Any Self Taught Blender Artists Whom Have Landed Careers?

Hey everyone -

First off, hello all! I’m new to this forum and I am excited to have signed up! I have been playing around in Blender for a few years now and taught myself how to design, model and animate. I’m pretty excited to have finally gathered up the courage to make an account on here to interact with other Blender 3d artists such as myself!

I wanted to know: Any self taught animators, and 3d modelers on this forum that have landed careers [freelance, with a company or started their own business/company] without going to college?

Hi there,

Surprised to see this thread go unnoticed.
After spending 4 years of my life in university making little progress, I decided to pursue my main interest.
18 months of self learning and various low paying jobs I was at a point were I was comfortable showing my work to potential employers.
My first focus was architectural visualization, but soon found out the local architecture firms were struggling with the economic crisis. There was simply no demand. out of the 50+ people contacted I got 2 responses. Both were negative.

Not until I read about emerging BIM use in infrastructure design and civil engineering I decided to broaden my search.
I started contacting large construction firms. The first company I contacted immediately invited me for an interview. I had 2 talks there and was even introduced to the BIM team, spending an afternoon following their work. Unfortunately the week after I was informed that they could not make me a job offer. Later I found out they lost a large job to a competitor, which I promptly emailed.
2 interviews later and I got a contract in the mail. no internship, no traineeship but actual full-time employment.

I’m 17 months in and I think this comes about as close to a dream-job as I ever could’ve imagined. I get to do what I love, making visualisations, while expanding into areas like civil engineering. My position is pretty much unique in this field and I get to work with the top experts on what’s one of the largest infrastructural projects in the country.

While most of my early work was done in 3dsmax due to difficulties getting CAD data into blender, several months ago I made the switch (professionally, personally I’ve made the switch many years ago). By the end of the year I’ll hopefully be able to publically present an animation made entirely with blender showing of a large-scale project with a budget close to a number with 7 zeros.

For an example of my current work you can view this (3dsmax): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=853BPJEpGnA
I’m sure the blender produced animation will be far superior though :slight_smile:

Welcome to the forums friend!

I wouldn’t worry so much about college degrees, people don’t care about promises, they want results. It’s one thing to show someone a piece of paper that promises you know how to do something, it’s another thing entirely to show someone that you have, indeed, done it.

For me it worked out fine, but still I’d never actually recommend doing it my way if you’re in the fortunate position to get a degree.

Of course. It’s pretty simple actually. You just have to work hard.

It’s certainly a matter of opinion and I’m sure circumstances play a big role as university has varying degrees of cost and usability depending on one’s country and such. Here in the states it’s becoming increasingly harder to justify the exorbitant cost of college when most graduates spend the lion’s share of their lives paying the debt off if not downright going bankrupt, an ever increasing number of student loans are being defaulted upon here in the states. Especially when you can get all of that information for free, or very cheap, if you’re willing and able to put in some of the leg work yourself.

College is unnecessary in today’s internet age, the information offered by universities is largely available for free and thus the only thing your paying for in college is the degree which businesses are becoming increasingly less reliant upon, especially in fields when someone can prove their abilities sans degree.

Moreover a self-taught ‘graduate’ is more able to work for less, not to say that they’re necessarily willing to, but without the need to pay off those massive loans a non-college graduate with the same, if not greater, skill level can afford to work for less and still live at the same, if not greater, level of luxury. Not to mention self-taught ‘graduates’ learn something not often taught in college which is self reliance, initiative and self motivation.

There’s something to be said for someone that can successfully manage themselves and from a business standpoint that something is money. Time is money for a corporation and if you’re spending less time managing your employees then your spending less money which means more money becomes available for things like research and development.

Thank you for the reply!

I went to a community college for computer animation, but I did ended up dropping out after one semester due to nasty remarks from my teachers and fellow classmates about my artwork and my overall view of the entertainment and gaming industries since I, a woman, felt women would thrive, but all my classes were overrun by men. (There were other things that went with it, but I really don’t want to go through the whole rundown since it’ll piss me off again, lol). After that I dropped animation all together and decided to perfect my art, thinking I’d never go back to animation. Animation never left my mind though and I decided to pick it back up on my own two years ago and I’m glad I did. I’m just hoping I can actually make a living off of 3d animation and 3d modeling on my own.

I think I might have been slightly closed minded when it came to what I wanted to do with modeling and animation in the past as well. There are many things to do with it, but I just wanted to do games and make a tv show. Once I started messing around in Blender, I noticed that I can make my character rigs do anything as well as model any scene I wanted (with a lot of time and practice).

I’m glad to see that you decided to pursue your main interest. That is indeed an inspiration in itself to someone like myself. I’m not sure what my main interest in the world of 3d is yet, but I’m sure I’ll find it out sooner or later.

Thank you! I’m glad to have joined this forum!

Your not the first person to have given me this advice, but it is sound advice. I’m just wondering if I can actually accomplish making a reel without having completed school…?

If it worked out for you why don’t you think it’ll work out the same (or in a similar way) for someone else?

I intend to go hard! It’s either go hard or go home, lol. :yes:

Absolutely I believe you can, whether you will or not is a different question entirely, one only you can answer.