smoth wrote:KaiserJ "I am an art guy not a math guy"
heh. time for a long and complicated story :) although, before i begin, i'd like to say i'm probably in a similar boat to you.
when i was a little kid, i loved arts and crafts, my parents always encouraged it, so i always had plenty of art materials and would spend hours and hours just sitting and drawing and making things. i think i got my first computer when i was about 7 years old, a used c64, and it really captured my imagination... i'd sit and think "well, somebody made this game, why cant i make one myself." tried to teach myself basic in order to make games, didn't really get anything done; part of the problem i guess is when you're a little kid, you don't have the patience to sit and teach yourself a new skill, especially if there are a lot of things around you distracting you.
fastforward to my first IBM pc, probably when i was about 10 or 11... i remember getting it for christmas, starting it up, and playing wolfenstien for about 8 hours straight. that computer really rekindled my desire to use computers in a constructive way; i spent countless hours making maps for wolf, then doom, then quake.
fastforward to puberty. filled with teenage angst and the knowledge that yes, i can still impress my friends with crap i make on the computer, but no, girls won't give two shits about it, i shove it all aside and go skateboarding every single day for about 8 years.
fastforward to the end of highschool... i failed out of my last year because i never went to class, failed every math class i tried after grade 11, spent a lot of time sitting in class and drawing instead of doing work; the classes i enjoyed, i applied myself, but all the others i couldn't give two shits, it was enough for me just to sit around with my friends and get high instead of going to class. however, this was really the turning point for me; a good friend of mine sold drugs to a guy who owned his own internet cafe... i think to start with he just went in, did business and then left; but the lure of games was just too strong, and pretty soon i was sitting there alongside him every day stoned out of my mind playing counterstrike for hours. the itch kicked in again, and i felt the urge to be creative rising... culminating when i brought a usb key loaded with homebrewed fy maps to play with everyone at the cafe, and seeing the extemely positive results, was right back into the swing of digital art.
instead of incurring the massive debts that going to a swanky art college would have given me, i opted out of that and decided to go for a web design / digital media course at my local college. i was blown away at how much BETTER i was than the other students; not in the realm of art, but in the way i was able to grasp the concepts presented to us so much faster than everyone else in my course, and i started to realize that yes, perhaps this was the right choice for me.
not a new field, but digital art and creation seems to be an area on the rise; most of my friends who were computer geeks with me when i was younger went on to do some pretty amazing things, i know some engineers, i know some software developers, and i know some people who make a decent living doing web design.
so i can agree with you smoth... some people approach the computer as just a big calculator, but i can see the possible creative aspect of working with them, as i have for pretty much my whole life. i'm garbage at math, geometry, physics... when i have to work like that, it's generally trial and error, never perfect, normally stopgap solutions... but unlike when i was younger, i'm now confident enough in myself to take on those challenges rather than just avoid them and move on to something else.
it's not like im saying i cant do anything BUT art, it's just sort of how my brain is wired... i wont shy away from a challenge, but i know where my strengths and weaknesses lie. if i were equally good at art and math, then i would claim to be a renaissance man
it's just interesting how i've managed to come full circle in a way; i get the same feeling making things with spring that i did when i was just a little kid struggling to understand basic; but the difference now, is that i'm actually getting things done, which adds an even more amazing feeling to what im doing : satisfaction
thanks for the thought provoking post sir, made me do a bit of re-self-analysis... and i can agree with you that labelling (which i did to myself for much of my life) can hold you back and sap your confidence.
and for the newbie whose thread im filling up with ramblings... making things for spring, regardless of how scary it might seem from the outset, is hella fun, and very rewarding.
