I have had to come to the very difficult decision to leave the world of 3D on a professional level a month back.
The short version is this is for health reasons and the choice has been somewhat taken out of my hands. No pun intended! I have irreversible nerve damage in my right hand.
So, while I will continue to teach and be able to do ‘some’ 3D stuff, I won't be able to continue doing the vast majority of what makes me money.
Here is a playlist of the YouTube series I am doing as a result called 'Life After 3D', where I try to both cover the things behind it all as well as ways you can protect yourself from ending up in a similar rsituation...and also covering things like how to create a passive income to protect you should the worst happen.
Now for some background.
I will let you in on a secret only a very small number of people have known about and have kept for me for a long time.
About 15-17 years ago I came down with a bad case of carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands. It got so bad that the only route left open to me was to have an operation on both hands. But as my father had the exact same operation on both of his hands and they were never quite the same again (and for an artist and musician the ability to control your hands to a fine level is essential), so I didn’t have the operation. Added to this my son had just been born and I didn’t think I could justify not being able to help out much post operation.
So (and my ex Kat can attest to this), I found work arounds. You name it, I tried it as a work around. From alternating between working on site at jobs that were pretty intensive on my hands with ones that were less so (thus explaining the weird trajectory of my 27 year career!)
So, even by the time anyone had heard of me as a 3D artist my hands were already pretty screwed, but I plugged away and found ways to lessen the effects in the short and medium term.
However, what happens if you do not have treatment or the operation and have carpal tunnel syndrome, is that you end up with irreversible nerve damage, which is what I now have in my right hand. It cannot be solved or rewound back…only potentially stabilised. But the kicker is with covid-19 meaning a lot of appointments for operations etc have been delayed in some cases for years or simply not existing… The chances of even that (even if I chose to go ahead with it) are pretty slim.
About a year or two back I noticed my hand was getting worse and through resting it when not working managed to keep going, however, last summer I noticed things had started to get far worse. So I cannot in all good conscience work as a paid 3D artist on most jobs. My hands will now only continue to get worse and I have to preserve what use I have left in my right hand as much as I can.
As being a 3D artist is such a massive part of my life and who I perceive myself to be, it's pretty gut wrenching to be honest. I will still be able to teach and do bits and pieces in my spare time, but working these days for any more than about 2-3 hours with my hands ends up causing me epic amounts of pain, so even that will be thin on the ground.
So what do I do now to make ends meet? The only two things I have ever been good at are 3D art and music. Being a musician as many know is basically having a giant money pit that you throw money into…. It's not a way to become rich. So although I have a few potential ideas, none would solve the problem of no income in the short term.
I find it ironic as from a purely knowledge and experience level my mind is still as sharp as a razor and I have 27 years of amazingly varied experience, just I now have very few ways left in which to use that.
My career has seen me go from a no one in the arse end of north east rural England to working at top firms in TV, Films and computer games and doing some rather important jobs. I’ve worked on all sorts of projects (only about 25% of them I was ever allowed to mention as is usually the way).
I have met some amazing people and many of whom I still count as very good friends. I will try to stay in touch with everyone, and hopefully not being able to do 3D professionally will not drive me to the same point that having to stop being an escape artist (also due to medical reasons) did when I was 19 year old. In that case I was unable to keep watching people do what I loved while being unable to do it myself.
I take great joy in the many people I have advised and trained over the years who are doing amazingly well in their own careers. I will continue to watch your careers flourish with great interests.
In my career I have made a lot of companies and people very rich, while somehow managing to keep myself just slightly above the breadline.
To all those who have helped me in my 27 years working I thank each and every one of you, you often helped far more than you knew at the time.
As 3D art is so much a part of my life, it's a part of me that it's going to be hard to start to walk away into the crowd of 'normal people'.
I like to.think that I made a difference though, and that many that now do 3D learned a thing or two from me, and that a few people driving their rolls and Bentleys maybe owe me a pint at some point.
So, I hope I have made enough of a contribution in my life as a 3D artist, that my work or things that I worked on brought you some joy. If that's the case, then that makes all of this worth it.
Now, you see... the thing is this means I now have no income, very little savings and will probably end my days old and broke ( after helping many people to make millions over my career.) But I knew the game before I started playing it. So I don't need sympathy.
So while I can work on stuff at my own pace, that is NOT the reality of working as a freelance guy in 3D.These days ( as I had to drop out of working away), I get the hard jobs, the ones others cannot or will not do.to be honest this makes things harder, coz if it was easy they would do it in house.
As the only thing I am really good at is 3D, its so much a part of my life, a part of me that it's going to be hard to start to walk away into the crowd of 'normal people'.
I like to.think that I made a difference though, and that many that now do 3D learned a thing or two from me, and that a few people driving their rolls and Bentleys maybe owe me a pint at some point.
But remember, I'll be keeping my eye on you all...so don't fuck things up! ;) I will continue this blog, as I still teach as a vistiing lecturer once a week and may well be able from time to time to also do some 3D on smaller personal things. But you will also see a lot more of the music side and some other parts of my life and interests.
