The Patterns Behind Lasting Creative Progress
Lessons from doing 3D (Skill Building)
Recently, I've been doing weekly classes with my good friends, Ting-sensei and Skye. Skye and I have basically become Ting-sensei's guinea pigs as he practices teaching 3D using Maya, so we've been doing his assignments.
One of his assignments was to recreate an oven. As someone who hasn't used 3D in a while, I'd say I did a pretty good job.
P good oven
In fact, making this oven gave me inspiration for one of the skills that I'll be adding into the Artist's Skill Tree, and that's on forms.
In essence, I'd like to think that any complicated shape can be initially created through simplified shapes. If one understands this, then it'll be easier to create the shape in any angle needed.
For example, this shape:
If we look at the four burner grates, maybe it might feel overwhelming for a beginner to draw, especially if it's going to be drawn in a more complicated angle.
However, if we break down the simple shapes needed to form a burner grate, it's actually:
4 cylinders at the outer corners
1 square frame
4 stretched cylinders (now eclipse-shaped) at the inner corners of the square frame
If you image these simple shapes melding into each other, then it practically forms the burner grate. That's way easier to draw at any angle compared to if a beginner were to draw this burner grate as a whole.
Let's take another example which I got here:
Let's take a look at the top right shape. Initially, it might feel complicated to do. However, if we try breaking it down, they're actually just several pyramids melded in to each other.
Yes it may take time to complete this shape if we draw pyramids one at a time, but at least the feeling of overwhelm should significantly reduce now knowing it's challengingly doable rather than completely impossible.
So, the next time you see a complicated shape, try breaking it down into simple shapes first and work your way up slowly to it :) (But if you have a 3D software, might as well take advantage of it haha)
My Personal Favorite Platform (Relationship Building)
When I first learned about email marketing, in my head I was like, "Why would you do that?" and, "People read their email?"
The notion of email for me initially felt slow and inefficient. There were far faster ways to communicate such as WhatsApp, Messenger, and other platforms. If you needed to send a file, you could just send a Google Drive link through a message.
However, as I started subscribing to emails from people I wanted to learn more about such as Dan Koe, Pewdiepie, and Justin Welsh, I got to learn and understand the appeal of sending emails to readers.
Emails allowed me to get to know more about the people I admired and actually learn from them. There's this sense of intimacy (not the parasocial one) when you receive a letter from someone that you've followed for a while. Kinda feels like a friend or teacher sending a letter to you to be honest.
From a creator's point of view, the practical importance of email would be that you get to have someone's email forever. With the ever changing landscape of social media, you might never know when you or your follower decide not to use a social media platform anymore. An example would be how some users of X decided to stop using the platform and/or transferred to Bluesky.
At least with emails, no matter what happens, you have it forever.
On another note, because I now subscribe to people I admire, I now clean my emails as well haha.
Let’s just not talk about my yahoo one >_>
How Shower Thoughts Happen (Insight Building)
Sometimes, your best ideas and downloads (a term for 'insights' which I've adopted from Jeune) come from resting.
In fact, the download I had on Mountains vs Mountain Ranges in my Protagonist Post came from just letting my mind wander while eating lunch.
After looking it up, I've come to learn that it's because our brain is usually between two modes: the Default Mode Network (DMN) and the Task-Positive Network.
Our brain on Task-Positive Network is basically like it's on Focus Mode. You're busy doing tasks, trying to solve problems, or perhaps concentrating on something.
Meanwhile, the Default Mode Network is when our brain gets to wander around freely. When we're not doing anything, when we shower, when we're basically "bored", this allows our brain to work on its own in connecting things together.
This is why shower thoughts happen. This is why we might get sudden inspiration when we get up in the morning after sleeping.
The nuance however is that how we consume things matters. What I mean by that is that we don't need to necessarily consume educational things all the time. We can consume memes or even just mindlessly scroll on reels. What's importance is balance.
There must be a variety of things we consume.
There must be a time for our brain to do its own thing.
There must be a time when we actively consume things and not just passively scroll.
In essence, after actively consuming things, let your brain cook and do its thing~
Reyvin
P.S. Thank you so much for reading!
If ever you feel called to, here are 2 ways I can help you:
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