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Personal Projects.... How?


CliveG
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How do some of the artists spending inordinate amounts of time on producing some of their awesome "personal projects" actually make this work pay.

 

There are obviously some artists who seem to produce so many personal projects that it would seem unlikely that their is much else going on for them to pay their bills?

 

Does selling the odd scene or model actually pay the bills.

 

Do projects like the 3rd and the 7th really happen in the artists spare time?

 

I'd love to immerse myself in a project just for the hell of it.... but the power would be disconnected before I finish.... :)

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Maybe people that create the personal projects you are admiring just have more personal drive to sit at a computer and create them than you do. :)

 

Not saying anything bad about you guys, but some people just put more time into their craft than others. I to am envious.

 

I did a little last night. I finished some freelance work last weekend that I wasn't completely happy with (as usual), so last night I sat down with the scene and figured some things out that will make my next project look better and render faster.

 

If you don't have time to create the image you want all at once, pick away at it a little each night or every day at lunch. The 3rd and 7th wasn't created in a weekend.

Edited by SkylineArch
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If you listen to a lot of them talk, it comes down to making time for art. They set aside a slice of time every day and stick to it. Many of them even have families, which complicates it quite a bit but they still make time. It's no different than setting up a workout routine. For me, I really try to do an hour of art during lunch at work, at least during the colder months.

 

Listen to some of the podcasts on the Collective Podcast, then feel bad about yourself. I know I do.

http://www.thecollectivepodcast.com/

 

I have a graveyard of half started projects on one of my drives. I kind of like it. If a project is pissing me off, I threaten to send it to project limbo.

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Maybe people that create the personal projects you are admiring just have more personal drive to sit at a computer and create them than you do.

 

Ouch... how to win friends and influence people! Only my wife could really vouch for how wrong you are on that one and getting to top 20 in the world at my sport, back in the day, took very little personal drive...

 

Anyway....

 

The 3rd and 7th wasn't created in a weekend.
My point exactly, there must have been probably many many hundreds of hours of work in that, I doubt you could feasibly spread a project like that out over a year or so of dribs and drabs of time between fee paying work without it just ending up in the graveyard of half finished projects like Scott's. But I think I'm seeing many more examples of this type of project recently..... did they all just marry well or is there money in it somewhere?
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I think there is a little of everything here, no need to get personal but the point to me is what are your goals.

I don't think you should take wrong what Mark mentioned, he is right and I think you confirm that with your answer. Think about it, when you were really into your sport, you put your heart and soul on it. Run the extra mile no matter what and you have a goal to be in the first place.

 

To me, the main difference between you and Alex Roman is maybe he concentrate to be where he is now, and you didn't it. and this is not bad, let me explain this.

 

I have been working on this Arch Viz for a long time. But honestly, I never thought to showcase my work on magazines or web forum, to me it was just my profession and my income. Thanks to the internet and social media this profession saw the grow of Rock Stars and such like in any other profession and there are people that are lucky enough to get the perfect gig at the perfect time. Then all that you need to do is protect your "Image"

After years of working on Arch Viz, I saw that and then started to participate in forums and some competitions, but I already was trying to establish my career, and I didn't see the value of being showcased over the internet. big mistake. I have been a beta tester for software, I helped to write a book about rendering, one of my images was featured on the cover of a Software Book, did I promoted any of that?? no, I didn't the other mistake.

 

Let's compare for instance a freelancer with a dedicated Arch Viz studio, both of them will so a Dog Clinic rendering or a Dunnut shop. but the freelance will place that on his website because that image will bring him more work. The large Arch Viz studio won't, they are to the catch of the big fish and when they get it, they will wall paper the whole town with those images.

 

In your case or mines, we all could be on front page of Evermotion or Ronen Beckerman website or this more website features as the best of the week, but you need to focus to that as a goal. In my case, it will be really hard with a full-time job and a family that ask me for time to spend with them. As Mark mentioned if I really want to achieve a feature image I will have to sacrifice sleeping time to make my master piece. Maybe when I was younger and have more time, but now, really it is very hard.

 

Alex Roman mentioned several times, that he was lucky to get the gig he worked on it and when he was trying to move on, get other job and try another part of the industry he took one full year of doing anything but refining his portfolio which ends up in that amazing video that we all copy now.

 

Bertrand also try to keep his clientele because with them he can produce the images that look fancy. MIR also mentioned they are lucky enough that they can choose their project, but again, they focused on that from the beginning.

 

If you are tired of your every day render, well make a plan, re define your goals and I am pretty sure you also could be writing book and doing speech of how great your renders are ;)

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If a personal project doesn't get you excited enough to work on it on your spare time then its not worth working on. It'll just feel like unpaid work to you. At least that's how it is for me. The few personal projects I've completed were mainly because I had enough passion and interest to work on it a little here and a little there until eventually it was finished. I was excited to see it through. They were literally done for fun and didn't think of it as "unpaid work"

That being said, similar to Scott Schroeder, I have a graveyard of unfinished projects. I have an even longer list of ideas I'd seriously love to start but haven't or will never get to.

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Glad I am not the only one in this boat. Spend on average, about 9.5 hours a day at work - making work related images that I don't have much control over. Camera angles are set, the architect gives me the model (so limited modeling on my part, the furniture is already picked out, etc. I have no real creative control over my images and it is somewhat discouraging. So discouraging that when I get home, I have little to no drive to learn new techniques or workflows let alone create a personal project. I would much rather sit on the sofa and catch up on Good Mythical Morning (if you haven't watched that, please do - it's on Youtube).

 

There are times when I get random inspiration - a literal image pops into my head for mere seconds. The inspiration sparks a fire inside me for a day or two then, that project goes into the "project limbo" folder. :(

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try starting a speed modeling challenge, set aside an hour and a specific "thing" to model. Stop when the hour is done then spend 10 minutes to render it, done move onto the next on tomorrow. You could take it a step further a set a theme for the week, at the end of the week set up a scene with all the "Things" see if you can make something interesting.

 

For me my personal projects are not archviz or CGI related. I do enough of that at work

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Yeah I guess the real point of my question was one of the economics or the potential economics of a personal project rather than necessarily questioning my "personal drive" to get there :)

 

I would have to forego doing paid work in order to execute a personal project. Whenever I am sitting at my computers - I have paid work waiting to be done - when I am working on my paid projects I am constantly trying to improve the quality of my product - therefore if I was to undertake a grand personal project, what's in it for me?

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I always find that investing time in improving my skill sets (by working on personal projects) results in faster, better looking and smoother production (working smarter) which translates into more satisfaction and more $$ in the long run.

 

So you did motocross?

Edited by heni30
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Roughly speaking, it is:

8h-sleep

8h-work

8h-quite a bit of time to do whatever personal stuff. Some may use 5h of it to work on a personal 3d project. Some play music and some spend all this time with their family.

 

On weekends it´s 8h sleep and 16h for personal time.

 

I always have a personal project in works. A lot of projects have ended up in graveyard folder. But in recent years I haven´t created any half-done projects. I have been taking on projects in more manageable scale and changed my mindset a bit- if I find myself changing something back and forth trying to improve some detail, I call it done and move on. It has actually helped that I don´t have so much time as before. I can´t start a personal project in a second I have an inspirational moment. I´m thinking it through if I really want to do this, how long would it take and so on. Otherwise, I still would have a new unfinished project every week. This way I manage to take on and finish maybe 1-3 projects a year.

It´s hard to say exactly how much or if at all it has helped financially, but it has been fun and that´s it.

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I don't think you should take wrong what Mark mentioned, he is right and I think you confirm that with your answer. Think about it, when you were really into your sport, you put your heart and soul on it. Run the extra mile no matter what and you have a goal to be in the first place.

 

Thanks. Yeah, that's what I meant and replied to that, but hit the "Reply to Thread" button instead of "Post Quick Reply" and lost everything I wrote. Not the first time I've done that, and probably not the last. :D

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Yeah I guess the real point of my question was one of the economics or the potential economics of a personal project rather than necessarily questioning my "personal drive" to get there :)

 

I would have to forego doing paid work in order to execute a personal project.

 

Not necessarily.

 

All of my personal projects have been done in my spare time, outside of paid work. There are weeks/months when I want to do personal projects and I'll spend my free time on them, and then there are months when I'd rather chill out and do other things that interest me.

 

It's all about finding the time to do them, and even a simple scene can take months to complete because you're finding a little bit of time to work on it every now and then.

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Motivation and sacrifice. Find what motivates you, and then decide what you're willing to sacrifice.

 

My motivation was going from employment to freelance. I did a stack load of personal projects, alongside a full time job, and a new born kid. My motivation was to have a portfolio I was proud of, and could call my own. My sacrifice was working after my baby went to bed, until around midnight. I didn't do this every night, but over a year it all added up.

 

Some people will sacrifice more time. They'll spend their weekends doing personal projects, rather than going to the park to play with their kids. I'm not saying that's wrong at all, but not something I was willing to sacrifice. I know people who have worked Christmas day, and they'd say their sacrifice was worth it to keep a client happy.

Others will sacrifice money. Maybe they'll go part time on their current job.

 

If you really want to create personal work, you'll find time, money, etc to do it. it just depends on what you want to sacrifice.

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Yeah I guess the real point of my question was one of the economics or the potential economics of a personal project rather than necessarily questioning my "personal drive" to get there :)

 

I think the economic benefit these artists see is minimal at best, in a lot of cases I think they do it for the since of personal accomplishment and the admiration of their piers. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had a client who was willing to pay for a "high end" rendering over the course of 15 years. I think the reason we're seeing more of these fabulously polished works of art is because there are a lot of young starving artists out there trying to make a name for themselves and time isn't a factor.

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I think the economic benefit these artists see is minimal at best, in a lot of cases I think they do it for the since of personal accomplishment and the admiration of their piers. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had a client who was willing to pay for a "high end" rendering over the course of 15 years. I think the reason we're seeing more of these fabulously polished works of art is because there are a lot of young starving artists out there trying to make a name for themselves and time isn't a factor.

 

You think Bertrand Benoit hasn't monetised his personal work?!

 

What about Alex Roman (The Third & The Seventh)? From what I understand, took a year out to make the film. It was a bold move, but his value now is 100000x more than before. And let's not forget his book.

 

Grant Warwick (Vray masterclasses), again took personal time to establish himself as an expert, and now does very well from turning his personal work into something others will pay for.

 

These guys are cleverer than they'd have you believe.

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I didn't say there were no people who profited from their work, I said in many cases the work is done for personal reasons and those people probably don't see that much economic benefit.

 

Depends what you call an economic benefit. If it means landing a $50,000 / year job, then it's quite a sizeable economic benefit.

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You think Bertrand Benoit hasn't monetised his personal work?!

 

He is also selling models - both objects and scenes via Turbo and other sites. Also tutorials. I think it would hard

to get architecture gigs with that level of refinement with deadlines and changes but products/products scenes with

casual deadlines and good compensations are very feasible.

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