3D Art - I'm Going All In
Nyghtfall3D
Posts: 777
I want to be a professional digital artist.
My wife recently started work on her first novel - a Norse-influenced Fantasy adventure. She's about five chapters in and I couldn't be more proud. She's getting a lot of great feedback from people who've read her work and is thoroughly enjoying the challenge.
Meanwhile, the plan I started last year to focus on short stories has born little fruit and I've yet to finish the first draft of a story I started last October. What's more, listening to my wife update me on her trials and tribulations has made me realize I'm really not cut out to be a writer. I've romanticized the idea since my late teens, but I rarely even read anything - sort of a requisite for being a writer - and I would go nuts with all the revisions she's had to make in response to the critiques she's received. I strongly prefer working out how to tweak a shader than deciding what, for example, a character is going to say, or how much expository info to include between character actions.
With that in mind, I've decided to embrace my visually-oriented nature and focus all of my creative resources on becoming a professional digital artist. I've been creating digital art in 3D since 2009. Today, I'm going to start learning how to create and sell content for the apps I use. To that end, I installed Blender this morning. My long-term goals include becoming a Daz PA.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
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Comments
Practice, practice, practice.
Keep your day job for a few years unless you have 3 years worth of income saved up. It takes a bit to be profitable and then longer to get to where you can consider a stable source of sole income.
More skill related advice-- do every tutorial you find. Keep a binder for your notes. Update your processes as you learn. Don't get locked into "this is how I do it". The industry and tools change rapidly to make life easier, and not adopting them is just self-defeating, but folks will get locked into things. There's no shame in updating a process to the way someone else shows you if it's faster. If an hour today saves you 12 tomorrow, it's worth it.
Both writing and content creation are careers that take a long time to grow into any meaningful income. The creative process for both are the easier bits, but building the business side and learning your respective markets are the less glamourus aspects of the work.
Take your time, learn all you can about the creative and the business sides......self employment can be rewarding, but it is not an easy path
I would love to reach a point where I can create content full-time someday. Until then, my day job is too important to leave.
Blender ...will need it
Nyghtfall, I am expecting your first product in a week, so you had better get busy!!!
Invest in decent software. That is not a cheap, so you need to build it up over a period of time. You also need to become proficient in the softwares. For me, I use Modo to model in (Blender is fine); Marvelous Designer to start of some meshes before retopoing or to do some draping after modeling; Substance Painter and Photoshop to texture in. I also use Gravity Sketch and Tilt Brush in VR for some 3D modeling.
Learn how to use subdivision to keep your model meshes from polygon bloat so its easy to manipulate in Daz Studio and other softwares. Learn other software like Unity and Unreal because a lot of what you learn can be applied in Daz Studio, or give you a better understanding on what's needed.
Build up a following by creating freebies and releasing products fairly often. Once a year is not going to cut it. Set up a release schedule several products in advance to keep you on track.
Personally I also try to be active and aware of the latest tech and pop culture. If you don't know what's out there you can't make things people want to buy. You have to do your own research and marketing on what is going to sell. :)
Depending on how fast I learn, sure! ;P
I use PaintShop Pro. I'd rather not get into Photoshop if I can avoid it. I'm not an Adobe fan.
That's part of my plan, to put freebies on R'osity and ShareCG.
Understood. Thanks! :)
Hiya Nightfall3D, it's been awhile. Some of us from your old site(s) are still around.
If you're looking for suggestions for items to make, watch your inbox.
Bob.
Find what your passion is and focus on that. That passion will flow through in the work and inspire the people who eventually will use your products.
Blender is extremely powerful, and gaining capability every release. You will never know it all, so commit to lifelong learning because, like Houdini, the limit is not Blender but your imagination. Good luck and welcome to the obssession!
Hey there! :: waves :: Great to see you again! Thanks for joining PiP! :)
Thanks. I've tried Blender a few times before. My last attempt was about four years ago, and the furthest I got was making a rudimentary chair out of the default Cube. This is my first attempt as an aspiring pro, so failure is no longer an option.
I'm not a P.A. but as a customer my advice would be:-
Research whatever you intend to make, get the sizes of things correct.If it's a room or building get the size of the doors right.
Pay attention to detail, and decide which details to include as mesh topology, and which to include as texture/displacement/bump/normal maps. Don't create products which use a disproportionate amount of resources.
If possible add in some additional functionality. If there are doors people will want to open them, if it's clothing people will want to adjust sleeves etc.
Don't sacrifice the quality of the end result to make your job easier.
Indeed not. Thank you.
Find a niche, one that none or only a few other PAs explore. And start small, gradually building your library of products.
This 110%.
Without great passion for the subject you're working on you won't reach the maximum quality you can reach and push your limits beyond that. Make no compromises (or only a few minor ones ;) and trust yourself.
When you outdo yourself it is a reward in itself and before you can expect substancial financial increase to your income via 3D content creation you'd need several of these moment :) You can do it!
-Protozoon