Nerds, dorks and other geeky kinds.

[Rognoll]

I've always thought all artists from this branch were alike, one guesses that people who draws stuff for videogames, comic books, TCGs and tabletop games would be invariably people who consume this kind of stuff regularly, but when I started getting into concept art/illustration communities I got a bit surprised.
I must say it, I'm a big dork. I play D&D, MTG, I know all the 649 pokemon and I cannot get people to understan my pop culture references, so just drawing stuff that is related to all this, is only logical, but when I started looking at the community, I started to get the feeling that not everyone (actually not the majority of people) are interested on all that nerdy stuff.
Is my impression true? And if so, what's your motivation? What's your reason to work/want to work on all this geeky products/culture?

[atrenr]

You'de be surprised by just how large interests range within the art community. I've met people working on games they don't have much of an interest in and even (rarely) dislike the game they are continually working on. There are people who draw knights and dragons and WON'T READ A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE if you hold them at gun point...damnit. I find it interesting and kind of funny how disconnected all of our interests can be within the art community and at the same time enjoyable since it gives opportunity to make friends and get them into your interests and vice versa. Personally, I'm getting into this because I want to contribute to the production of things people grow up loving and things people use for escapism to help them get through shit times in their lives. The first time I picked up a video game I knew I wanted to help make them in some way because they instantly meant so much to me. Luckily I found the art path and it can contribute to all forms of entertainment rather than just a specific one.

[Prabu]

Art (Drawing, Sketching, Painting ...) is the universal Q-Ball.

[ChantalFournier]

Also, just because someone geeks out about stuff you don't care about or don't tell you what they geek out about doesn't mean that they are less geeky than you are. I know knitting geeks who wouldn't know a Pokemon if they were bitten by one and I can garantee that they are as geeky as you are.

[JonHop]

We all have our own interests and hobbies (pokemon rocks btw been playing since the 1st gen ;), although haven't had the money or time to get the last couple of games :( ). I think generally people's interests within the art community vary more than the average person as there is always something we can learn by diversifying our interests and studies.

[Rognoll]

Also, just because someone geeks out about stuff you don't care about or don't tell you what they geek out about doesn't mean that they are less geeky than you are. I know knitting geeks who wouldn't know a Pokemon if they were bitten by one and I can garantee that they are as geeky as you are.

I mentioned pokemon as a silly example and it's not about what I care or don't care about. I was talking about the fact that most concept art/illustration is based, or has something to do with fantasy, science fiction or videogames.
It was not a critic to anyone, or to anything, it was just simply a question. I've heard concept artists openly say "I don't play videogames" or "I don't play TCG" "I don't like fantasy/sci-fi" but they do make concept art for those things.
I'm not saying they are not passioned about other things, I'm sure everyone is, but what I mean is, it's not a field that you can get into by accident nowadays.
So where does that motivation to work hard for something so specific come from, when you're not even into it?

We all have our own interests and hobbies (pokemon rocks btw been playing since the 1st gen ;), although haven't had the money or time to get the last couple of games :( ). I think generally people's interests within the art community vary more than the average person as there is always something we can learn by diversifying our interests and studies.

I know, art is very wide, but I was talking about actual concept art for that kind of stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I think having an open point of view is one of the best things you can do, both in art and in life. I'm not aginst differences in taste, and I'm not even trying to diferentiate people (I'm starting to think that's how my first post makes people feel and I want to say it was not what I meant at all) I'm not saying it's bad or wrong to work in this field if you're not a fan of this kind of stuff, I'm just curious.

[Maidith]

It's true, not everyone is nerdy in the same ways. I am a big history and art nerd, but not a gamer. I don't own a console, and apart from a few times when I was a kid, I've never played a video game in my entire life. Card games and roleplay are equally uninteresting for me, it just seems so pointless to do something that doesn't result in a finished creative product (or yummy cookies :D )

(However, I have fun with my boyfriend... that's the only kind of "gaming" I like, but not appropiate to tell here, haha!)

However I consume books and movies, without focusing on a particular genre. I'm interested in most subjects both fiction and nonfiction, not necessarily just fantasy although people look at my paintings and think I'm a fantasy geek. XD I'm definitely not.

[ApolOllipop]

There's so many reasons for why some people who don't have same interests in, say, video games, do concept art.
I've read about this guy who is more into the creation of games like programming, and doesn't play games in general.

people are biased in their likes and dislikes. It may or may not change at the drop of a hat.

Maybe it has nothing to do with motivation. What is 'trending' in our heads can, in some point, influence our decision-making. Motivation is when you have a goal. It doesn't do anything other than to keep you moving forward.

I cannot tell the difference of a geek and a nerd.
Why should we call a product geeky when it's not even human? >:D

[Doolio]

Well, this topic has a bit more to it than it could seem at the first glance:) Because, psychologically, there actually is a kind of common denominator which could scientifically support the "geek" tendency among artists.
And that would be the schizoid personality disorder - now, no need to be alarmed:) The term is a bit unlucky in a sense that it's pretty much 0 or 1 in it's nature, which is far from truth. There are A LOT of degrees of schizoid tendencies which don't qualify as the actual disorder. And also, a lot of people have schizoid personality to some degree.
Basically, schizoid tendencies roughly mean that the person has the tendency to spend time outside of reality. Now it's far more clear how it could be a perfectly benign condition and also how it could be a pretty severe condition, depending on the level of schizoid-ness:)

And, spending time outside reality pretty much translates as being creative and having vivid imagination:) Generally, as a group, artists tend to be more schizoid than the other professions. Actually, painters should be the most schizoid profession on average.
So, basically, schizoid tendencies are actually the fuel that has driven a lot of artists to produce art:)

Those tendencies aren't just reflected in "artsy" creativity. For example, you could daydream a lot more and in a better "quality" than the "regular" person. You meet a girl, fall in love and you daydream about her for about five hours and not only that, but after an hour, you are already at the stage with having a house and two kids or something:) And it's not just thinking about it, you are literally doing that and being there psychologically. That would be an example of a schizoid behavior. Of course, on a scale of 0-100, there is no person that is 0 or 100, so everybody exhibits some degree of schizoid personality (as it is the case with right about every psychological condition). That means that someone could daydream or fantasize or worry like 5 mins a day and someone could be highly socially autistic, lying on their bed, not communicating with people at all and even having occasional hallucinations.

If you look up the schizoid personality disorder, you would see that it could be connected to social autism, apathy, vivid imagination etc. In a low degree, these all very much correspond to your typical geek dude.

So, yeah, schizoid tendencies, while they do produce negative effects (wasting time, laziness, fear, overthinking, social autism, apathy etc. in various degrees), they are in fact responsible for some of the most fascinating works of art in human history:)

I have the honor to know a man who is a very successful psychotherapist, and he keeps his own statistics (although leisurely) - which is pretty valid, since he had something like 10 000 patients (he is 74 and he's been doing it for like 30 or 40 years and he has a shock therapy system which a kind of do or die short intervention, I digress, but I write this just because I know the number seems ridiculous, so now it should seem less ridiculous:) ). And something like 90% of his clients that came to him due to schizoid related problems are painters:) And on the second place are, wait for it, IT engineers:D

edit - by "painters" of course I don't mean only fine art dudes, but commercial illustrators and concept artists as well:)

[Adam Lina]

Thats interesting about schizophrenia being linked to artists. I have a friend who's a writer who was editing a book written by a guy from Switzerland who has full blown schizophrenia. He was diagnosed with a minor case of it but he decided to take lots of LSD in order to increase the disorder. LSD is known to damage the temporal lobe of the brain which is what causes schizophrenia. Anyways the guy thinks hes the last descendant of a group of witch hunters, has psychic powers and that all women are plotting to destroy mankind... yeeeea

My friend the writer who also has done a LOT of LSD in the past, decided in order to increase his creative writing skills took large amounts of LSD in order to make himself schizophrenic... not a good idea. I dont believe creativity is caused by temporal lobe damage. It seems to be true that people with schizophrenia have very creative delusions but I dont think they've found some magic key to intense creativity. Its a horrible disorder and ruins peoples lives. There are much healthier ways to stimulate creativity and I dont condone anyone attempting to induce it.

I seemed to have gotten completely off the topic of the thread. The reason people who are in the industry arnt spending their off time playing video games is because they spend all their time working on creating video games. Who wants to spend all day at work looking at mechs and dragons then go home and look at mechs and dragons the rest of the night? Its not good to spend all your time focusing on one interest. People that get out and experience life have much more creative minds I find. If all you do is consume videos games and action movies then all your ideas are going to be derivatives of those things.

[Doolio]

Thats interesting about schizophrenia being linked to artists. I have a friend who's a writer who was editing a book written by a guy from Switzerland who has full blown schizophrenia. He was diagnosed with a minor case of it but he decided to take lots of LSD in order to increase the disorder. LSD is known to damage the temporal lobe of the brain which is what causes schizophrenia. Anyways the guy thinks hes the last descendant of a group of witch hunters, has psychic powers and that all women are plotting to destroy mankind... yeeeea

My friend the writer who also has done a LOT of LSD in the past, decided in order to increase his creative writing skills took large amounts of LSD in order to make himself schizophrenic... not a good idea. I dont believe creativity is caused by temporal lobe damage. It seems to be true that people with schizophrenia have very creative delusions but I dont think they've found some magic key to intense creativity. Its a horrible disorder and ruins peoples lives. There are much healthier ways to stimulate creativity and I dont condone anyone attempting to induce it.

That's true, schizophrenia is one of more serious psychoses - which are often irreparable, hereditary and/or a product of/accompanied by some form of actual physical or chemical trauma to the brain and generally have the common denominator as being the points of no return, in a sense they are only suppressed and not cured, however mild a specific case might be - however, my post wasn't about schizophrenia:) Both terms have the same root word, but that's about it. Schizoid is often a description for a mild tendency and is, in most cases, on a level where it serves more as a neutral description of one's personality rather than describing the closeness to some disorder or another. Like, for example, "lazy" or "melancholic". Of course, there are various degrees to it, as with everything. It might sound scary because of the "schizo" part, but schizo simply means "split" or "fissure", which isn't scary per se and for example, it's present in the term "schizocarp" which is something from biology/botany, about fruits or something like that:)

[Adam Lina]

Oh my mistake :D