The real deal

Warning: This post is way too long.

It is being written as a load off my shoulders, not as an apology to someone. I feel I have been overconfident and underproductive with my time over the last few years.

From about six or seven years I have felt my free time was something I could and should use in order to develop work or skills that would help me later on. That would give me an advantage over people who didn't do the same, at least.
Those areas I covered depended on the areas of interest I had at the time, like Flash, Photoshop, comic-book scripting and drawing and in about three years ago it switched to several aspects of videogame creation.

As I started getting into several online forums I started to get invited to several projects. A while ago I had several at the same time, juggling with the personal projects I still had. Most projects weren't finished mostly because the person who was directing them called it off, because someone wasn't working enough or taking it seriously. I felt that person wasn't me and I still believe it wasn't.

A while ago I quit my course to get better in creating graphic assets for videogames in order to start working in the videogame industry. I started using my free time to get acquainted to Maya again. to learn new things as a warm-up exercise. It worked.

During the course I had some projects I was helping and other spontaneous helps that worked well but two of those projects were a bit left behind. They were finished but I felt they could have gone a whole lot better.

I was invited to work in something I was proud to be working as I was studying. I would do things in my place and send them over the web. I knew the Games course would start relatively soon and I would have to juggle both things but I was so glad was invited to do that I said yes, while thinking "This is a bit suicidal but it will be an awesome thing if it goes well".

A bit later I came back to Portugal and I thought I would have a lot of time to work in it. So much that I could focus a bit more on the upcoming course when it started, actually. I immediately started to get invitations to go here and there, see everyone again and that's where this came from.

I tried to do both things and after a while I was disappointing the other people in the team because I wasn't delivering my work on time or with enough quality. That was shown to me and I was asked if I thought it made sense to continue having a part in that. I agreed it doesn't, especially because the course is coming very soon.

Why didn't I do everything I was supposed to? Honestly. I slept too much and when I worked on it I would stay up for too long, creating a loop and I accepted too many invites of friends, cutting my time short. I started creating a new lowpoly model to gain a bit more experience with 3D and spent some time reading and researching about game engines and graphic technology. I didn't take it seriously enough.

I disappointed friends and workmates and probably they won't trust me with a similar thing again. I was helping them in a videogame. It would have my name on it when it got published. I spent time reading about making games and training for it instead of actually doing that in the real deal, the game. It's so clear now and it's so embarassing.

They were too kind to explain all that to me and I feel like I have learned a valuable lesson, though it cost me trust and future oportunities. I feel ashamed of myself. From now on I feel I will rethink my priorities in order to achieve what I want for myself.

Thank you for reading this. It was too long, wasn't it?