The Staggering Cost of DIY (Doing It Yourself)
Reading Time: 10 Mins.
Hi, beautiful people! 👋
Yesterday, I received a random comment from an extremely devoted fan of mine on my Youtube page. (Technically, the only social media account I possess that is pretty much used for personal and learning application.) But I have some old art process videos on there and they decided to take time out of their busy day to comment something meaningful that sparked a topical piece I wanted to share with everyone. And I have a little something new to share near the end of it related to a long standing project I’ve been working on.
First order of business:
How To Waste Potential… On Yourself
Exhibit A: Am I wasting potential on them? Or am I keeping my potential to myself? Am I even sad? Or are they sad? Intredasting…🧐
It appears I’m finally seeing the delayed side-effects of me taking my “potential” away from the less-than-kind aspect of the internet who feel some pressing need to trick serious, genuine creatives into making free entertainment for them 24/7 while paying corporations easily, judging from this haphazard reaction. Like, there’s no need to crash out on a 10+ year old art process video, my guy… I get it, you miss me. But I digress.
As I’ve talked about in my past blog articles, such as Protecting Yourself As An Independent Artist and Letting Your Art Market Itself, majority of one’s audience will never directly tell them how much they love and want (possibly even fap to) their work. But it comes out in small little actions like the above example in Ex. A. I felt the use of the term "potential" was a unique choice of words here.
What even is potential? I mean— by definition it simply means, and I quote from the New Oxford American Dictionary, “having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.” (Source? Trust me, bro.) So, with that said, if random people I never knew existed randomly pops up on an outdated Youtube video projecting, it evidentially proves that I already “have or showed capacity to become or develop into something in the future”.
But really, I since accomplished everything I sat out to do in those lame-ass art fields. There’s nothing left for me there. So, who am I wasting any further potential energy on now? It’s quite the philosophical question to outsiders since they’re typically clueless, ignorant, and have no idea what I’m working on or doing anymore, but to me, it’s always clear as day:
I’m wasting all my further potential on ME.
When your worth has been disrespected and shat on by hundreds of thousands of people in a 20-year time span, both fans, people you’ve done business with, and the like, there’s no reason to waste “potential” on them anymore. It’s like self-love after a relationship breakup: your narcissistic exes took you for granted, so you “heal” by giving all that love you gave to them to yourself, then all of a sudden, they wanna come back around or snoop at whoever new you’re loving on and licking up. 👅
But… High POTENTIAL is *VERY* Costly
With all that defining out of the way, from a creative business perspective, anyone worth their own salt knows talent and skill when they see it. My personal toxic trait is: I’m an incredibly self-aware individual. I know I’m hot af. I know this just as much as someone (who doesn’t have my skillset but wants to make tons of money off of me) looks thru my portfolio and expanse of work whilst drool dribbles down their crusty graphic tee.
As it stands, my skillset is pretty expansive now. First, I learned how to write early on in my teens. Then I pursued drawing and focused on illustrating quite literally anything I ever can see in my mind to a page (without reference, not sorry about it); received excessive validation for that, obviously. Got distracted with making music and animating for several years. Fast forward to today, I can code in pretty much any language with a syntax read-up, I can use multiple engines like Unity and Unreal, I can game design learning from multiple past attempts like the infamous initial Cryamore project, I can model, sculpt, rig and animate assets, make and tweak shaders, etcetera. Without going to college and with dropping out senior year in high school. And it takes TIME to learn all this stuff, but everyone is always thinking I’m twiddling my thumbs around like they’re on game consoles every waking moment— WHICH is why I’ve been going where the real money at. My possibilities are pretty endless at this point.
Everyone knows those kinds of skillsets are multi-million dollar skills. People strive to get in the game industry to get paid over 6 figures for doing just ONE of the skills listed. Check out this video for a detailed overview of the cost of being a respected industry artist. In layman’s terms, building just one character asset takes time, and you gotta pay people for their time. And the going rate for that is upwards of $8,000 per character. (Source? I even had an ex who works in the industry. Trust me, bro.)
But for some reason, when it comes to me, even after everything I’ve done for popular publishers, niche celebrities, megalithic companies, and overall audience in my more... giving days, majority believe I’m wasting all that knowledge, experience, and potential. It’s quite baffling, to say the least. I mean, I know the average person doesn't want to pay me for the talent that lives rent-free in their head, but it's just not realistic and pragmatic to me to believe I'm “wasting potential” that is pretty socially and economically well-defined as pricey.
But hey, agree to disagree.
Cryamore 2.0
Exhibit B: Yes, I can do 3D too. Confidently.
I don’t need to go in the specifics of the issues I’ve dealt with regarding Cryamore and the past Kickstarter and Atlus West, yadda. Been there, done that. However, I do have a need to tell everyone why I’m moving this way and to show that I am, in fact, wasting potential properly.
Doing It Yourself™ is so much better. I don’t have to constantly push people to work as brilliantly hard and efficiently as I do, nor feel like total shit after doing so to no avail. Nothing sucks more when you’re always the main one working the most, wearing all sorts of hats, while others have only one job and can barely stick to that consistently or complain. Like the “Little Red Hen” fable with the animals who didn’t want to help cook but wanted to eat the food. So, in proper "Robaato" fashion, I had to learn specific skills so I can just, DIY, man... Heck, I don't even need to pay myself money to do it. I simply pay time and attention.
Cryamore 2.0 is officially in full production.
And, yes, I’m doing it all solo now. From the character models and animations, to environment assets, level design, programming— I’ve coded the entire #!@&$@% new foundation from scratch and I’m already at it. The game’s full soundtrack by Aivi has already been completed and I’m jamming out to it while building. I have a canceled 1.0 prototype version I intentionally never shared (but mentioned in detail) to use as a personal reminder to know it’s achievable. And I’m vowing to make it my greatest attempt yet. I know I stated in my previous writeup that I’ll show some Syrup teasers, and I still am soon, but I just had to get this piece out for the masses to chew on, get excited over, and get upset at. My main focus is that game, and the art merch like the Mixbook to keep the roof afloat.
Sacrifices sometimes have to be made to achieve things we want to manifest in the world. For me, to get this game out and stick to the promise I sat out to do over ten years ago, I had to stop sharing art constantly online for sad people who clearly see my potential but don’t want to actually help, nahmean. Had to leave mediocre and unmotivated peers behind, nahmean. Had to get a little shit flung at me, nahmean. Had to stop pulling in only art money and flying chicks out to hang and F’ with to get a much bigger bag, nahmean. Had to stop playing games all the time and make them, nahmean. Had to— Wow, it’s almost like, they’re the ones with wasted potential from my perspective… nahmean?
Anyway. I know by following through on this alone, my name will be cleared and all that negative hearsay and ruckus said about me online will finally expose it all for what it always truly was.
Exhibit C: The Esmy in-game model took me only 5 days to make, and that’s with slacking off studying new concepts and drawing stickers. I’ve been improving and doing 3D for a very long time, I just never wasted the potential of showing that to any of y’all, lol.
Wanted to thank the consistent folks buying my merch over on Teknakolor and dropping well-received rave reviews. You’re helping me out so much, you have no idea!
I’ve never been more excited to see my own creations coming out so well. Without relying on directing others to stick to art styles and cleaning up the mistakes myself. I’ll be regularly sharing updates to the development process right here on my site only, so there should be no reason to claim I’m keeping folks in the dark anymore. And it’s all falling in line with my end goal: to build all my own creative concepts as my own interactive media empire to live off of. Already did it with my art, and I’m very confident and certain I can do it again with anything else I dream up.
All it takes is one failure and one success for me. Trust that.
Siri, play Pricey by J.Cole.
Adios! 🎮
