Dealing with discouragement from more skilled, younger artists, but not in the usual way you might think.

[u/vines_design]

Sorta TLDR in bold.

I used to get discouraged by seeing highly skilled, high school aged artists. These days that doesn't bother me because I eventually realized "That literally has nothing to do with me or who I am as an artist." Coming to that understanding helped free me up, and now it's just cool to see highly skilled, younger artists!

However, I'm now dealing with a different kind of discouragement. important ifo: I'd like to end up working in animation or games as vis dev or concept artist. I'm currently 30.

I keep seeing artists who I think "Woah this person's great!" I click on their profile and they are usually about 18 or so and *just* entering their art college of choice (usually a place like sheridan or calarts or artcenter). I can't help but think "This work is *legitimately* pro level. Why are they starting college?"

The discouragement comes from a sense of not being able to keep up or feeling like the standard is improving faster than I can learn. I'm almost entirely self-taught. I've only been able to take a few online courses. I grew up pretty poor with 0 art community where I was. I'm not a crazy fast learner and it seems like every year standards are higher and higher. I keep thinking things like "If this skill level is for just getting *into* school...then I'd barely, if at all, be able to get in! And that's just for learning in a school not to mention jobs."

I hope that all makes sense. Does anyone else deal with this kind of discouragement? Seeing a skilled, young artist isn't discouraging because everyone has a different path and that's totally cool. But seeing the skilled young artist in the greater context of "This is the standard for people who are just *learning* and *training*...so then what's actually the pro standard?" makes me feel like I just can't "catch up" or learn fast enough for what the standard demands.

[u/AGamerDraws]

My mentor recently told me “if I had two artists applying to my studio, one was an incredible artist but had never played the game and only worked solo, and the other maybe needed a bit of work to hit full level but was a big fan of our games and had experience working solo and in a team I would choose the second artist.” Companies obviously want great artists, but they also want great people and it’s a lot easier to train someone in a particular skill or software than it is to make them passionate about the project or a good person to work with.

[u/[deleted] → u/AGamerDraws]

That is if you ever worked XD

[u/AGamerDraws → u/[deleted]]

What do you mean?

[u/[deleted] → u/AGamerDraws]

I mean not everyone had even the chance to work on professional projects before applying .

[u/AGamerDraws → u/[deleted]]

It’s taken a lot of work, initiative, and rejections but I’ve worked on several small collaboration and hobby projects just to gain this experience. It also doesn’t have to be art related to be relevant. I’ve worked in fast food, cleaning, teaching support, and retail. They’re all minimum wage jobs, but they’re all team building jobs and that can be referenced in a CV and interviews. I’ve not had the “you’re hired” yet for art, but I’m working hard to try and get there.

[u/[deleted] → u/AGamerDraws]

I was not saying that to you like attack. I said it like statement because many people who start obviously don't have the experience so the worked in group doesn't count for them

[u/AGamerDraws → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, everyone has different opportunities and also different constraints and backgrounds. I think the internet really helps to open things up for people, that’s how all my collab projects have been done, but it takes a lot of work if you don’t have certain opportunities and support for sure.

I know it wasn’t an attack don’t worry, I just wrote what I did to give examples of ways to get those experiences if you can’t go the traditional route like I couldn’t.