Lately ive been loosing my passion and drive to model… I think its since I started 2d work, I just dont enjoy modelling like I use to and its really annoying because I want to model… Think I might just be going through a burn out phase or something, Just wondering what you guys think is best to do, Force myself to model and hope that the passion and drive comes back, or just don’t model and hope eventually I feel like doing it. Maybe I just need to be re-inspired I dont know…
Cheers
-Charlie
Maybe keep at the 2D stuff for a while and you may create a 2D Object or 2D Character that inspires you and you may want to build it in 3D… then go from there
Yeah, stick with 2D for a bit. Sometimes a change of pace is good. When you rekindle your interest in modelling, you’ll be super passionate again.
I hope so, I really want to get into architecture but every time I attempt visualizations I just stop because Im bored of modelling 
So ill give it some time with 2d, see what happens
do you want to get into architecture visualization or architecture?
if the latter, draw plans, draw from life, draw sections, go check out some of the work in the architectural mags/websites, not architectural record please… 
pushpullbar is a good community and they have some great artists and architects in there.
Architectual Visualiation, I think im just going to take a break from modelling and wait for a day when I feel like doing it again
Just be cautious not to let the skills/experience you have gained rust away while you wait for you interest to rekindle. Nothing wrong with taking a break but I have discovered that if you come back to an activity after too much time its as if you have to re-learn things over again. But you definitely don’t want to force yourself because you will be much less productive than if you took a short break and came back.
On a side note I have seen all of you work posted here on the forums and on your site too. You have greatly improved and you will certainly be able to accomplish whatever it is you set out to do. I especially like that last modular looking model of a turret you made recently and your spaceship. Also practicing texturing is in a the field of 2d as well.
This is normal. After the romance period, it becomes a job. But most jobs have the benefit of a big fat paycheque which is rather inspiring in itself. Being young, you must recognise your mental limits are also battling your physical limits ie hormonal limits from your body as you become a man, and so focussing on one thing is a lot harder for you.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Right now you’re modelling the low poly stuff, the easy stuff. Whats missing is a hardcore challenge like modelling the perfect female. Thats something I’ve done from time to time, my first females looked like herman munster, but my later efforts looked pretty much mass effect quality.
Plus its my opinion that learning to model the human female is one of the hardest things you can do as a man, because they are attractive and much-viewed so it is very easy to be critical like “her boobs aren’t the right shape” or “her feet seem masculine” and so on… so you could give that challenge a go.
If you are truely sick of it, and the above challenge (it is hard and there are many tutorials you should follow even with your experience as there’s tricks like edge loops of a certain way that make modelling them tonnes easier) - bores you…
Then perhaps its time to chill out, play a game or even just try your hand at a very simple yet effective game in unity. Something with stylised graphics to cut down workflow, something simple and cool thats entirely yours, not someone elses BS creation, but something thats got the charlie seal of quality stamped on it.
Whatever you do, its probably a time to take a break from the “commercial” side of modelling for others - its hardly personal to you so there can’t be much drive and passion behind it for the payment you’d get for that.
Thanks for the advice, I think i’m just going to chill out for a while, go out more with friends and enjoy the summer… Being paid is a very big drive for me, this past month I must of earn’t probably about 700gbp which is a lot for me personally, but then when I do things without the money benefit it is harder to do it.
I have made a thread in Collaboration looking for a coding partner to make a very small 2d/3d appilication to see if that can help me get motivated too.
In my opinion, u should forget modeling completely (TEMPORARELY) trust me, you will soon want to model again. it happend with me so many time with so many things.
I hope you’ve only forgotten how to write “temporarely.”
Goodness, I felt bad just typing that.
Charlie, I’m not surprised you lost your passion for it, you clearly like doing 2D work more. Do what you like to do without regards to your career, you’re still young and have no need to commit for a while.
Honestly, I think passion’s over-rated.
Passion gets you involved at a surface level; what pushes you beyond that is largely your work ethic. Andy Warhol, for example, was an artist who felt very strongly about work ethic; he once put it thus:
“Actually, I jade very quickly. Once is usually enough. Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.”
Wherever you see the greats in art, they’re usually people who worked at it daily; it takes years to really learn a subject, and art for games is several subjects all in one; sculpture, fine painting, science and the mathematics of optics, animation. You can spend your whole life working on any one area, and be good; you can’t be great unless you know a bit of all of them. I honestly think this is the most challenging form of visual art there is.
But to get there, you need to set goals, expand your capabilities, and stretch yourself. An artist resting on their previous achievements is a dead artist. If you feel like you’ve reached a plateau, then you need to try something totally new with form, shape or color; instead of yet-another Robot Turret, develop a flower or a nymph drinking from a drop of dew; paint a photo-real reflection of Marilyn Monroe in the hubcap liner of a 50’s Chevrolet; do something different that will make you stretch.
What I’ve seen in your portfolio is that you don’t show much that’s unwrapped and skinned, and you show so much unskinned work that I have the impression that you don’t know a lot about that side; perhaps it’s time to concentrate on that art (really, unwrapping is an art, just like painting the skins). The best way to learn how to do this really well is with characters and mechanical objects with a lot of parts; a realistic dump-truck, for example, will teach you a lot more than any number of swords, simply because you’ll have to unwrap a lot of odd surfaces and deal with a lot of complex mirroring problems to get texture sizes to a reasonable level.
I think that best thing you can do is become proper freelancer. You will never lose passion for job becouse you wont overdo your job and you can take as much tasks as you want not as much as anyone tells you. Afcourse you will need some second job too.
I have freelanced and put bacon on the table for 30+ years. There is no need for a second job if you apply yourself and have a good work ethic. Any in-between time was spent getting up to par with the latest software or adding more advanced pieces than were current in the portfolio.
BTH
I am freelancing now, Just not had much work lately
My problem with passion is that I get bored of some tasks. For example, right now I’ve got a playable game with 5 levels, that needs the rest making. I’ve also got the start of a procedural voxel world generation script. I LOVE procedural generation, and I can spend hours tweaking it. The moment I get onto making another level, I get bored in minutes, and quit Unity.
I just do a little bit each day if I can’t stand it. Just do one extra job a day and it’ll finish itself.
Here is something I do to keep my brain from getting melted from coding, making images, custom databases and the same thing everyday. As a professional web developer you would not believe how many companies come to me and say they have this great idea for a website. To me as a programmer in the web world I have seen it all. I have made twitter clones, imageshacks, myspaces, facebooks and renamed them over and over and over. I have seen all kinds of new technology needing to be invented, new gizmos, new doodads, new images but ironically they all do the same thing.
What happens is I get burnt out. I get burnt out to the point where I just don’t want to touch web design anymore. I don’t want to code, I don’t want to make images and it kills me. So I developed something thats a unique concept which helps me break the barrier of boredom while still expanding my skills and makes me interested!
Here is a prime example. A set of people wanted me to make a World of Warcraft tracker to track the armory and start working on how they can view all the stats and stat calculations. Ironically the month before I had the same request. A few months prior its the same thing. It gets old quick no? Well while coding this bad boy I decided to start my own custom version of it by reskinning it, and making things I think would appeal to a dark sided humor.
My ability to make humor out of what I was doing made the project go by faster, I did things like name functions random things:
Characterimport(); was renamed to IsuckedWoWarmory();
passing string were things like import strength, i renamed to IamMighty.
As far as graphics I give myself a challange. Using the same web framework I gave my client, to produce images I turned it into a psuedo porn site and just reskinned it. It was about finding nakked characters in WoW’s database that logged out with no clothes on and display them.
It was enough to push through only because it was something new added to the old strain.
Heres some exercises you could do in your state. You mentioned doing Architecture and buildings. What if you didn’t design an architecture of a full standing building, but simulated a building a ruins, to push you to think.
What about instead of doing a building you try building a robot made of buildings.
If your into drawing on the 2D scale, try using tools you usually don’t. If you usually start your guides off with circles, try using triangles. if you shade last, try reverse images and fill in to make a reverse shape.
You never want to just stop or you would be suprised how fast you loose it. I stopped prorgramming in PHP for 2 months to take a break. I got back into it and made the simplest mistakes that I knew for years… you just start to brain dump things you don’t use. Mind you I remembered it, but you forget things fairly fast.
-Mayple