11-27-2017, 01:05 AM
Hi everyone!
My name is Sam, I'm 22 and I thought it would be a good idea to start utilising crimson daggers for self improvement. As much as i'd like to say I'm new here, it is not so! I joined here about 3 maybe 4 years ago now and was active for a while, participating in some of the contests and joining in with the community, also watching Dave Rapoza's videos and Dan Warren's videos and trying to soak up as much information as possible. I guess as time went on, life just seemed to drift me away from Crimson Daggers. I really wanted to be a concept artist & Illustrator when I joined crimson daggers, all those years ago and I still do now.
I was studying lots back then, probably in the most harmful way possible to myself by not really taking things seriously and not applying my studies, coupling this with going to University which had I known what I do now about Art education for concept art and illustration in Universities in the UK, I would not have gone and would have gotten my act together way back then and studied from home. But shit ... what're you going to do, I knew jack about what I really needed to do to Improve. So I graduated University and got my degree, finding myself once again back at home and feeling a little lost as to where I was, Who I was and what I was going to do.
From then up until now it's been a rocky road filled with basically feeling shitty and not knowing how to improve and doing different things, not finishing them. Finding a new path and then finding that the path fizzles into darkness and then finding another path and losing that one too. It's been really hard to stay motivated while that was happening, I felt like I had lost my knowledge of how to study, or what to study or basically how to learn things and improve myself.
Then cut to now, I feel like I have found it again! I got back into watching some of Dave Rapoza and Dan Warren's livestreams again on Twitch. This time really listening closely to what they have to say on learning, this time with a maturer 22 year old brain as apposed to naive 16 - 17 year old Sam. Things really started to make sense now, and I realised that I have been really overthinking and over complicating things for the past few years, what they were saying seemed to resonate with me so much more. So since now I have a day job which I have to work, I've been making a schedule for myself to study from in the evenings after work and on the weekends pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday. Not to mention finishing at 2:00pm on Fridays so I get those too.
I work as a product designer for a gothic giftware company, so its not so bad being paid to design and paint still, but really in all honesty. I hate the place, a year in working there and I can tell its just crap, especially with the office politics that go on. Anyway I won't dwell on that. The point is, thanks to Dave and Dan's wisdom I feel now I am somewhat on the right path, I feel like I have found what it is to learn again and feel what its like to have information going into my brain. Which is really a nice feeling to have, I know its not going to be like this all the time as its a bloody long road to go down, but I feel at 22 years old I am finally ready to put in the work.
My ultimate goal will be to work as a Concept Artist in the Game or films industry and be able to some day work on
some of the types of Game and film that I like. Be it in a studio if that gets my foot in the door or freelance. To be able to reach the levels of some of my favourite artists and feel that I have improved is also a big goal. AS long as i am learning and applying my studies and seeing an improvement from now on I'll be very happy!
This is also why I've come back to crimson daggers. I feel like I need to get more critiques on my work and have it torn apart so I can work on my weaknesses.
Sorry for the long message people, I have wanted to get this all off my chest for a long time.
Thanks very much all ! Nice to meet everyone.
-Sam
My name is Sam, I'm 22 and I thought it would be a good idea to start utilising crimson daggers for self improvement. As much as i'd like to say I'm new here, it is not so! I joined here about 3 maybe 4 years ago now and was active for a while, participating in some of the contests and joining in with the community, also watching Dave Rapoza's videos and Dan Warren's videos and trying to soak up as much information as possible. I guess as time went on, life just seemed to drift me away from Crimson Daggers. I really wanted to be a concept artist & Illustrator when I joined crimson daggers, all those years ago and I still do now.
I was studying lots back then, probably in the most harmful way possible to myself by not really taking things seriously and not applying my studies, coupling this with going to University which had I known what I do now about Art education for concept art and illustration in Universities in the UK, I would not have gone and would have gotten my act together way back then and studied from home. But shit ... what're you going to do, I knew jack about what I really needed to do to Improve. So I graduated University and got my degree, finding myself once again back at home and feeling a little lost as to where I was, Who I was and what I was going to do.
From then up until now it's been a rocky road filled with basically feeling shitty and not knowing how to improve and doing different things, not finishing them. Finding a new path and then finding that the path fizzles into darkness and then finding another path and losing that one too. It's been really hard to stay motivated while that was happening, I felt like I had lost my knowledge of how to study, or what to study or basically how to learn things and improve myself.
Then cut to now, I feel like I have found it again! I got back into watching some of Dave Rapoza and Dan Warren's livestreams again on Twitch. This time really listening closely to what they have to say on learning, this time with a maturer 22 year old brain as apposed to naive 16 - 17 year old Sam. Things really started to make sense now, and I realised that I have been really overthinking and over complicating things for the past few years, what they were saying seemed to resonate with me so much more. So since now I have a day job which I have to work, I've been making a schedule for myself to study from in the evenings after work and on the weekends pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday. Not to mention finishing at 2:00pm on Fridays so I get those too.
I work as a product designer for a gothic giftware company, so its not so bad being paid to design and paint still, but really in all honesty. I hate the place, a year in working there and I can tell its just crap, especially with the office politics that go on. Anyway I won't dwell on that. The point is, thanks to Dave and Dan's wisdom I feel now I am somewhat on the right path, I feel like I have found what it is to learn again and feel what its like to have information going into my brain. Which is really a nice feeling to have, I know its not going to be like this all the time as its a bloody long road to go down, but I feel at 22 years old I am finally ready to put in the work.
My ultimate goal will be to work as a Concept Artist in the Game or films industry and be able to some day work on
some of the types of Game and film that I like. Be it in a studio if that gets my foot in the door or freelance. To be able to reach the levels of some of my favourite artists and feel that I have improved is also a big goal. AS long as i am learning and applying my studies and seeing an improvement from now on I'll be very happy!
This is also why I've come back to crimson daggers. I feel like I need to get more critiques on my work and have it torn apart so I can work on my weaknesses.
Sorry for the long message people, I have wanted to get this all off my chest for a long time.
Thanks very much all ! Nice to meet everyone.
-Sam
