since I feel as if I have a lot to learn especially when it comes to colouring. I especially like drawing female characters. I’ve also just started learning Python which I really think is bloody fun. Shamefully I can’t model/scuplt characters.

But as I’m I’m half way through my 20’s I need to make better and wiser choices. I enjoy all these three but the learning process may take a while especially since my godawful job takes up much of the day (like some people on here I suspect). I feel as if I’ve been fumbling in the dark. If I enjoy coding and creating characters then what would make the most sense in terms of direction for me to take? I’ve wasted a good portion of my life because of fear and I just don’t want to lose more time.

I have a feeling this question may not be the right one to ask and leaves open more questions from others and myself to be answered.

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My advice: Do what you love. Coming home from a bad day at work and unwinding making a 3d model, or painting, or code is really beneficial. Frantically trying to do CG right so you wont have to go to your crappy job is a great way to suck the love out of it.

If you know you love character design, design characters. Not because it is preparing you for a better career, but because you love it.

Don’t get caught in the tutorial trap. Be creative and solve problems the way that makes sense to you, not the step by step way that someone else walked you through. even if the way you do it is weird or funky or barely works, you still get the sense of satisfaction of really solving the problem.

Get back to drawing! It’s never too late to start again, and being able to communicate clearly in a visual medium translates across disciplines.

Lots of luck out there man, I know it’s rough. Just keep the love in your heart and the world is a lot easier to deal with.

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Don’t be so hard on yourself. We’re all lost. Some are better at hiding it than others.

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Like Stirling said, do what you love. You’re going to get the most mileage out of that, and even when things aren’t progressing as quickly as you’d like, professionally, you will still find happiness.

Now about which interest to pursue: I tend to view art as an imaginative venture, while I see coding as more of a problem solving venture (neither of these are strictly true). So, you might ponder whether you’re an inspiration driven person or a challenge driven person, and clearly there’s much middle ground between.

For the sake of argument, let’s say you go with 3D character art. You’re going to want to spend a lot of time drawing, and specifically drawing naked people. Get involved with figure drawing classes in your local area. If there aren’t any, pull some people together on campuses/Reddit/Craigslist/etc. and start one. Having a collaborative environment with irl people will propel you faster than you can generally propel yourself, just like a schooling environment.

Once you really, truly understand human anatomy through 2D mediums, you’ll have a much easier time replicating characters in 3D. Your eye will be sharper, and you’ll waste less time second guessing proportions. Learning 3D tools is much simpler than learning how to see and reproduce form and composition, so feel free to put it off, honestly. Anecdotally, I’ve had art directors turn down character artists “because they couldn’t draw”. It’s important, even if your final product is digital. Also, the time investment on 2D iterations is much much lower than 3D, so you’re going to feel like you’re accomplishing more if you focus on drawing at first.

As for coding/scripting professionally, I really can’t say since it’s not what I do. You may be able to work your way up through a QA dept if you have any local tech/game studios in your area. You won’t be making an engineer’s income, but you’ll get to know people, see if you like the industry, give yourself some time to learn on the job, and maybe find some casual mentors.

When it comes to scripting as an artist, I’ll tell you that knowing Python, JS, and Mel has been invaluable. Being able to write quick, 15 line scripts to save 25 minutes of soul-sucking grind is really a life saver. I use combinations of personal/edited scripts and macros all day, every day. So, even if you lean toward art, know that there will be plenty of scripting opportunities in your future.

Lastly, try to relax into your decision. You may feel pressured, but know that the anxiety isn’t going to actually make anything better. Take it one day at a time and focus on incremental progress, in whatever direction you choose. If you change you mind about something, there’s no great loss. Start on your new direction the next day, and so on.

Best wishes

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one suggestion,select a tough goal and work on it for say 3 months in each field,then you will no your affinity.

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To be original, I’ll say it for the third time. Do what you love.

Personally I find that “getting good at something” simply means getting confident enough so that you’re not afraid to make a mistake, since you know how to undo it. Or more likely you’ll learn that you cannot make a mistake.

I’ve been learning Blender at a pretty slow pace for the past 5 years. Every now and then it just comes so naturally and I feel like I want to do this thing that I saw Andrew Price do but at the time it seemed like magic, and now I can do it and it feels incredibly liberating.

And I don’t force myself into anything, which is probably a mistake. Perhaps if I’d been more strict on myself, I’d have now known twice as much as I do. But it wouldn’t have been as much fun as it has.

I just hope that if I’ll ever work in 3D I’ll enjoy it. Because I tried it once for a week, and being supervised by someone who’s telling you what to create was the most stressful and unpleasant experience.