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I plan to leave tech to pursue art

liamhz.com

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Re: I plan to leave tech to pursue art

#61

Post by mch82 »

mch82 wrote: post #57
LiamHz wrote: post #29

Hi! I'm the author of this post -- it was an unlisted draft that I shared with a few friends, was planning to rewrite most of this before publishing. Please forgive the rough edges Main changes I'd make to this article - Agreed with others that I might be naive, but I'm 20 y/o and now's the right time to shoot for my dreams rather than settle - I'm applying to animation school soon (Sheridan). I started coding when I…

You are 20 and talking about a career change. You are going to do great! I learned to program in art classes at USC and UCLA. While you may go analog, it’s likely your tech & art skills will blend somewhere down the line. Check out UCLA MFA Design Media Arts program [1]. Casey Reas [2] teaches there. He co-created Processing at MIT [3]. Arduino programs are called “sketches” because the Arduino IDE derives from Proce…

Don’t worry about all the people going negative and saying AI will replace you. Those people aren’t artists.

You can’t be blind to AI… it’s coming and you’d be foolish to ignore it. But, AI is like any other tool artists use. Great artists use new tools and methods to push their ideas & work forward. No one expects you to mix paint or make your own clay. Banksy isn’t making paint cans. No one cares about those skills because that’s not the cool part anymore. Stay focused on the cool part :-)

Re: I plan to leave tech to pursue art

#62

Post by freetime2 »

tjr225 wrote: post #52
JKCalhoun wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stood at a fork in the road, so to speak, when I was kicked out of the house and had to decide whether to pursue art or tech (I enjoyed both). It was clear to me tech would pay the bills — the art I could do in my spare time. Retired (am I?) now, I can do all the art I want.

The problem is that by the time you are retired you are most likely so unplugged from the cultural zeitgeist that fuels art that you can’t possibly be good at it. You can’t possibly create anything meaningful that would speak to people who really consume art, because those people are young. They’re a few examples of outsiders who buck this trend but it’s a little presumptuous to think you’re as good as them. So now y…

I think this is a very narrow view of what art is, who can partake, and what it means to be good at it.

Re: I plan to leave tech to pursue art

#63

Post by rperez333 »

I’ve been a visual effects artist for more than a decade (Nuke Compositor), last year I did the inverse move to tech, already predicting that AI would make my life a bit harder.

All the articles you see about the state of the industry are no hyperboles, my life as developer is a walk in the park compared to what I had to go through as an artist. But as your intuition already told you, not going all-in is a mistake. Ignore people saying to do this as a hobby.

It is not remotely the same thing, especially if you are ambitious and not taking this path because you had no better option.

Re: I plan to leave tech to pursue art

#65

Post by freetime2 »

LiamHz wrote: post #29

Hi! I'm the author of this post -- it was an unlisted draft that I shared with a few friends, was planning to rewrite most of this before publishing. Please forgive the rough edges Main changes I'd make to this article - Agreed with others that I might be naive, but I'm 20 y/o and now's the right time to shoot for my dreams rather than settle - I'm applying to animation school soon (Sheridan). I started coding when I…

Best wishes! When I've had a strong notion like what you've described, I've tended to act on it, and I've never had any regrets for it. I think that art can be a tough business to be in, but like you say the worst case is if it doesn't work out you go and do something else instead - and I believe the time you devote to art will pay dividends for the rest of your life.

Re: I plan to leave tech to pursue art

#66

Post by laserbeam »

More power to you, and you always have software as a backup plan if things don't work out.

One of my close friends went through a similar change from software to art. It took 4 years until she found her way and her audience. She's still not making much but she is much happier than when programming.

It's still going to be a hustle for you, but it's a different kind of hustle. And that's ok. Enjoy the journey!

Re: I plan to leave tech to pursue art

#67

Post by pianoben »

HiroshiSan wrote: post #21

I did something similar though I never made it into tech, I dropped out of a bachelor's in math to pursue art, this was roughly 5 years ago and it's been a tough journey, I wish you the best of luck. Some resources that will help you a long the way: youtube: proko steve huston steven zapata ahmed aldoori sinix nma.art watts atelier schoolism Try to find a local life drawing class and go every single week. Animation s…

> I'm currently trying to change my relationship to art from something I pursue to make money, to something I enjoy doing to fuel my soul.

This may not be a useful anecdote for those who want to thread the needle between passion and profession, but I'll never forget the day that I decided, really decided, to switch from a piano performance degree to a CS degree. My playing immediately improved - I was relaxed, and things just flowed. The minute I stopped pinning my hopes and worries for the future on my art, the minute I stopped trying to force perfection, it blossomed on its own.

I don't know what lesson, if any, to draw from that experience, but there it is. I tend to think that shedding the egotistical attachment to professional success was the key. (it just transferred over to programming, but hey, turns out there are lots of people who will pay for that).

Re: I plan to leave tech to pursue art

#68

Post by odessacubbage »

djha-skin wrote: post #16

> In the near future I want to become a concept artist in the games industry Worst industry ever by all the accounts I've heard. Part of the compensation package is that you are working in the gaming industry. Long hours, lousy pay, ill treatment. Go for the art mate but pursue a different industry.

concept art is fine just as long as you go in with the right expectations for what the job actually is. also if you already have a technical background there is nothing stopping you from finding a marriage between both of your skillsets and working on smaller, more creatively fulfilling games.

Re: I plan to leave tech to pursue art

#69

Post by odessacubbage »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #28
aiappreciator wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its also literally the worst type of artist to be. Concept art is the most vulnerable type of art to AI. AI already does concept art way better than humans, 1 concept artist can now do the job of 10. Because AI is good at variation and creativity, bad at detail/coherence, concept art favors the former, needs less of the latter. Why doesn't OP MAKE games instead of being a mere artist? If you can program, and have a p…

I'm not worried about competition from "AI art" — am I just stupid and ill-informed? Pursuing game concept-art though appears to me to be a drag simply because of the sameness of it. I know the author of the article thinks it's become a wide open field for creativity but my eye stills see the same fantasy-super-hero-manga genre that probably keeps computer games from being seen as deserving of being called "art" to s…

>the sameness of it.

the skills required to do entertainment design are broad enough that they give you access to a pretty wide range of jobs across multiple industries. if you get bored of being a render monkey, it's really not hard at all to switch to something like storyboarding or color scripting.

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