You Might Not Actually Be Talented

Ouch. That’s never nice to hear, is it? I’m sure a certain little voice in your head has told you that many times though. The question is, is that voice right?

image by gomattolson

You are, judging by the target audience of this blog, ‘just’ an enthusiast. You have little or no formal training in the digital arts, and you make little or no money from it. You do it because you enjoy making things with the computer, you do it because you feel the need to create and have chosen the computer as your medium. Making art does not come without a certain amount of judgment, both from yourself, and if you’re not afraid to show off your work from others. I will talk about what art really means and all that crap in future posts, but for now let us just assume that art can be criticized, and therefore has a measure of quality to it.

The quality of your work can be influenced by multiple things, natural talent being one of them. There are some artists, both amateur and pro, out there who just seem naturally talented, this being a good recent example. They just get it. It comes easy to them. They are the lucky ones. By what is most likely just the crazy mysterious voodoo magic of genetics, they were born with one or more of the various abilities that can aid with creative work. You might be one of those. You might.

You might also not be one of those.

Does it make a difference?
Of course it makes a difference!

Remember the stuff  I mentioned up there. If you have some natural talent, certain things will just be easier for you. There. That’s it. That’s the difference. You might be lacking in other things, in which case it all averages out, or you might have an extraordinary large amount of talent and you just do not have to work as hard as the rest of us untalented plebs.

Most likely though, you won’t have that much comparative talent to be an ultimate super artist to the max.

Does a lack of talent make you useless?
Of course it doesn’t make you useless!

First off, talent isn’t the only part of the equation, because that would make for a pretty boring equation. There are plenty of very talented artists out there whose work sucks ass because they’re too arrogant to learn some technical skills. So us untalented folks can make up for it by working hard, learning techniques, increasing the other variables in the equation. There are many ways to add a little magic touch to your work to make it extra special. It might take some hard work, it might take quite some time, but it’s always worth it.

Besides that,  does it matter if you’re talented? Right now you are at a stage where you are not working for money or attention, you are creating for your own amusement, or for a your own education, or whatever. You are certainly not going to let some vague, poorly defined concept you can’t measure stand in the way of creating what you want to create, are you?

You might not be talented. So what? Just use the skills you do have to make whatever you want to make.