Is it time to leave old habits behind or to at least start adopting new ones? There are many people who will not think twice on any given day about grabbing a video to watch to close out the day. Me? I opt to explore what I can learn about 3D sculpting with the help of 3D Coat this evening. This is not easy entertainment; it is not grabbing a beer with the guys and talking shop or sports; it’s getting into the thick of hurting one’s brain. I’m learning a new language of voxels, live clay, retopo, PTex, UV unwrap, vox trees, and a type of noise called Voronoi. It feels archaic to me that we would fall into routines of computer gaming, watching television, and even reading. What of hardcore learning? There’s an educational version of 3D Coat that only costs $99 or about the cost of five DVDs. With it, I can make cubes with meaningless shapes or bulbous forms as I have today, see above. I can become frustrated that there are almost 150 tutorial videos on the creators of 3D Coat’s YouTube channel, and I don’t really have a clue where to start. Or I can laugh about it and delight that I’m alive in an age where some of the most complex creative digital tools are available to me and that, beyond the cost of acquisition, the materials are effectively free as long as I pay for a constant supply of electricity.
Entertainment in front of a device showing us moving pictures has become an old passive habit our ancestors “participated” in, just as many generations ago primitive peoples sat around the fire under the night sky: though I feel there is big merit in doing just that today. We are once again transitioning, just as we did away from candlelight and books to radio and electrical lights, to TV and microwave oven-cooked dinners; we are now able to warm up to the complexity that pushes our ability to work with our minds and imaginations because we own computers and are connected to the internet. Just as we’ve adopted the ideas of balanced diets, regular exercise, and career advancement, I think it’s about time to explore those things that help us create and explore skills we may have never known we had.