Talent or Hard Work?

He is talented. She is very talented. How many times do we hear this?  This term is used for people who excel at anything, whether it's sports, music or other examples I can't think of at the moment.  Well, I'd like to talk about this term being used as often as it is when it comes to illustrators, whether it's about 2D, 3D, concept art, all the way to traditional.  We see artists being labeled this term all too often, and I believe people are making a mistake when they say or write this.

The artists who are that good are at that level because they work their asses off.  They study and paint at a rapid pace, far more than others.  Illustration for me is certainly a skill that you can improve on the more you do, and I'd like to believe this applies to anything else.  10,000 of practice to become a master in your profession.  This quote that's overused makes a lot of sense.  I say this for people getting into the business or simply fans of these artists.  It's a backhanded compliment.  You don't have to take my word for it, you just have to take my word when I say that I've heard and read interviews of people far better than I state this.

Doesn't matter how good you are, everyone needs to work their ass off to succeed.

I'm not saying talent is irrelevant.  There are freaks out there that have incredible talent.  Tesla, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Musk are all freaks of nature when it comes to their fields.  But you can bet that they've worked their asses and engross their lives into their field.  Look at Romario or Ronaldinho for Brazil, incredible talents that could have been much better if they had a better work ethic despite being freaks of nature when it comes to football.  Now look at Cristiano Ronaldo, whose won every title for two of the biggest clubs in the world.  He doesn't drink and is the first in training and works his ass off given by many interviews of football players who have played with him.  What's my point?  That even talented people need to work their asses off. 

Missing Champions League on Tuesday/Wednesday due to work

The hard life.  There's people in Africa that don't have enough food to feed themselves every day, but it's me who suffers more.  Me.  In my previous job, I worked from home and handed in my work via email.  It was great!  Horrible segue aside, I am a football fanatic.  By football, I mean the sport that the entire world calls football other America and Canada, who decided to be "different" (or self-centered douchebags, who am I am to choose between the two descriptions). 

The struggle is real.

The greatest club competition in Europe is the Champions League, where the games are played on Tuesdays and Wednesday.  Now in Europe, those games are played roughly around 5 or 6PM, after everyone has finished their basic 8 hour shift.  In North America however, all those games start at 2:45PM.  Now the conundrum is that my new job is the typical 9-5 job, which means I can't watch Bayern Munich play.  Sometimes, in the Bundesliga (German league) they also play on Tuesdays/Wednesdays when they have two league games per week, which adds to the burden of the tough life that I have to live.  What is the point of this post you ask, what's this have to do with design, or is this maybe some small piece of information informing students who read this of the unfortunate events of having a steady 40 hour/week job?  No, no, lets not be silly.  I just feel like venting and since no one actually reads my blog, I allow myself to write any nonsense that pleases me. It's also a good stress reliever. 

Bayern Munich will be champions of this year's Champions League (will edit later if it doesn't turn out to be true & if I don't forget).

Speed Painting 25: The World Cup 2014

If you have been living under a rock that's living under another rock, you may have missed that the World Cup has started in June. It's located in Brazil this year, Russia in 4 years, and the slaves of Qatar are ensuring that stadiums are ready 8 years from now. Before I start going on a rant that the entire population of two people that will ever read about this post on the Qatar bid, let me just try and get past the ADHD to get to the point. I love football (or sawker as the only two countries on the planet like to call it) and decided to make a speed painting about it. I created a bunch of characters and added a bit of flavor to the story to attempt to make it interesting to watch.

This is just a note after you watch the video. I had Suarez sketched up 1 day before a certain incident happened. If you would like to know what my thought process was in regards to the speed painting, head to either my youtube video and read the description, or go to the videos section of my website. I wanted to try something different as I sometimes do and instead of copying and pasting the entire description on my blog, I would instead talk a bit about the project from a different angle.

Football is my passion. You take the work I do professionally (illustration, design), and you get 1/2 things I'm most passionate about. Hopefully that passion translates in a fun 5+ minute youtube videos for the two people that watch the video! I don't want my massive following to be disappointed.

Bayern Munich, Champions League winners 2013, Kings of Europe

Yes.. yes this has absolutely nothing to do with design, illustration, web development or anything in my field and went against everything I said I would talk about. How can I do this? Well it's my blog, I can do what I want.



Beautiful. Just wanted to share with everyone because I am happy. I suppose if we tie this into the world of design, is that even though you should love what you do, you should also have a passion for other things and not always focus everything on your work. Your brain needs other distractions. My other passions for example, are football and long walks on the beach.