or losing my religion?

So, fresh off the back of a day trip to Brighton in order to attend this year’s Develop Conference’s Expo I came away with a renewed drive to see my life take a more positive direction while at the same time trying to figure how to fit 101 different things that I’d like to achieve into such a short space of time.

The trip was partially to see what the expo was about, to do some professional networking, but most of all to finally meet the rest of the guys from Horizon Studios face to face. It was a brilliant day, despite having come away with so many different things buzzing around in my head and needing to come up with some form of road map to structure it all in order to see it work,  but I have to admit that once again having that  completely new focus on where I originally wanted to be in my future along with remembering what I originally wanted to achieve and more importantly, realising what I could achieve and how I can go about getting there, I honestly can’t wait to get started.

I think one of the most amusing things from the whole trip was a book I bought from the expo. Having travelled all the way from the North East to one of the furthest points in the country, I ended up buying an art book by a company  who operate from a building  just down the road from me!

Whether it was fate, divine intervention or whatever, in buying their book, leafing through the pages, reading about how the company came about, reading about the various staff there, some of whom I’ve already met previously and others who I would probably fall to the floor yelling “I’m not worthy!”, it set my mind off again trying to fathom out where my journey has taken me so far, the ups and most importantly the many many downs I’ve had over the years, but in reading the introduction to the book especially it reminded me of how I started my business several years ago, what inspired me to start that business then, what did and didn’t work, why certain things didn’t work and so it started to restore my original drive and passion, while at the same time giving me a slightly clearer perspective on things in terms of past, present and future.

As a side note, it was even more intriguing to later discover that some articles I’d previously slightly glossed over in both 2D Artist and ImagineFX not only featured work by some of their artists, but also had an extensive interview with the whole team.

My biggest problem in all this was once again, where to begin.

Thankfully, Jason Pickthall from DR Studios gave me a few pointers to try to handle the different aspects from the art side of things and while trying to avoid reaching for the graphics tablet or my box of pencils, I jumped straight into 3DS Max and was quite happy with what I came up with after a couple of hours, while at the same time conversing with some of the guys from Horizon and various other usual multi-tasking things that I’m well known for doing.

Of course one thing I’m trying to get my head around in a fashion are the “tools of the trade”. This decade is definitely one for getting into almost any industry with the plethora of tools at your disposal and looking at what is available to those still in school or those just leaving makes me wish I was their age.

For me, I like drawing, I like digital painting, I like 3D modelling and I like coding, but all require specific tools and experience and a fair amount of discipline and while I am relatively well versed in each area, trying to fathom where to dedicate my time to an individual area is still a bit tricky.

A bad workman always blames his tools

At the same time, as I mentioned with the “tools of the trade”, I have found a massive flaw in the old saying “A bad workman always blames his tools”. Over the last four decades I noticed that if you start off with the right tools then you can accomplish things much easier. Having worked for a number of companies in the past that vaguely had the tools to do a job meant you spent more time having to work around the limitations of what you had to work with, rather than just getting the job done. A tool that vaguely does the job is not just detrimental to getting the job done properly, but it can often put people off trying to advance further in that field and even though the graphics tablet I have is okay and vaguely does the job, I often wonder if a wacom would be better so quite often I turn to pencil and paper instead.

It’s one of those things that you can’t really tell until you try it in a real working environment/situation, but it’s whether to spend the money or not. It would be great if there was somewhere or way you could try them out and see if you if they are more productive than a cheaper alternative, I’ll have to work on that one.

to be continued………