Introductions

Hi! My name is Joshua Gregory. I'm a 19 year old geek trying to make a life as a CG artist.

I believe that if you love doing something (art, basketball, doctoring, writing, etc.), you should go for it and not let anything hold you back. For example, two years ago I became interested in CG art. I started by loading up a free 3D program called Blender. The first thing that went through my head was, "OH MAN! I'M GOING TO MAKE AN AWESOME PHOTO REALISTIC KITCHEN SCENE!" 

I imagined this:

 

But I got this instead:

I was, for a lack of a better word, crushed. I thought to myself, “One, this is way harder than I thought and two, I'll never be as good as the other CG artists out there.” And then for the next year and a half, I created works of art with the mind set of, “Do your best and shoot for mediocre.” And that's exactly what I did, except that, no number of online tutorials, articles, or websites could get me out of my creative limbo.

Oh! I should also mention that I skipped basics altogether and went straight from intermediate to advanced modeling tutorials. I created things like cherry blossoms, spaceship corridors, fantasy-style caves, and so on. When I showed them to my friends, they ALL told me that I had talent and was very good for where I was. That helped a little, but as all artists and writers know, we're our own worse critics.

For almost two years, I worked on being a better artist, but I felt like I was just going to be average, and I was going to have to settle for that.

Then I entered my first competition. The theme was steampunk. I was stoked! I love steampunk and anything related to it. I hit the ground running, had a lot of fun with it, and couldn't stop myself! But then I posted my entry on the website hosting the competition… and it sucked. I had expected criticism, but d***. For every one “This is ok” comment I would get five harsh comments. Needless to say, I didn't even make top 10. However, the one thing that kept me from leaving art altogether was that the winner of the competition had had nothing bad to say at all!

Ever since then, I've continued to improve my craft and get better at what I do. I started this blog because I want to share my story and help people like me, people who don't think they have what it takes to be an artist, writer, etc. I will be posting pictures of my progression on this blog, as well as on my Facebook page “CG Alchemist.”