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224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
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© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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So very, very true.
But what if you really, really suck?... nobody ever adds an addendum to their inspirational speeches and sayings... like just once I want someone to say- "...and then after years of trying and hard work you'll truly see the fruit of your labor!... Unless you suck at this... then your screwed"
You really have to cover all bases... you never know who your audience is... they can be really terrible at whatever it is.
This how Saddam Hussain became a dictator... he really wanted to be a ballerina and after years of trying and reading inspirational posters he was convinced he was great but everyone was against him, so he became a bloodthirsty dictator.
I'd hate to think the next madman (or madwoman) hellbent on world domination was a DAZ forumite who had their dreams crushed by the cold hard heel of reality... (not the the plugin,the thing you experience everyday if you are not drinking too much).
Furthermore... what if when you first start out you really DO GOOD work... excellent work... the BEST work, but nobody gives you the credit you deserve because nobody likes you... like maybe you have a really odd body oder or a third eye next to your ear, and people don't trust you because they think you are always spying on them... you know, but your work is good... your taste is a little weird because of that third eye, but you got the rest down maybe its because of that third eye that you are so good, so now you read this and think hey, its not about my third eye or because I smell like a damp water buffalo... it's because I don't make enough pieces, my volume is too low... so you spend 20 years cranking out all these magnificent works of art that people keep ignoring till one day somebody get drunk and confides in you they love the smell of damp wildebeest, but the you really aught to cover up that extra eye, because it creeps everyone out... So there you are 20 years in the hole when this whole thing could have been avoided if the motivational speaker included that possibility in their thoughts.
Motivational posters and speeches are two narrowly focused towards the people they are directed towards and hardly ever reach out to those that it really doesn't apply to or may not even exist.
I think what really should have been said is...
"Just a word of advice to beginners who are not too grossly mutated or funny smelling, in which case you should bathe more frequently and wear bulky clothes and big hats, but aside from that, the rest of you should realize that when you start out you'll probably suck... not too badly, but enough that you'll notice when people laugh at you... everybody goes though this phase, just don't just give up or quit... unless you really suck at this whole creativity thing, then quit while you'er ahead, but it's hard to be sure if its your talent that is lacking or the other people are just jerks, but if you've got nothing better going or have wealthy parents, then tough it out and don't let your flipper feet trip you up... when we all start out we have a hard time knowing if our work is what disappoints us or if its all the antidepressants we are on that make us doubt our skills... which in time may blossom if we don't really suck so badly... so trust in your taste... which really is a very subjective thing to begin with, but hey... you gotta hold on to something, right?... All this is normal... except for the extra limbs and the scales... thats not so normal, but its cool and nobody will care about that if you just create lots of different pieces of work... go for volume... screw quality nobody cares about that anymore... so just drink lots of coffee or smoke crack if you have to, just stay up for days creating amazing things that nobody will understand because the people you are trying to impress are so damn narcissistic, that anything they don't understand must be pure genius and being stoned only makes you more of a conversation piece, with bonus points if you have a vestigial tail or gills. Nobody told me any of this when I first started and I'm not quite sure why they would and if I weren't so drunk right now I probably wouldn't be telling this to you either... so go on get started now, it'll take a while... it always does, especially if you really-really suck, then it could take forever... in which case you should probably just give up now, or just keep fighting... look its up to you... nobody can tell you how to live you your life, except maybe the voices in your head, which in the end may help you... or convince you that everyone else is out to get you, which you should probably avoid obeying since you will most likely end up becoming a bloodthirsty dictator, cannibal or art critic... either way avoid that at all cost unless that is what you excel at, in which case, be the best cannibalistic art critic dictator you can be!"
Now that is well rounded advice. None of that "spread your wings and you'll fly" stuff... chickens have wings... have you ever seen them fly? Not so pretty if you toss them out of a helicopter at 5,000 ft... which you would think is plenty of time for them to figure out how to fly or even take a random stab at it. You can toss like ten or fifteen of them out and none of them try to fly... they try and run... usually that just makes them spin more, but no... they just plummet to the earth, wings and all.
If you're working online, why does it matter if you're unattractive? No one ever has to know that unless you voluntarily post pictures of your real face. Besides, we can't all be hotties like Grandma Moses, Andrew Wyeth and Toulouse Lautrec.
Most people "suck" at art when they start out. It just takes a loooot of work to stop for most of us. Too many people give up on art and assume they're just untalented because they're not instantly good at techniques that take time to master. True, some people ARE instantly good at it, and some people are very naturally talented - but one doesn't have to be the next Michaelangelo to be competent and make a living at art. In fact, there were a number of artists in Leonardo's day who are completely forgotten now, but who did well enough to make a living during their own lifetimes. That I won't be remembered in 500 years isn't a reason to quit and go do a job I hate instead.
Nice and inspirational. :coolsmile:
Very well said.
I'm a starter at 3d art and at Daz, and I know I have a lot to learn.
But I'm an artist, a drawer.... I now have great drawings... that for me are never all that great cause I want to do better... but great draws that everyone love... and it took me years to get there...
I will keep going and learning cause I want to create my own characters! And I'm really hoping that in some years I have great works to share with this amazing community!
And I want to give a huge thanks to all of you. Daz Studio itself has a great way of thinking, giving Daz for free so that people can start without spend lots of money in a program. And this community seems to have the same friendly and helping spirit! It's great to have all this support when starting.
Thank you all :)
I've got one simple motto; try to learn something new everyday. Applies to art, applies to life.
Dang! Me n Pete, we be mates! I'll curl up in a corner! ;-)
I think of those as training excercises. I've never bought one myself, but I can understand their use. You can break it down and look at things like the lighting setup, the pose, the backgrounds and generally get a feel for how to achieve certain effects in Daz. That way you can reproduce similar results on your own later.
Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't seen countless copies of those ready to render scenes on DeviantArt with literally no alterations at all.
I agree with the learning part.
Tutorials can help, but sometimes not so much putting it all together.
In the very beginning, okay well the first 5-6 years of my art work, my stuff was...well. Not worth showing to anyone, really. I was too embarrassed to show my hobby to anyone. I knew the software was capable of better, but I didn't know how to get there. And i didn't want to post for feedback and potentially get the 'your work is crap, why are you even bothering us with it?" responses you get in most places. I had zero confidence. A lot of tutorials didn't start from "zero knowledge" ground and expected you to know your way in the program already and lost me from the start.
I often learned from pre-made scenes- what material set up is on that grass? that fabric? the skin? the glass? What lights are used here? How did they get those light settings?
Everyone learns in different ways and sometimes the "taking things apart and breaking them" is the way we learn best ;)
That said, I have a ton of those bryce ready to render scenes and no matter how much I studied it i couldn't get my head around Bryce! LOL.
A couple years ago, wow, almost a few years ago now, a very wonderful gentleman started to really challenge me to learn Daz Studio and understand how it works. Since then I've grown exponentially and been happy to start giving back more to the community. It's not easy, and especially for people with limited time it takes dedication to dig in and learn. It can mean hundreds of spot renders (no kidding!) trying to figure out shaders. If you're like me, and exceptionally good at breaking things..... it can mean a zillion computer crashes (note to self: that doesn't work either, don't do that again). But hopefully we all find a level where our art starts to please us, and we think, "hey, that's something worth showing people now!" or, maybe most importantly, "that picture makes me HAPPY. I did that! WOW." That's probably the best feeling of all. :) Just takes time to get there. I know some folks dive in and figure it all out in weeks or months. Others like me take the longer more off and on route and may take years ;) Don't quit!
I find recreating iconic photos to be very educational.
It gives me a real world comparison, and a much greater insight into my 3d work.
...I come up wit ha lot of my ideas just before nodding off to sleep for the night (in a darkened room).
...mysweetflower.taniagomes, you are fortunate you still can draw. Since ol' "uncle Arthur" (arthritis) decided to take up residence in my joints and bones (like an unwanted house guest) I had to put the pencil and pen down as well as step away from my other love, the piano keyboard. Being able to draw or sketch out a scene idea would be a real advantage for composition, I have to do it all in my mind now.
I feel ya Kyoto, osteoarthur for me throughout my body. Started to get really bad in1998 and gradually got worse.
...I have both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, the latter which just kicked in this year.
...and now for the next eight months, we're back into the rainy season after a remarkably nice summer. It was almost like someone threw a switch - 80s to 90s one week, rain, wind and 50s - 60s the next, and been like that ever since.
Wish I could just hibernate until May.
Amen, an old friend and an excellent Max artist Mr Haraszti told me once...always a student, always learning...I think that if we ever get satisfied with what we do we may stop pushing ourselves to learn more and keep improving. I`m not awesome by any means so I have a long way to go anyways...but for me I take what satisfaction I can in learning new things. I think that theres something of an atmosphere in todays society of wanting things fast and easy, and its just not that way here, takes lots of time and hard work, but its sooo worth it .
I specifically got into 3D because that artist gene verifiably skipped a generation. My father painted in oils and sculpted in wood. My oldest daughter is an Illustrator with a BFA. Me? I can't draw a straight line without a drafting machine. I can't shade a surface to save my life. That's what a render engine is for! :lol: To me, this really IS just a hobby I do for fun. If I ever get around to learning modeling in Hexagon, maybe I'll do OK at that, because I can visualize in my head the way something should look. I knew going in this would take a while, and I was OK with that.
The inspirational poster is definitely worth remembering. Thanks, Mattymanx. And thanks to Lord Vicore who keeps reminding us not to take ourselves too seriously. :lol:
Truly inspiring. now i'm pumped to learn some more stuff
...that and make certain those tutorial links still work :P
This is true. it's good to be grounded in reality when you first start a new hobby. You see other people doing this awesome stuff , and you say to yourself " well that doesn't look so hard ", then you try , and reality sets in. And the very thing that drew you in is shattered by the reality that you have no idea what you're doing. And you lose all that momentum you had and feel discouraged. You have to take the time to learn before just jumping in. I just started , and even though i was able to make some decent renders , i still have a LONG way to go. It's important to realize that it takes more than artistic talent , it's going to take many hours of learning, trial and error, frustration , and sometimes tears, before you start making the art that you want to.
one of the hardest things for me to learn as an artist is that people are not mind readers
When I look at my own work all i see is sucky garbage. Its disgustingly awful. Embarrassingly so. But others look at it an love it. Why?
Because when ever I look at my work I am comparing it to the image I intended to make. What I had in my mind and the final image are never the same. So I see how far my work fell short of what I intended to do and I think it sucks. But to other people, what ends up in the final image, to them that is exactly what I intended. They can't see the image I had in my mind, all they see is the final result. When you realize that everyone else views your work as what you meant to do and stop comparing it to your mental image that you wanted to do, you gain more confidence. You basically take on the artistic version of "Oh yeah, I totally meant to do that"
Brother LycanthropeX, I have tried to explain that one to me, you and me again for YEARS now. And I am no closer to a useful answer that when I first met you. Like people, your work is "attractive" on several levels. I go and look at a number items of yours regularly! Even the gruesome stuff is beautiful! You are the Artist, I am the piddler. :o\
McG.
I Have been usuing Daz for almost 2 years now, (I bought Poser Pro 2014 about 6 months later, and have yet to do more than just poke around in it!) I'm stil a Noob, But I do a lot of work in this program, and the thethings I have learned, while not a whole lot, are things that in the beginning I had absolutely no clue about. Didn't know they existed, much less how to use them. It's rough sometimes, but I don't think I'll ever quit, I am having waaaay too much fun!
I've been at this hobby for 10 years (on and off). I never save any of my work for more than a couple of months, maximum, and I've rarely posted anything for public view (except occasionally in order get get advice). As a teenager, I used to paint in oils. The same was true then - I destroyed it all. I'm never satisfied with it - it just doesn't ever match my imagination nor the quality work that real artists can achieve.
Nevertheless, I carry on with the hobby because I enjoy creating stuff. I enjoy attempting to depict my imagination in pictures. Obviously, I'm better than I was when I started but that's not the point. I enjoyed it then too. It is a hobby for me - a fun thing to do especially for a retired old man living alone. My neighbour tinkers with his classic car, makes a lot of noise in his garage and the car never sees the road. Probably never will but it keeps him happy.
That's why I'm wary of DAZ moving this thing beyond the reach (budget) of the hobbyist.
It is said, that in various professions, to get good at something takes at least 10 years. I think that might be true for digital art too. Much depends on talent (which the original quote suggests we have in abundance), persistence, the ability to learn from mistakes (and having the info you need to learn what you need to know), keeping up with developments, and the volume of experimentation you do. All of which might, however, just get you to be technically good at what you do. Then there is developing your own style, which is an all together different thing.
To be sure, if you are at it 24/7, reaching a high level of satisfaction and critical acclaim may take less than ten years. And if you are just a hobbyist or dabbler, then you are on a different timeline anyway. What unites all of us though is the fun we have at creating things and, I would venture to guess, wanting to get better at what we are doing. I've been at this for 22 years now (digital art), and I am just beginning to get to a point where I am happy, in no small part thanks to the advances of our tools.
The Greeks used a relevant word in talking about all of this: "arete", becoming excellent at what you do. It was a word initially used in conjunction with craftsmen and artisans, which is what we are. The fact that computers are used to make something makes it no less daunting, maybe even more so because one can endlessly refine and improve, and criticize what could be better.
Happy travels fellow DAZers
That is great stuff. It makes me think of why I am here. I have good taste in line art but I could never make it look the way I had it in my head. I did not push thorugh it enough because my drawings, especially of humans, wre just not up to my exacting standards. I wanted to be able to draw like George Perez, and as a beginner you just can not do that. I knew deep down that I would have to work for years and years to get that good, and I just did not want to put the effort into it. A long tim went by. Then I found DAZ and started experimenting with rendering and realized I could use it to make the art I had not been able to do as line art.
And in a way I could. I am no longer unable to produce art with well-proportioned human forms. But now I have to deal with other things like lighting and such that would not really come into play in line art -- you can just make the lighting in a line drawing do whatever's in your head. Not so in DAZ -- you may be able to do what's in your head but you're going to have to work at it a long time, because the computer is calculating things its own way, and not the way that is in your head.
So it has still been a lot of work (going on 2 years now), and I am *still* not able to produce the images in my head, exactly. But at least my human beings look like humans and not stick figures while I am learning. ;)
There is another thing that I have found is important: endlessly filling my eyes and memory banks with images. I go to museums and art galleries, go to new and different places, observe and study carefully what is in nature, and look at as much online art as possible. All of this has helped me to understand how things appear to the eye, where the appeal of this or that lies, and it has allowed me to better understand what I gravitate to and like the best. The inspiration has been endless and has kept me hungry to keep going and get better.
Wow, I forgot about this thread.
I hope that what I wrote didn't offend or demotivate anyone back then... It was meant strictly as a satirical stab at the inspiration poster industry.
How many kittens must dangle from branches, how many eagles voyeristcally spied upon and photgraphed without their consent and how many times must hiker guy climb another mountain and stand boldly in the sunlight?
Probably a lot... But I didn't mean to offend anyone... Or maybe I did, it's pretty hard to remember... It was like two or three years ago... I'm guessing I probably didn't. But if I did I'm sorry. What I meant is we always only hear two sides to creativity... Excell or get the hell out of the way, or keep trying, you can do whatever you want if try hard enough.
I don't think either is right.
We are all different, we all have different skills, different perspectives...
I think you should just do whatever makes you happy to whatever level you feel comfortable with. Art-wise...
As a general suggestion that just leads to anarchy.
The following statement may or may not make sense or serve as an example of some sort of point...
Back in the late 80s at one of the industrial model making places I worked, I got a commission to create patterns and molds for a resin aftermarket kit of a variant of a Sherman tank... The person provided most of the reference materials, a bunch of which were from his father who was a crew member of one such tank... Me and my friend even went to a tank museum (actually it was more of a collection of old tanks rusting away in a dirty lot) and took our own reference photos of the parts and areas that would have been the same in similar variants.
When the project was over, I built one of the test shots into a detailed model and made a nice detailed diorama similar to one of the images of the crew posing together. I took it to one of the big model contests, but did not enter it, feeling that since it was from a professional commercial project it wasn't fair. Standing around near it where it was on display I got to hear all sorts of ignorant comments by experts about how wrong the model looked and that nothing like that existed and blah,blah, blah... Funny to me, since I still had the reference materials to prove it was real... But still there were people commenting on how they hate stuff like that when people would make up historically inaccurate stuff like that. I didn't question the reference materials as they were clearly real... didn't question my skills, I made precision medical and aerospace prototypes so this was dead on scale fit and finish... Basically the atmosphere there was anything but fun... Excell or go home, loser.
On the other hand, since I was more of a "car guy" I used to enjoy making models of real cars owned by people I knew... Those I'd take to a series of car model shows that would be held on the east coast... That was a totally different atmosphere, there you had almost a totally different approach... It was pretty loose... People would win who made totally sloppy models, and there would be winners that farmed out paint jobs or used mostly aftermarket parts costing couple of hundred dollars... Actually it was like a real car show (actually in most cases it was attached to a real car show too), because you never knew what would win or why it did... Most of the people who attended those shows knew each other or belonged to clubs together, so there was a lot of mutual support... And "try your best" inspiration everywhere.
It was really like the two groups could not be further apart... Like there was no happy middle ground between the two.
So what was the point?... Actually I'm not a hundred percent sure, as I had a sandwich halfway through that...
Maybe it was....
Unless you are being paid to create something, the real question is who are you really trying to please?
The critics? They are morons, and nothing pleases them but the sound of their own voices....
Your friends? They are all crazy, or they wouldn't be your friends... They love you no matter what.
Neither target is a good gauge of achievement, so ultimately it's you.
Did you do the best with the level of resources you had at the moment... Skill, knowledge and vision? Then who cares, if you tried, enjoy it for what it is worth, and if you have interest, keep pushing ahead.
If this is a hobby or way of relaxing don't turn it into a source of stress, that's what the rest of life is for... Franky says RELAX ( not the 80s catchphrase, the talking raccoon in my yard... He is very wise).
If you do this for the competition, to achieve a level recognition, that's all different... Besides skill, you have to factor in egos, politics, subjective personal preferences and even commercial pressures into the algorithm.
Thats like forecasting the weather... No matter how sunny the day begins it could always end up raining before it's done.
If you do this commercially, rendering or content creation... That's a whole different thing... That goes to a professional level that you should be holding yourself to and what your skills are worth... Which becomes a whole other set of arguments and topics.
Otherwise as long as this is your hobby... Enjoy it... Don't take it too seriously... Life is too damn short to make everything a task, a mountain to climb, a bridge to cross... Sometimes you just have to take your clothes off and run through the meadow shouting "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!".
Metaphorically... Unless you have a really big yard with tall shrubs surrounding it or live way out in the woods with nobody around you.
Well, that's what I meant... more or less... Ultimately who cares if you suck or shine... As long as you had fun doing it.
Well, hugs and puppies y'all... See later.
EDITED TO ADD... It's Fat Vinny the Raccoon who says "Relax! Fuhgeddaboudit!"... Franky Three Toes is his cousin and he's just a trouble making wise guy raccoon... Or as Vinny says "He's a good fer nuthin bum, that Franky"...
My raccoons have very complex lives.
I have given a presentation about DS at a couple of science-fiction-type conventions. One of the attractions of fandom for me has always been that it embraces amateur creativity in all its forms, and I don't really need to tell people 'you don't have to be a pro to enjoy doing this'. Nevertheless, I include a slide referring to Daniel Pinkwater's 1972 picture book for children, 'Bear's Picture'. A bear paints a picture. It has splotches of color in various places. Some art critics (very proper storks) come to look at his picture. They ask what it is. The bear tells them all the lovely things (sun on flowers, a warm hollow log, etc) in his picture. "It doesn't look like any of those things to us!" grumble the very proper critics. "it doesn't have to," replies the bear. "It is _my_ picture!" The critics walk off saying that bears shouldn't paint pictures. But the Bear looked at his picture, and was happy.
Pinkwater once said that he got that punchline from a kindergartener in a class he was teaching.
That was just about the level I was operating at when I came up with all that... Good call!