I’m sure that many of you have noticed that I really don’t do much art around here in Blender. I did a while back, but it’s been months since I made something. I always open up Blender, try and think of what to model, then just find some object next to my computer that looks easy to model. I start, but only get about 15 minutes into it before I stop.
The main thing that I’m having trouble with is finding what to model and finding the time to model it. I usually move from Blender to Counter-Strike or World of Warcraft or to go outside and do something, but I really want to be able to showcase some art. I just seem to lack the motivation, are there any tips on what I should do to try and push my mind into concentration?
model something that you like doing, your hobby, i have a longboard so i’m just about to model that, and then a scene for it to go in. well, i say have a longboard, it’s actually still being delivered, so as soon as i get it and lose some skin i’ll start to model it
I have felt the same so long and so many times, so when I started my current project, it was based on a idea very loosely, but anway…
I was telling myself, that I should progress slowly, very slow, let it take it time, no rush, and if you want quality in your work, it can’t be rushed, and also, did the great masters ever do they work in a rush?
well, I have worked on Mr Tornado since february, and now it suddenly feels fun again to work with a project
so now I finished the modeling/material/texture -part, and now I started on rigging, I would also advice you to look at many reference material, magazines, animated movies or scifi or any effect movie…
Discipline is a very helpful technique. 30 minutes a day every day whether or not you want to will generate the physicall skills necessary to achieve results with speed. Like a musical instrument, blender takes practice and determination.
And always keep your motivation at the forefront of your mind. In your case your motivation is to “showcase some art.” We need to commit ourselves to our motivation in order to achieve our goals. Set a deadline, say two weeks, and just keep in mind that you want to showcase something in two weeks and don’t allow yourself to fail. You may not achieve a CGtalk masterpiece, but you’ve gained some skill and the next attempt will improve.
ztonzy makes a good point too. But I think if you just practice a little bit every day you’ll find things getting easier and easier. A wine glass today, an audio component tomorrow, next year an evil overlord ruling the world. Bwa ha haaa.
Anyway, that’s what my music teachers always told me. Seems to work.
Draw, draw and draw some more. Take your sketch book everywhere you go. Draw anything you see that is of interest to you. Or draw everything that comes to your mind. A few good ideas are bound to appear out of the crap eventually, refine and sketch the better ideas some more, then fire up blender and start working on the outcome of all that sketching. It also helps to give yourself assignments as exercises (say this week I’ll model my computer keyboard or whatever). It’s not original or inspiring, but it’s useful to keep your Blender chops up to snuff while you are in a creative lull.
On a side note, Take all your games and throw them in the garbage. Seriously, I have rarely met a very creative individual who wasted all his time on that mind numbing nonsense. It just sucks the life right out of you and rots your brain, almost worst than TV…
Deadlines are often the best motivators for me. Maybe find a contest out there that you’re interested in and commit yourself to entering it. Even if you don’t actually end up submitting your entry, the self-imposed timeframe will help you get something put out. For some it helps to map out an intermediate schedule, as in: “I’ll have the models complete by xx, and the textures done by xx, and the composition put together by xx…” etc. then try to make the work happen within that schedule. This gives some folks a sense of security or a release from anxiety to some degree. But for me, a deadline helps me make a project a priority, steering me away from “distractions” such as games, and pushes me to focus on solving the challenges that any project can present.
I often find that I’m not short on imagination, but on implementation. I can think up a cool thing to do, but get stuck on how it might actually be done, and I let that “barrier” become a hindrance to going ahead on a given idea. If you’ve ever watched the “making of” documentaries on certain film projects that involved CG, you’ll often find that the director or writers had these ideas that they had no clue about implementing, but didn’t let these become barriers to pushing ahead with the project. That certainly doesn’t mean that such things can become insurmountable, especailly for a “one-man” production, but I’m just saying that they tend to hinder someone from even beginning something. Additionally, when you can’t get something to “work right” that can often become a discouragement, which sometimes results in a project getting abandoned. Other times it means the artist has to “settle” for what is presently achievable. I’ve found that patience is the biggest benefit in these situations. The problem is: patience and deadlines don’t mix well…
Try a different medium to work on. I picked up photoshop/illustrator for several months where I did almost zero work in blender at all.
After I came back I was armed some rudimentry knowledge of how to create textures, I then used this knowledge and created a couple of nice sexy scenes with nice looking textures.
Bussman… definitely can’t throw away my computer games, it’s a big hobby, and something I’ve been doing since age one and a half… I really doubt I could throw them away. I actually find that I go to blender most often AFTER playing a really good game, with the sort of mindset of “I REALLY want to create something like that!” I tend to “blend” (not in blender, just mix) certain game ideas together and then come up with something.
The major block is I start doing something, but then realize that I don’t know what tool to use for a certain thing I need to do. There’s only so much you can do with extrusions and vertice rotation points… and while I know a few other things I really feel inadequate when it comes to all the tools that blender has…
Guess one of the main stops would be a tutorial… huh?
Pooba I have the same right now, I use blender and I ask myself sometimes, Why?? I didn’t made awesome work like @ndy or Endi or RObertt, and I’m still playing around with the game engine and such.
I even tought about quiting, but I can’t. So I’m trying to find some nice things to model. Mostly I look around me, find an object and try modeling it. Last time I just grap some objects, thought about a to combine them to something.
Right now I have an idea what I will model tomorrow. I told myself to do something with the new features, like softbody and model some cloth scenes or something. :-?
Also a good idea is to join irc blenderchat ofthen, look around about what people are talking, looks also at the weekend challenge topic on elysiun which have sometimes quite nice themes, but it’s just the time it takes for me, modeling something within a weekend.
However, Ztonzy’s suggestion of taking a nice slowly slowly approach, no rush, just take time and enjoy it is a good one.
After all, the world isn’t going to blow up just because you don’t blend tonight.
So just think of something to blend, or if you are lacking imagination at the moment find a nice blueprint and then blend a model from the blueprint. Which is what I’m doing with my Dalek. Found nice blueprints on the net, and I’m slowly slowly making progress.
The other thing which is important is to try and not judge yourself too harshly, for example thinking “this is too sucky! Bah!” after 5 minutes blending and then deleteting the scene. I’ve been there and done that, it doesn’t help anything.
Alternatively, put blender down for a few weeks, spend time doing photography / sketching etc, just something to give you a good 100% break from blender. Perhaps when you return you will be refreshed and looking forward to using it.
Yeah I think deadlines are the way to go. I hated them at university and I was so glad I didn’t have any once I left. Then I realised I didn’t get anything done.
One day I decided to make a character within a week so I modelled, fully rigged with IKs, textured, lit, posed and rendered the model within about 5 days.
I have the same difficulty. After reading this, it doesn’t look like inspiration is the problem. Instead, its about technical skill and knowledge of Blender. I think it may be helpful to think about where you often come unstuck when modelling etc and find tutorials or search the forum on that area until you get it sussed.
Well, the only problem with that is that kind of searching requires the knowledge of what the tool is called. For example, I was modeling a sink type thing, and I wanted to add some slight detail to it by kind of “cutting” a chunk out of a part and smoothing the edges… I knew I could use Booleans to cut it out, but I had no idea on how to bevel an edge that was extremely complicated.
Start a project, an art piece wich incorperates new skills you havent developped yourself with yet. Learning and creating at the same time is very furfilling…it can renew your interest in such a degree you cut down quite allot on your gaming ritme. (I havent played longer then 30 minutes on a game for 2 weeks now…due to my…‘obsessive’ blending =P).
Also find music that will lift your spirit when working, preferably ones without ‘understandable’ lyrics. Lyrics are a passive concentration breaker.
