I think it’s pretty common that many digital artists, or digital crafts people try not to embrace the computer nerd within. More over they deny the nerd the chance to rise, they suppress the inner geek. Unless you’re big enough to love the poindexter you are then it’s likely you live in fear like the rest of us. Fear of discovering you’re not cool at all, that all these cool things you do, embrace and love are not you at all, just a facade around your true computer knarly center.
Worst of all, here and there the nerd will get a good run on something, you’ll do something that’s cleaver, that a geek would appreciate, and you like it! The perverse pleasure of knowing that you’ve done something smart, and the sheer bending of your brain to solve it has given you a feeling of reward and joy that you know to be wrong!
In an effort to avoid succumbing to the darker joys it’s only logical that you should do more things to distract the inner nerd. Like arts and crafts.
When I was working at Animal Logic we had a few positive distractions to help us forget that we all spend most of our time in front of a computer. A cold shower of sorts to help save our fragile perception of self. Two of my favorites were a sculpting class, and a weekly drawing comp. Here’s a couple of pics I have of mine from then, I’ll have to see about getting some of the other Animals to post their stuff too.
I scribbled this at work whilst waiting on the computer to do something…
Just a fat guy looking a little tired and worn with his hand on his belly, it wasn’t too bad so I had a go at colouring it...
When the sculpting classes started and we needed reference I thought I’d try make a sculpt of it.
For scale reference his head is about 2.5 cm big, or about an inch if you like to make measurements in such ways.
I was pretty happy with the result as I’d not sculpted in years and had not been very good. I thought it was ok until someone pointed out that it seemed to be an old guy reaching for his crotch, and that they found it a little disturbing. Maybe I have more to worry about than being a geek, thankfully a tissue across his waist and it looks like he is pulling up the sheet and not going for a big grab.