03-17-2015, 06:45 AM
Hey man, I was going to post on your crit thread, but think here might be better.
Patrick made some really good points about quitting instead of grinding, and Farvus also did about pushing through with the degree and coming out with both.
I think Adam nailed it in his first bit about happiness though. I was going to say something very similar.
The philosophical view
The other thing that nobody has really said is that nobody can tell you what is going to be the right path for you, and you shouldn't be relying on us to help direct you. You could read a thousand personal journeys of people in this exact situation and none of them will make any real difference because the choice of what to do with your time is totally and utterly up to you.
You are so concerned about your future (which is just a fantasy of your own making really) that the path you are walking in the present is becoming all muddy and torturous with your own thoughts, splitting into different ways and branches, not clear at all.
The moment you just focus and look at taking one step after the next with full awareness and disregard the future, that is when your path will become more clear.
You will probably find if you start to focus more on the present and your own gut that you will end up hacking through pathless bushland rather than a neat well worn path. That is fine, because you are making your own path and not just walking down some that others have made for you.
The next bit I have learned through my own "crises" decision points, one very similar to your current one. Us humans have this arrogant way about us where we are taught that our brains and our thoughts are actually the best way to deal with any problem that arises. And because the problem seems to be born in our brain, that the answer lies within it. Actually most times it is our own thoughts that are the ones creating the problem in the first place, holding us back and sabotaging us in huge ways. We never get taught how to deal with that aspect of ourselves.
I would in addition to Adam's thoughts say, that now is the time to start to try to learn to really listen to yourself. Be very aware of all your emotions, your fears, your guilt, everything to do with this situation, and then discount them all and try and listen to what your gut is telling you.
The more you quiet your brain and listen to yourself in a quieter deeper way (not your thoughts) the more you will get feelings of some sort of unexplained "knowing". Your subconscious knows things about you that even your thinking brain doesn't. Don't discount this! In my own life more recently, I can see that the more I have listened to myself in silence (NOT my fears or thoughts) the more clearer things become. Choices actually start to get easy, almost to the point where there is no real choice to be made, there is only action.
From what I have experienced, when I trust this feeling, and make the corresponding action, it throws up amazing results and opportunities in ways my brain never even imagined.
Do not stop yourself out of fear or guilt or whatever from doing what you know you need to. Whatever happens happens, fear and guilt are retarded emotions and thoughts to pander to at any point in your life. Nothing is as serious as those emotions will try and get you to believe. You are young, have health, are secure, have people who you love/love you, so actually you are incredibly fortunate, and it is good to also see this perspective whenever you get wound up on your particular problems because it gets lost so easily.
I hope some of this helps you decide what you are going to do. I certainly can't claim to help you with it in any other way.
The folio
In terms of your folio, I think you need to keep cycling new work in all the time. Aim at adding one folio piece a month if you can.
Replace the things that look like studies first (photo study of sunset, the girl portrait) with real illustrative or design work. Nobody wants to see your studies. They aren't hiring you to study something for them.
You have to showcase in your folio what you would like to be doing for clients, or they won't have any idea what you can actually do and will be more likely to pass you up.
If you want to design characters you need to have more full character design pieces in there, rather than characters obscured from the waist down or in some other way as in almost all the illustrative pieces. I really like the way the Contrast piece is painted, but there is no character design in there at all. So what will this say to a potential client?
Your male upper arm (biceps and triceps) are perhaps just a little too odd at the moment to pass as just stylised. Might need some more general anatomy study.
When doing new pieces, think about showing the figures in more dynamic poses, to show you can do figures in action as well, and maybe try and tackle different eras, character types etc.
I think you have a quality of work that could probably get you some work right now. Most likely these will be with Indie companies and on the low end / minimum wage scale (ie sub $100 dollar flat rates) but it is something, especially if you don't need more than $300 a month.
I think you may even be able to get entry level card art for companies like Fantasy Flight Games which does fit your style with a few more tailored pieces. I think with your skill level you probably have to show them a few card art type pieces in your folio before you would get work, but don't let that stop you from applying and working on some tailored pieces at the same time. The pay rate for these cards are $100 per card. For 8+ hours of work, this is horrendous pay and I only accepted to do them at first, to get some clients under the belt.
Link to a card database to show you what they accept: http://onosendaicorp.com/cards
search search search, post post post
If you want freelance work, you MUST start applying and doing this as a habit daily / weekly. Why wait for some mythical future point where the planets all align and you are the ultimate skill master before doing so? Bollocks. Just do it and see where it goes.
Start posting your folio onto job threads in polycount, conceptart.org, even reddit has a /gamedevclassifieds where I have secured paying work.
Start looking for interesting projects on the net: game dev forums, card and board game art forums and companies, kickstarter is a good place to go to for in-development work.
Most of my clients I have been getting are from my own folio posts on sites and from me cold emailing AD's or companies that had cool projects I wanted to be a part of just letting them know I was available. My best contracts have come from that, so you need to take the initiative.
This brings up another very important point, don't ever self-censor your own work when thinking about sending to potential clients. Just write something short and sweet maybe drawing their attention to the type of thing you prefer, insert a link, be polite and then get out of your own godamn way and hit send.
Ok that's enough. hope it helped
Patrick made some really good points about quitting instead of grinding, and Farvus also did about pushing through with the degree and coming out with both.
I think Adam nailed it in his first bit about happiness though. I was going to say something very similar.
The philosophical view
The other thing that nobody has really said is that nobody can tell you what is going to be the right path for you, and you shouldn't be relying on us to help direct you. You could read a thousand personal journeys of people in this exact situation and none of them will make any real difference because the choice of what to do with your time is totally and utterly up to you.
You are so concerned about your future (which is just a fantasy of your own making really) that the path you are walking in the present is becoming all muddy and torturous with your own thoughts, splitting into different ways and branches, not clear at all.
The moment you just focus and look at taking one step after the next with full awareness and disregard the future, that is when your path will become more clear.
You will probably find if you start to focus more on the present and your own gut that you will end up hacking through pathless bushland rather than a neat well worn path. That is fine, because you are making your own path and not just walking down some that others have made for you.
The next bit I have learned through my own "crises" decision points, one very similar to your current one. Us humans have this arrogant way about us where we are taught that our brains and our thoughts are actually the best way to deal with any problem that arises. And because the problem seems to be born in our brain, that the answer lies within it. Actually most times it is our own thoughts that are the ones creating the problem in the first place, holding us back and sabotaging us in huge ways. We never get taught how to deal with that aspect of ourselves.
I would in addition to Adam's thoughts say, that now is the time to start to try to learn to really listen to yourself. Be very aware of all your emotions, your fears, your guilt, everything to do with this situation, and then discount them all and try and listen to what your gut is telling you.
The more you quiet your brain and listen to yourself in a quieter deeper way (not your thoughts) the more you will get feelings of some sort of unexplained "knowing". Your subconscious knows things about you that even your thinking brain doesn't. Don't discount this! In my own life more recently, I can see that the more I have listened to myself in silence (NOT my fears or thoughts) the more clearer things become. Choices actually start to get easy, almost to the point where there is no real choice to be made, there is only action.
From what I have experienced, when I trust this feeling, and make the corresponding action, it throws up amazing results and opportunities in ways my brain never even imagined.
Do not stop yourself out of fear or guilt or whatever from doing what you know you need to. Whatever happens happens, fear and guilt are retarded emotions and thoughts to pander to at any point in your life. Nothing is as serious as those emotions will try and get you to believe. You are young, have health, are secure, have people who you love/love you, so actually you are incredibly fortunate, and it is good to also see this perspective whenever you get wound up on your particular problems because it gets lost so easily.
I hope some of this helps you decide what you are going to do. I certainly can't claim to help you with it in any other way.
The folio
In terms of your folio, I think you need to keep cycling new work in all the time. Aim at adding one folio piece a month if you can.
Replace the things that look like studies first (photo study of sunset, the girl portrait) with real illustrative or design work. Nobody wants to see your studies. They aren't hiring you to study something for them.
You have to showcase in your folio what you would like to be doing for clients, or they won't have any idea what you can actually do and will be more likely to pass you up.
If you want to design characters you need to have more full character design pieces in there, rather than characters obscured from the waist down or in some other way as in almost all the illustrative pieces. I really like the way the Contrast piece is painted, but there is no character design in there at all. So what will this say to a potential client?
Your male upper arm (biceps and triceps) are perhaps just a little too odd at the moment to pass as just stylised. Might need some more general anatomy study.
When doing new pieces, think about showing the figures in more dynamic poses, to show you can do figures in action as well, and maybe try and tackle different eras, character types etc.
I think you have a quality of work that could probably get you some work right now. Most likely these will be with Indie companies and on the low end / minimum wage scale (ie sub $100 dollar flat rates) but it is something, especially if you don't need more than $300 a month.
I think you may even be able to get entry level card art for companies like Fantasy Flight Games which does fit your style with a few more tailored pieces. I think with your skill level you probably have to show them a few card art type pieces in your folio before you would get work, but don't let that stop you from applying and working on some tailored pieces at the same time. The pay rate for these cards are $100 per card. For 8+ hours of work, this is horrendous pay and I only accepted to do them at first, to get some clients under the belt.
Link to a card database to show you what they accept: http://onosendaicorp.com/cards
search search search, post post post
If you want freelance work, you MUST start applying and doing this as a habit daily / weekly. Why wait for some mythical future point where the planets all align and you are the ultimate skill master before doing so? Bollocks. Just do it and see where it goes.
Start posting your folio onto job threads in polycount, conceptart.org, even reddit has a /gamedevclassifieds where I have secured paying work.
Start looking for interesting projects on the net: game dev forums, card and board game art forums and companies, kickstarter is a good place to go to for in-development work.
Most of my clients I have been getting are from my own folio posts on sites and from me cold emailing AD's or companies that had cool projects I wanted to be a part of just letting them know I was available. My best contracts have come from that, so you need to take the initiative.
This brings up another very important point, don't ever self-censor your own work when thinking about sending to potential clients. Just write something short and sweet maybe drawing their attention to the type of thing you prefer, insert a link, be polite and then get out of your own godamn way and hit send.
Ok that's enough. hope it helped