Be a Productive Artist !

Be a Productive Artist !

Getting more done in less time !

During the course of an artists development there is a lot to learn and
it usually takes place after school, work or other priorities. As such,
when you do have time, it is important to understand how you can
effectively manage it as well as get work done within it in an
efficient manner. In this article, we will provide you with some advice
which we feel will help you become a better artist in a shorter amount
of time. What this article isn’t, is a quick fix to making
professional-grade assets by next week. You’ll still be doing the same
routine: Putting in a lot of effort, fighting through the lows and
spending endless hours on matching verts & pixels. We’d just rather
see you get things done in 2 hours as opposed to 2 days.



To-do Lists & Goals



People usually start creating to-do lists out of need rather than want,
as in, they'll get so busy that they need to keep a physical list of
what needs to be done. This works fine, but at the same time, to-do
lists help serve a greater purpose; keeping you on track. As opposed to
saying "My goal for this month is to have a pretty entry for the
Game-Artist.net competition", try breaking it down into segments which
are listed onto a to-do list in a similar fashion:

• Day 4 Basic Mesh Complete


• Day 8 Full Mesh Complete


• Day 12 UV Complete


• Day 16 Basic Texture Complete


• Day 18 Detail Layer Complete

For
some of you this may sound more like a homework assignment in the end,
but being able to recognize your tangible short-term goals and act upon
them based on your well-maintained to-do list is the way to success.
Check out your list, find the time, and execute. Maybe such a large
project is also too big of a jump to start off with. Instead, just jot
down for next week "Take Part in GA.net Speed Modeling". Whatever task
you assign yourself, it's imperative that you follow through on it to
the end. If you’re getting them done, incrementally increase the
challenge every week. After all, have you ever seen an industry artist
with a portfolio full of unfinished work?



Helpful Resources:

My personal favorite....
ToDoist (simple, quick and a good layout)



http://todoist.com



For those too lazy to setup a seperate to-do list, you can attach one
to your iGoogle (given you have an account):



iGoogle
To-Do List

Distractions



Given you sleep 8 hours a day and are roughly 1 to 2 hours on the net
everyday, be it surfing in the unknown or random IM conversations,
you've just wasted 1 Month of the Year. That's right, you've just
ripped out July from your summer vacation and wasted it on
semi-productive or idle time. Once you lose that time, it's gone. You
don’t want to regret this in the future. If you're going to get down to
modeling or texturing and generally fit the Internet-Junkie profile, do
the following before you start:

• Close your Internet Browser


• Close all your IM applications


• Close your E-mail Client or System
  Tray Notifications


• Turn off your TV (if you have one
  in your room)

I
understand that chatting to someone sounds very tempting when you've
gotten to that part of the UV map which is "just too complex to do
right now", but the fact remains, you're going to have to do it at one
point. You're not doing anything else at the moment, so what better
time? Get it done now, reward yourself later.



Helpful Resources:

Top 10 Sources of
Distractions:

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lif...rruptions.html



Free yourself from your Inbox:

http://www.theoptimizedlife.com/time...rom-the-inbox/

Offline Library aka Scrapbook



An absolute must for all artists is to create a physical and/or virtual
scrapbook where you save resources which you consider beneficial to
you. This will be a source of inspiration as well as solutions to
existing problems. Collecting such assets and saving them instead of
bookmarking them not only saves you time (loading, searching, etc.) but
also keeps your eyes focused on nothing but art. Keep any eye out for:

• Tutorials -> Save them and
  categorize them in folders by application (Max, Photoshop, zBrush, etc.)


• Wireframes & Texture Sheets
  -> Save them and categorize them in folders by type (Character,
  Vehicle, Map Props)

Scrapbooks
shouldn’t be limited to what you find online, but also what you find on
your computer! For 90% of games you will find applications online which
can uncompress game files (and sometimes even mesh converters),
enabling you to have access to art which was done on a professional
level. What better way to learn what the industry demands other than by
seeing what they do?



Optional: Developing your non-Artistic Skills



For those of you which already live a productive life you may want to
consider developing other parts of your day to day to speed things up a
little.



Spreeder

Speed reading is the art
whereby you
don’t read word for word but read multiple words at the same time. I
honestly have doubled the rate at which I read and it’s a big time
saver.



Train your mind here (in the settings, enter 2 or 3 words to be shown
at the same time):



http://www.spreeder.com



The How-To on Speed Reading here (a sturdy introduction before hitting
up Spreeder):



http://superperformance.com/double.html

Holistic Learning

There are different
ways of learning, and of these is holistic learning. A process which
involves creating relationships between various entities and being able
to apply this knowledge to problems which you may not have learnt in
class.



Check out a brief introduction:



Link



Or get the free e-Book



http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/Programs/HolisticLearningEBook.pdf

Conclusion



It's not going to come overnight, but if you apply yourself and
actually give some of these methods above a chance, you will succeed in
getting more done in less time. I wish for everybody in this community
who is putting in a lot of work a successful career . I also hope that
our staff can help you attain that goal, and as a result you can help
others in the community.



If you find this article helpful or are trying some of the techniques,
feel free to make a post in the related forum thread found here . It
will motivate others to follow in your footpath. Best of luck and keep
us posted on your progress

DISCUSS IN THE FORUMS

source: http://www.game-artist.net/forums/vbarticles.php?do=article&articleid=45