Intentional Navel Grazing - Sunday Funday

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Have you ever thought about boredom? Specifically, I mean being still. Have you tried it lately?
Not distracting your brain with your phone or reading a book or anything, but just … existing.
The act of sitting quietly with my own thoughts is actually harder than I thought it would be at first. For years I trained my brain to want that dopamine hit of the phone and social media and games. Of distractions.
My brain became used to never being idle. Always on, always interacting … Recent reading on the topics of focus and productivity have lead me to try something new.
Just sitting and being bored.
More clinically, intentional mind wandering. Allowing your brain to wander aimlessly and unpack and process what’s happening in your life at that moment. This sounds silly, I know, but you really have to give it a try. You’ll be amazed at how many insights you’ll have as you wait for something to finish processing on your computer, or you wait in line somewhere, or ride an elevator, or attend a boring meeting.
Giving your mind space to wander and do what it does best … take thought fragments and put them together in unique ways … pays off huge when you’re trying to solve creative issues.
The lucky thing is that we as artists have a lot of opportunity for this sort of intentional navel grazing. We have progress bars! We’re always waiting for a file to save or a normal map to process or an effect to render or a level to load … use that time to do some intentional boredom.
Cross your arms, sit back, and just let the mind be free. Even for 30 seconds. You’ll being noticing improvements in creativity and focus pretty soon.
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Hi! I'm Warren Marshall!
I'm a freelance, hard surface 3D artist living in North Carolina. I specialize in hard surface work but I can do pretty much anything from environments to props.
I worked at Epic Games for over 15 years and started freelancing after that. Since then I've done prop and environment work for some fun projects, including We Happy Few from Compulsion Games and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. I've also done a bunch of asset packs for the various marketplaces.
I have experience with Unreal Engine 4 and Unity and know how to put assets together quickly that look good in those engines.
Here's a link to my Art Station page where you can see a bunch of my latest work:
www.artstation...
Visit my main web site here :
www.warrenmarsh...
You can email me directly if you'd like :
[e-mail]
Questions, business inquiries, support - or just to say hi!
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Motion Graphics : Skye Nelson, aka "SkyeShark" ( skyeshark.artst... )

[@plumfun6750]

LOL! "Being Board" is almost impossible for anyone who grew up with a phone in their hand. Long story short: I worked as Night Audit for a major hotel for 10 years. I had to train several people over the years (as NA and also with regards to Security). On the second night, maybe third, I'd test them. "Go to the lobby. Sit down. Don't do ANYTHING for 10 minutes. No reading, no phone, no talking to me, just sit there" (this would be at, like 4am or so when nobody is around). The LONGEST anyone ever made it was about 3 minutes. I shit you not. *THREE* minutes! O_O After that, they got fidgety, or had to talk, or had to stand up, or look at SOMETHING...anything to occupy their brain. It was...sad, honestly. :( So let that be a lesson for everyone; if there is ever a world-wide electricity blow-out (say, uber-sun flare that fries all electronics on earth), or a zombie apocalypse or something...you have about 5 minutes before everyone under the age of about 40 starts to loose it. Just FYI. :)

[@WarrenMarshallBiz]

Well, it's a skill that needs practice to get good at. Like any other skill, really. Young people that are born with phones in their hands haven't ever had the opportunity to develop the skill of "just sitting there", so they will naturally be bad at it. It takes time. Be patient with them. :)

[@icedriver2207]

Its only getting worse with the current generation. Cell phones and things like youtube have pushed the average time frame people seem to be able to concentrate to near zero.

[@vit9233]

Talking about phones.. I went to a cinema recently with my girlfriend. At one moment i looked around and noticed that some of the people had their phones pulled out and were texting, watching stuff on facebook etc. What the heck. They go to a movie, pay for it.. Im afraid todays society is ill.

[@andrecruz7396]

Well, I will give it a shot and try that this days...

[@WarrenMarshallBiz]

Definitely try it out! I did it a few times this morning already and I had some great ideas pop into my head. It really works!

[@NinbAdam]

god damn, never knew that edge slice had the option to do multi slice.......thanks heaps xD

[@WarrenMarshallBiz]

Yeah, they added that a few versions back. It's a god send.

[@Ngomes007]

Hey. Thank you for this.. I should do what you said. I already knew it, but I don't practice what I know about the mind..... Do you Tutor on Modo

[@WarrenMarshallBiz]

Thanks! It really is all about repetition and just "doing it". And I don't really tutor, no. I do these videos which I hope help people out and I also run a Discord server. If you have MODO questions, feel free to use the link in the description and join in ... everyone is friendly, I promise. :)

[@ackmaster8050]

Dope new intro.

[@WarrenMarshallBiz]

Thanks! It classes up the place ...