Titans vs Mortals...

[nigelninja11]

I have disgraphia,* meanings have trouble with fine motor skills. I find it ironic that I enjoy Mega so much, considering it tires out and sometimes physically hurts my hands. Painting, art, and cutting will unfortunately not be my strong suit anytime soon.

Greg, I hear you. If you read my apology above I explained myself.



*I think that’s how it is spelled.

I had no clue, hows you daily life?

Pretty much like everyone else, except my handwriting has piqued at barely legible. I also have to take 10 minute breaks after about an hour on the computer, or writing.

But this topic is only 1/8 about me. Let’s get back on topic lol.

[YrkanesAbattoir]

The key to doing anything well is practice. I've been doing customs, mods and painting for a long time now. I am still learning new skills and changing the way I do things; it has to be a constant process of learning and improving or what's the point? I've watched a bunch of people here and on other sites from their first build or custom and everyone has improved in some way. I check this place everyday to see whats new and see the levels of creativity, from the veteran to the first-time poster. I post stuff because I really love doing customs, getting critiques(a customiser absolutely will not improve without them) and seeing others enjoy them as much as I do or even hate them. You guys keep me on my toes and compel me to improve so it's all good to me. SOOO.... to get to a point, have FUN doing what you do, take risks, enjoy the challenge, and don't be afraid to make mistakes. Keep on building!

[basicusername]

But this topic is only 1/8 about me. Let’s get back on topic lol.

sorry, lol

[Armageist]

The reason I said that is I constantly feel one upped by people who have better picture taking ability/building skill.
It was honestly a moment of weakness and heaps of self pity.

I know I don’t have the reasonable selection of bricks, and patience is iffy. I also feel like my time is limited when it really isn’t. I get that I can get better, but in this instance I think I was just aggravated. Typically contest losses don’t bother me, but this one did. Even I don’t understand.

It did help that Schlub said I was second.

I guess this contest loss didn’t bother me as bad as the time I entered a mech building contest, got a staff pick on my entry, and I didn’t even get honorable mentions. That drove me nuts XD

I don't blame you one bit.

One of the pitfalls of any hobby is the desire to show the world how creative or "good" you are and hope to be validated, only to have someone be "from a civilization millions of years ahead if you" showing you how it's done.

It's definitely discouraging when you see things not only being done that you "suddenly had an epiphany to do", but done in a way you could only dream of or never even thought of.

And I've never been a fan of learning how other people do things, because it feels like copying homework. You're not learning your own way, you're just duplicating a process that someone somewhere came up with on their very own who's definitely a better person than I'll ever be, lol. But on the hand, I have to start somewhere, so even getting a glimpse of what people do is helpful.

You're seeing some of these people at the top of their game without seeing how much time and energy went in to getting there. And some people are just astoundingly talented without years of work.

The thing is, there's always going to be someone out there better. So you can either just slink back and give up (which I've honestly asked myself; what's the point? It's already been done and better than I could even begin to do), or you can do what you always have done to have fun and express yourself through your creativity and get better in the process.

[nigelninja11]

Thanks Armageist, and you’re right.

[VinceHoffman]

And I've never been a fan of learning how other people do things, because it feels like copying homework. You're not learning your own way, you're just duplicating a process that someone somewhere came up with on their very own who's definitely a better person than I'll ever be, lol. But on the hand, I have to start somewhere, so even getting a glimpse of what people do is helpful.

If you had claimed that building a new set from the step-by-step instructions is like copying homework, particularly if done rapidly and without much thought or appreciation of the set designer's efforts, I would agree @Armageist. But I disagree with the sentiment that attempting to clone another builder's work is analogous to copying homework. In my experience it is an entirely different thing.

The quickest way for most people to learn a new skill is to have someone whom has already mastered the skill demonstrate it to you. Then you attempt to mimic their work until you understand it well enough to replicate the task on your own. When you've truly mastered the task you'll see other ways and situations you can apply it. Attempting to clone a master builder's work from pictures is hard work for anything but the simplest micro-builds! Even with lots of pics from different angles and some written descriptive hints I've spent hours, even days figuring out other folks' complex builds. But in doing so, something interesting always occurs. As I begin to fully appreciate and understand how the builder who's work I'm going to school upon solved a particularly tricky bit of modeling, I see other ways to go about it.

GoodwillHunter's amazing assortment of Halo themed builds were hugely influential in my early progress as a builder. He always took great pics from multiple angles and was willing to advise and even mentor other builders. As a result several of my earliest customs were pretty derivative. But while I was inspired to model the same vehicle and made copious use of GWH's pics and some of the techniques found in his work, my models always turned out significantly different. And not in a bad way- LOL! Google GoodwillHunter's Cougar, Dragonfly, Fox Cannon, Scorpion, and Spirit customs and compare them to mine in the Gallery and you'll plainly see the differences. I see things through different filters than Rich. We have different priorities and styles as builders. So today as peers and experienced builders our "bag of tricks" may be similar, our models of the same thing will be different.

My advice: Clone the heck out of the customs and MOCs you admire. In doing so you will improve your observation skills, practice your craft, and acquire your own the "bag of tricks".

[81Ceta_Deta]

Here's the real question:

Who are the immortals?

[nigelninja11]

Here's the real question:

Who are the immortals?

Kevin and Yan

[Armageist]

And I've never been a fan of learning how other people do things, because it feels like copying homework. You're not learning your own way, you're just duplicating a process that someone somewhere came up with on their very own who's definitely a better person than I'll ever be, lol. But on the hand, I have to start somewhere, so even getting a glimpse of what people do is helpful.

If you had claimed that building a new set from the step-by-step instructions is like copying homework, particularly if done rapidly and without much thought or appreciation of the set designer's efforts, I would agree @Armageist. But I disagree with the sentiment that attempting to clone another builder's work is analogous to copying homework. In my experience it is an entirely different thing.

The quickest way for most people to learn a new skill is to have someone whom has already mastered the skill demonstrate it to you. Then you attempt to mimic their work until you understand it well enough to replicate the task on your own. When you've truly mastered the task you'll see other ways and situations you can apply it. Attempting to clone a master builder's work from pictures is hard work for anything but the simplest micro-builds! Even with lots of pics from different angles and some written descriptive hints I've spent hours, even days figuring out other folks' complex builds. But in doing so, something interesting always occurs. As I begin to fully appreciate and understand how the builder who's work I'm going to school upon solved a particularly tricky bit of modeling, I see other ways to go about it.

GoodwillHunter's amazing assortment of Halo themed builds were hugely influential in my early progress as a builder. He always took great pics from multiple angles and was willing to advise and even mentor other builders. As a result several of my earliest customs were pretty derivative. But while I was inspired to model the same vehicle and made copious use of GWH's pics and some of the techniques found in his work, my models always turned out significantly different. And not in a bad way- LOL! Google GoodwillHunter's Cougar, Dragonfly, Fox Cannon, Scorpion, and Spirit customs and compare them to mine in the Gallery and you'll plainly see the differences. I see things through different filters than Rich. We have different priorities and styles as builders. So today as peers and experienced builders our "bag of tricks" may be similar, our models of the same thing will be different.

My advice: Clone the heck out of the customs and MOCs you admire. In doing so you will improve your observation skills, practice your craft, and acquire your own the "bag of tricks".

All very good points, which is kinda why I said I "felt" that way to imply it's not necessarily justifiable =)

And man, both of those Spirits are super sexy. =O

[VinceHoffman]

Here's the real question:

Who are the immortals?

Kevin and Yan

I don't know about that. @GoodwillHunter and I have outlasted at least three Mega Bloks/Mega Construx community managers! And each time the employee in that role left the company. Kinda sounds like historically the company role which Kevin and Yan occupy would make them the opposite of mortal- LOL!