Do I Really Want to do This?

[krail]

I'm kinda thinking myself in circles, right now.  I'm kinda having a minor crisis of confidence.
I think my inability to find a job so far (with my admittedly... maybe... 3/4-hearted efforts) probably contributes to it.

Maybe I'm just having cold feet here...
As I've said, I've been less than confident in my artistic capabilities as of late.

Comments

[azure_dragon]

Looking at that waterfalls picture, I immediately think there's no way that could only have taken an hour and a half. I also suspect it was done in Painter or a similar programme, rather than a manipulation programme such as Photoshop or PSP (which I'm guessing you use?).

In all honestly I think your art is awesome. You are clearly a character artist, and surely that's what's required for what you want to do. And it will improve - given time and lots of repetitive drawing/colouring/whatever.

Please don't start to doubt - you're obviously really passionate about this!

[bardwnb]

Alright, so what I'm hearing is that a) You need to work on making your art more polished, and making it faster. b) Your college education didn't help with that. And c) You don't feel like you're very good at self-motivating without the deadlines of a class or job. Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds like all you need is, well, practice, and either a job or classes to give you direction, and, preferably, practice. Not that that's easy, nor that knowing that will make the coming months before starting grad school/until you get a job suck any less, but there you have it.

May I also note that, even if you are never quite able to get really good at animating things smoothly or quickly, the brief 30-second search for game jobs that I did a few months ago suggested that there's call for artists just for concept art...and you are already, right now, without any additional work, an incredibly talented artist when it comes to portraying characters and ideas.

So there. ;)

[lady_tigerfish]

Seconded <3

[butimaniceguy]

I feel like any of my art professors could look at a random incredibly detailed and interesting drawing of "Random Space Orc A" and think, "That's very nice, but... is there any significance to this?" Meanwhile, Random Game Company would probably look at it and say, "That's a really nice, polished space orc, come work for us." Seems like there's this huge focus primarily on technical proficiency.

Isn't this basically the difference between, say, Doom and PsychonautsI understand the self-motivation problem. I think there's definitely a place for specific projects that have certain goals of "how do I learn X?" I did the baseball cards thing this summer, because I wanted to learn Illustrator. Now, I have a lot to learn in Illustrator still, but I do have a much better handle on what the line tool is and how to use it

[krail]

Heh, maybe it is the difference between Doom and Psychonauts.

Concept Art, unfortunately, is probably the absolute most competitive job in the industry. It is primarily the work of the concept artists that makes me feel inadequate.
(My general problem with drawing faces has seriously gotten in the way of any character design attempts, lately)

I'm feeling a little better about it all today.
I'll probably email the FIEA guy tomorrow, though I'd want to think of a few more questions I could ask beyond just what I wished I'd asked during the conversation.

(Oh, and according to the artist, the Waterfall sketch was done in Photoshop)

SInce we already talked about this on the phone

[gwinna_raven]

DRAW ALL THE TIME AND DONT SLEEP OR EAT.

Then you'll go crazy. And all good artists are crazy!

(Aren't I helpful?)