loss of inspiration

Hi guys.

I find myself in a strange situation and i wonder if more people have it.
The point is the last two years every week i spend about 8 to 16 hours learning blender.
But now that the goals i master, have been reached i find myself out of imagination, what i had when i started.
With great pleasure i use Blender at work, to create some new product designs etc.
But at home … i kinda lost it… does that sound familiar ?.

Inspiration loss happens to me with drawing, painting, sculpting, photography, … why i wonder.
Often at the moment I’m getting good at something, i loose a bit of the joy in it.

But more important how to get back your inspiration what do you people do ?

Maybe have a walk around a park? Nature always inspired me. I really like how light reflect on water and wet leaves.

Maybe put it away for a few days? Don’t even check the BA or anything that has to do with 3D industry.
Read some books or play some chess in the meantime…

Then, the withdrawal syndrome starts to kick in and voila!, inspiration…

Open blender. Enable 4 wheel drive.

I’ve always agreed with the swimming pool analogy. You can stand by the side of the pool, putting it off and off, or just jump back in and swim without thinking too hard about it for hours. You have done it before.

Ahh, I hear that. Often it’s far too easy to buckle after experiencing some possibilities. Even if you 100% understood it. Things like sculpting/dynamic topo/procedural math nodes. They can can be so huge it can scare you off with all the directions it can take you. A week passes and you notice nothing has gotten down since you got your feet wet. Important to just keep pressing forward. Sometimes evaluation will not help your motivation. Keep working. Keep itunes on PLAY.

Its actually not like that I master, scuplting nodes, rigging modelling, etc, (and i still model at work for product design).
So its not that i feel i cannt do something, but i have no interests into gaming. Python has some interest, but not for home (i program at work). The problem realy is as I said, i master something to a realy nice level, teached others here over the internet too…
untill then somehow inspiration breaks down on me.
Just to get the idea another example, currently my painting works are in an exhebition, but i didnt paint since then…
I painted a lot (hard work) to do that exhebition goal reached, inspiration gone…
Its not my first exhebition either, i have these swings often, and i dont know why, i rather have it resolved and keep making art.
(be it painting / filming /animation / 3d stuff / …etc… )

Perhaps what you really enjoyed was the learning process. You know when you first start out there’s something new around every corner, but now that you’ve mastered it there are no more surprises. It’s like watching the same movie over and over again. You know all the actors, you know all the lines, you know the beginning and you know the end, the excitement is gone.

When you’re learning there’s that sense of bewilderment and wonder, rendering the same scene over and over again changing a few settings between renders, what’s this going to do, how’s this going to turn out? Now those questions are all answered and there’s no more suspense, no more waiting with bated breath like a kid on Christmas Eve.

The gifts are all unwrapped and you’ve played with the toys a thousand times.

P.S. So how do you get the excitement back? **I suppose you could bop yourself in the head and hope to get amnesia. :smiley:

**That was a joke, please don’t start beating yourself silly.

Find a project to help, I find my creativity returns instantly when I am helping others, after they describe what they want.

You started off with a chip on your shoulder and something to prove,

now however after proving it it’s hard to muster the gusto.

So, either start a new project your passionate about, that is different and hard, or help some one else achieve their own dreams, using skills they have mixed with yours that they don’t.

I love teaching.

I can understand with the inspiration loss at times, sometimes I don’t feel motivated to do well, anything except eat and sleep.

Sometimes exercise can help clear your mind (especially if you’re stuck on something), making sure that you are well rested in the morning is also an important factor (not much of a chance to get things done right if your mind is foggy from fatigue).

In addition, these type of things have a tendency to happen more often near the Winter solstice because of the significant reduction in sunlight and the indoor stuffiness from it being too cold to open some windows. You might want to look into getting a scent maker.

You sound a bit like me…only blender is my new project :slight_smile:

I think atr1337 is right, you’re enjoying the learning experience. Nothing wrong with that at all, so if you can’t find a blender project that excites you, maybe it’s just time to learn some new.

If that idea makes you feel like you have wasted your time with blender, then learn something new that is closely related. Maybe learn produce some music to go with an animation. Or learn to create materials from photos. Or develop a python addon (although you don’t sound too keen on python). I’m sure you will think of something that inspires you.

When low on inspiration, take on a small project - even if it is less complex than what you expect of yourself.

For example; model a dagger, sunglasses, a heirloom or personal device. Once you have that basic object, you may feel like placing it in an environment such as a study desk, a museum stand or even a comfortable bedroom. Add as much as you want, or just leave it at the item itself.

Some projects have a clear vision from the beginning, whilst others need time to grow.

Guess it kinda sucks … :wink: … “when a job becomes a job.”

Curiously, this moment-in-time usually comes along, approximately when you delude yourself into thinking that you have “mastered” anything. :yes:

The truth of the matter is that there is always another hill to climb … and, if you no-longer see any hils, it merely means that you have stopped running. (Which basically means that there is now only one end of ‘The Big Dogs™’ that you are able to see . . . and it is n-o-t ‘the end with the mouth.’ ) :eek:

Perhaps … (quite likely) … you have driven yourself briefly “too hard.” Go ahead, then, and take a little break. But don’t delude yourself that you have even barely begun to tap-out the mother lode of “all that computer-graphics has to offer.”

You can take break from it. If you do the most enjoyable thing in the world 24/7 it’ll get boring. That’s what happened with my plane that I’m modeling–2 to 3 months ago it got really boring, now I’m back at it and I’m enjoying myself. Take a break and do something else. Inspiration will naturally come to you in time.

Hmm, you guys set me thinking.
Helping others can be rewarding (its not always so, but most of the times it is).
A break is nice, but since i also use it for work, then i would need a vacation :))

The learning experience, … hm that might come close to it, but its … a bit more then that i think.
I dont know why i can be driven to create real good paintings /drawings / stone sculptures… and suddenly stop it for month’s.
I’m the kind of Artist that always want to improve (upon myself); i think putting higher rules to myself each time makes the work harder. So then there is a balance enjoy the practice vs following my rules; at some point the enjoyment stalls a bit.

  • Then for quite a while i have not much inspiration -
    And then suddenly i got triggered, by inspiration by the beaty of a tought and willing to express it.
    I might start drawing next month or even dive into electronics, or another coding language.

I got ups and downs with that in the ups i am creative in the downs i dont care much about it.
I know other painting artist who always seam to be bussy on another painting.
Well its just that i like these high-rides of creativity … i wish could stay on these higher waves longer then everything seams possible.
A bit hard to explain, and i’m wondering what helps.

From friend i got a tip to visit a Musea, I know that inspires me a bit, but I need more this time.
A walk lightens the mind too, and i do like walking and nature (i often walk), and it can be inspiring depending on what i see
I’ve painted a lot of my area, so seeing new things, surprices are ‘harder’ to catch.

Perhaps i should figure out what causes the creative downs, for one thing i know its work stress (acts as water on my fire).
Deadlines seam also to have negative effects (but mostly when painting, because a painting can take lots of time to make).
Then i will go for the deadline but when finished i put away my pencils…deadlines can be draining.
With blender my deadlines are kinda fixed by CPU power/GPU, that feels different…

Maybe coolfield7 is onto something to, i tend to work for long times on something, perhaps i should more often switch my creative branches.

The way is the goal

What you said sounds to me like your motivation is to discover and master a skill rather then to continue creating new work with your existing skills.

As mentioned above it looks like hobby turns into job (The motivation comes from outside rather than inside yourself).

I would not worry to much about that. You are not static. You are developing further. This also includes that you loose interest on certain thinks you where passionate before. Maybe it is time to do something completely different.

My experience
In the past I was drawing comics for quite a long time. The first step was to get the skills to draw them. Over time the “failed work” were much less than the “good work”.
With the drawing skills I was able to develop expressing skills. I was able to focus on the story (more specific joke on a situation) rather than learning about how to draw. It was a exciting time. Sometimes I produced 4-5 comics a day, sometimes I didn’t drawn anything within months.

It was an hobby not a job (and I’m happy it never turned into a job). Interestingly it helped my on my job even it had no real relationship on it. Nevertheless after some years I created less and less comics. Often I created work that I did long time ago (I just forgot). Now I’m rarely draw a comic, but I still have the skills. I just lost interest. I could regret it, or force myself to continue.

The truth is, my interests simply changed. I do not need a doctor /uploads/default/original/4X/d/1/5/d156c66343a40b0ea6ba8cd0c7cba017e2c68f8e.pngd=1417672796 - there is nothing wrong with it. That is live (my live ;)).

create!:ba: ( raps desk with ruler )

try see if there are any contests you can join. They will push you and then it´s fun again :slight_smile:
recommendation: Blenderguru.com has monthly competitions and some other websites have really good comps too. You can also join a competition where people can use other programs than blender, and that should be even more fun.

I have had these periods myself but when I join a contest I really get into the mood again.

I too go through alternating periods in which for some time I’m highly motivated and easily inspired and then dip into periods of time where I’m not at all motivated and can’t seem to find inspiration anywhere.

You know Ace Dragon had a point about winter, there is a phenomenon known as seasonal depression that many people encounter during the winter months. However that’s not what I’m getting at here. So much about life is cyclical, the changing of the seasons, life, death and rebirth of vegetation, circadian rhythms, menstrual cycles, etcetera. I really don’t see why inspiration or artistic expression should be any different.

What’s interesting here, I was reading about climate the other day and noticed that the earth goes through alternating cycles of warm and cold on various scales. On a macro scale the earth has alternating periods of warm and cold, the cold periods are called ice ages and last millions of years. The ice ages themselves are divided into shorter alternating periods of relative warm and cold, each period lasting tens of thousands of years. Those periods themselves are divided into alternating periods of relative warm and cold that last, usually, a few hundred years. Each of those periods are divided into alternating periods of warm and cold called summer and winter which last about three months.

What I mean is perhaps we’re similar, so on a micro scale our mind goes through alternating periods of awake and asleep, but perhaps there’s a macro scale too. So for a few hours we sleep and a few hours we’re awake, but perhaps on a larger scale there’s an alternating cycle of high brain activity and low brain activity each period lasting a few months or so.

If so I would imagine what you’re going through is completely natural and instead of trying to force your way out of it try to enjoy some down time and just like we know the summer will indeed arrive so too will your inspiration and motivation re-ignite at some point in the not too distant future.

I usually look at pictures or something for inspiration. Here’s three to get you started!

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So an idea is when neural synapses collide.

I think the real matter at hand is having immense resources.
Since we’re living in the information era we’ve got some options

In essence it’s a good idea to just take a few hours and look around without any aim or pressure to do something.
Last I spent 3 days looking at mechanical rigs and the way mass production simulations work.

Try learning new software related to 3d.
Meshmixer, Sketchup, Topmod, Wings is free. Trace a video with new grease pencil tools.
If you paint then try stealing somebodies style.

Have fun with add-ons’ like molecularScript, rigid body bullet constraints and BounceFiber
download loads of models off of Blendswap.com and just sift through the files.
The Blender mIRC channel has lots of conversation most days.

Go to your ‘Graveyard’ of old files. Chances are there’s stuff there of interest.
Perhaps you’ve only run out of approaches.