At 7/1/25 04:38 PM, Thetageist wrote:

At 7/1/25 09:49 AM, Lady-Mystery wrote:

At 6/30/25 12:24 PM, Thetageist wrote:

At 6/30/25 09:32 AM, Lady-Mystery wrote:Sometimes I get so tired of putting effort into art. It seems like no matter what I do, how much I do, it is never enough. Since the year began, I still have not one single piece of 3D art I'd consider good enough to post anywhere.

Instead, I have found myself split between three different projects, one of them in particular is a tag-along that has been dragging its feet for as long as possible, and is making work on the other two intangible.

It is a hand drawn and painted map and it has been taking literally forever. We're talking months. After putting the other two projects on hold, I have been going HAM at it and realized there is at least another week's worth of work left to do (mainly because the last section on it is this abso-fucking-lutely horrible detailed mountainous/cliff-type area). I can't just ignore it, because I NEED this map to make a 3D variant of it in both Unreal Engine and as a guide for future map illustrations for the setting most of my work is based on (so, I can't even finish the Gary Gygax 75 Challenge without it).

I feel so tired of this. So, so tired. I want just one thing, ONE thing I can get done and post. Anything! Feels like being a bug in a maze, picking away at things but getting nothing finished, going in circles forever...

I completely understand the feeling. Okay, so you have some options. What would you like to do to help yourself out of this situation:

(Remember, not everything you make has to be "post-worthy" or a masterpiece to be worthwhile.)

I want option 3 - skip this crap and work on either one of the other two projects I had before.

Only thing I don't like about this option is that it's been literal months of work, and skipping will only drag it on even further, possibly taking up to a year to get this stupid map done. Beyond ridiculous how long it has taken me for something that kinda isn't really that great on its own (for the time spent, at least), and yet, so much in the future depends on it. It's like the 800 pound gorilla in the room and I really want it to sit somewhere else.

If you want my advice, I'd say to finish the map. What I've learned is that a week isn't that much time compared to a year. A week is like, 1 or maybe 2 assignments in a normal university class. You can get through it, and then it'll be done and you can feel proud of yourself for getting through it.

At 7/1/25 07:10 PM, pinmoBOT wrote:

At 6/30/25 09:32 AM, Lady-Mystery wrote:

I feel so tired of this. So, so tired. I want just one thing, ONE thing I can get done and post. Anything! Feels like being a bug in a maze, picking away at things but getting nothing finished, going in circles forever...

I've had several instances where I took on a project I couldn't feasibly do within a given time frame and there were two ways I'd go about it: either I would narrow my focus and get rid of things that are unnecessary, or abandon the project and move onto something else that was more attainable. When I started doing 3D, my work output was very slow because I had yet to build my asset library and workbench to speed up my workflow. I wish that any craft could reveal itself at a given moment, but the thing is that it must be sought after; it must be worked towards.

In a professional or industrial setting, establishing a 3D pipeline takes weeks (or even months) to do. One also has to consider that in video game production, there are departments with 15-30 artists on average, and each artist contributes their own workbenches, asset libraries, and experience to make production feasible within a budget or time frame. There are also rare occasions in which industry veterans are able to do the work of multiple artists by leveraging their experience, knowledge and resources to optimize their individual output. None of that is built within a few weeks, but rather years or perhaps even decades.

Your best bet is to either bite the bullet and grind through the process, or take a step back and figure out what you could be doing better. It is often the case that there is insight to be gained by asking questions to others who may have already gone through the same process as you have before. I make use of every resource I have at my disposal: free courses, open databases, documentation, forum threads, community discords, newsletters from artists and curators I follow, etc. When you've exhausted every resource you can find, doing outreach is your next best thing. I encourage 3D artists to make 3D art threads to share their work in order to get peer reviews and critiques. While you can learn a lot through empiricism, it also helps to have people know exactly what you are doing so they can pitch in and help you find direction.