TICKING CLOCK

[Farvus]

Also Farvus, you and Sula, as working artists already, show us all the other side of the coin, the so called promised land many of us are still trying to achieve. And while I'm sure it is better than doing nothing creative all day, it goes to show that just because you are doing an art job, doesn't mean you are getting all you need out of it.

Well. During the first year at the job I was really conflicted if I should continue with this company or move on and look for something else. In case of that second option I would have to move out of my hometown as in my place there isn't much to choose from. Then it slowly came to me that it's actually attitude thing. I realised that it's very likely that after finding some more inspiring job I would still see things in negative light and that I probably have some idealised image of how good art career should look like. It's like in this saying "Grass is always greener on the other side".
Just to give you more detail I was preparing portfolio with concept art tripple-A games with realistic or gritty style but ended up doing mostly game assets for cartoony casual games or GUI design. On top of that some projects can be so small that there isn't much time to do something to be proud of.

Eventually though I tried to focus on good sides.

I think to some degree I can appreciate any style even if I don't make something satisfying out of it. Small casual games has this one cool thing that while for big studio job you can do small portion of concepts and don't really have any recognition beacause of that, for casual game you can shape the whole visual style of the game as a one person. Sometimes I was even given a free hand to come up with ideas on what will be in the game.

I learned to pick my battles. When something is destined to be crap then it's better move forward and save energy for something more ambitious. And contrary to what Dan Warren said which is "job that you dreamed about doesn't exist", I would say that it's not that it doesn't exist but even in the most amazing company you will have worse and better projects. There will never be the luxury of getting only the most fun creative stuff to do. Maybe that's only part of the studio job but I'm sure freelance can have that too.

When it comes to other good things. Design and composition are universal thing so just beacause you create menu bar for a game, doesn't mean that you're not improving. My design skills improved after all those years and I could transfer those to my personal work.

Also one minor thing I realised recently. I was listening to the "getting through the middle" talk and there was mention of having to do what is expected for so long time that everybody's portfolio in the industry has the same look. You see the art done for my job is so drastically different (beacause it's slighly different facet of the games industry) that my personal art is not endangered so much by that. I can sit and draw cute fish during the day and then come home and sketch some dark thriller scene. There is really no much overlapping. In that aspect I can treat it as advantage :).

And just to finish this. It's not like I gave up, completely abandoned the idea of going further in my art career and got used to sucky situation. I want to choose the right moment and feeling in my gut tells me that I should wait year or two. So far in my life everything kind of fell into place perfectly when I just waited a little longer and prepared as much as possible. For example as I work at the actual company I managed to gather enough money to buy a flat. In that transition time I can progress myself also in life and when I get enough confidence I can push the art side a little. I just have to remind myself to never stay complacent beacause it won't end well. That feeling of not making it never entirely goes away.