Branching off (in this case 2D) can be either a great thing or a horribly bad ending to those who dont know how to stop, or are just too dumb to realize it isnt their thing… aka it’s like a job you’re never good at but you act like you should be getting piad for it.
To address my first point, I started out as a comic book pro wannabe and studied anatomy and figure drawing through middle school and high school with a private instructor I met with twice a month or so. After a while he told me to look into animation (2D) so I did, and went to school for it. That same school got me into sculpting, 3D everything, editing, conceptual design, directing, compositing, stop motion, and drinking. Pros? I got exposed to a lot of different STUFF and I found out what I wanted to get into (next) which was/is 3D, and now Im going to school for it, again. So what were/are the cons? Im going to school, again, and the 3 years I spent learning a lot of STUFF I couldve spent on just 3D, had I really been exposed to it and Im betting I couldve already had a job, was spent on learning a lot of other skills, like @d animation, sculpting, etc. The time inbetween the first school and where I am now, I spent my free time sculpting, with Super Sculpey, which is just one way of sculpting. I got interested in wax sculpting but didnt feel the drive to buy a whole new set of tools and an oil lamp, so I stuck with what I knew, and thank God for that because who knows where that might’ve branched out into. When I was studying 2D animation, I loved it, cel, scratch on film, chalk, flash, after effects puppet animation, “wow, that was fun, I wanna learn more about digital 2D animation, oh wow I need to learn about Toon Boom AND US Animation ALSO!” Same goes for 3D:
“Maya is hard for me, I dont know anything… XSI is easier, now I can go back into Maya, Deep Paint’s cool, so is body Paint, ZBRUSH? Better learn that!”
What Im getting at is that anything can lead down multiple roads of endless learning, so just watch out and dont spread yourself too thin because a lot of people do. So going into “2D” can mean a LOT of learning, and some people cant learn to do certain things GOOD. But that doesnt mean don’t learn a lot of things, because you can, if you’re smart.
Which brings me to my second point:
I have a twin brother, he’s the mechanical engineer and Im the artist. He cant draw to save his life, no matter how good of an instructor, mentor, tools, anything, he could NEVER draw a DECENT human being to save his life. He’s one of the smartest, funniest, coolest guys you’d ever come to know, I call him the perfect human being, and he picks up a lot of “book smart” stuff super fast, sometimes it’s uncanny. Me, I draw, sculpt, am learning 3D decently fast, and I couldn’t solve a mathematical problem to find the solution to fluid thermo dynamics to give enough toque in the right schifter spleeno gear of a V56kAE 12,000,000 horse power engine to save MY life. Im a smart guy (I’d like to think) and so is my brother, we have totally different kinds of “smart” in us, same goes for just about everyone.
Some people cant do the traditional thing to save their life, but that doesnt mean they cant learn how the human body operates (or any other sort of body structure anatomical or skeletal.) Even if they take life drawing every day for the rest of their lives they might not be able to draw a coherant stick figure in the end, but it doesnt mean they dont know the name of every msucle and can point to it on the human body, how they function, which are extensors and flexros, and which bones they affect and what those bones names are.
So I guess what Im trying to say is learn what you need to learn, unless you want to make it a hobby, in which case it wont matter how much you suck, but dont waste your time learning something you feel you dont want/need to learn and might not get very good at. Try it out? Sure, but dont spend all your cash on all the newest tools and toys… but that’s a whole other conversation.
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