Hasta La Motion!

I’m new to the boards, so apologies for the big post, but I’ve been trying to gather professional advice on certain career choices. I’m 24, and I’ve been doing a lot of research lately, trying to assess what I want to do.

I’ve always been drawn to 3D in both art and programming, but I’m not sure what the ‘artistic’ pre-requisites are, and I have a mix of other skills, so I’m wondering what my best path would be for movie/game industry.

To make it simple, this is what experience I do have (apologies if it looks like a CV, I’m just trying to illustrate a skillset):

– Writing: strongest skill, have published numerous novelettes online and negotiating a book contract
– Programming: day-time job & degree (C# UI development), also strong. Did graphics in OpenGL
– Maya: fair. Did my uni project with it, focusing on MEL. Have been doing tutorials…etc mainly in animation and a little rendering
– Visual arts: weak. I have basic drawing (self-taught landscape drawing but no human anatomy), very basic Photoshop

Now, I have a 9 hour programming day, which leaves me with about seven hours of real free time. Four of those already go into writing, which leaves me with three hours a day of self-learning. I’m very interested in either animation or visual effects, and considering compositing. My thoughts:

– Animation: weak drawing skills: how much will this hurt me? I keep hearing it’s fundamental for modeling. How about animating?
Since I only have three hours a day, learning visual arts and Maya would take a long time. On the flip side, I’d love to eventually combine an art role with writing experience and move into design.
– VFX: seems like programming experience would help with MEL programming and RenderMan in particular. Again, speculation given it’s C-based syntax.
– Compositing: again, not sure what artistic background is needed, though of the three I think this is the one I’m least enthusiastic about.

To make a long story short (for whomever is still awake), I’d love to get into animation, but I’m not sure if three hours a day.

I’m enthusiastic and determined to put those three hours a day in (and more on w/end), religiously, and I know I have the discipline for it because I’ve sustained it with my writing schedule. I’ve looked into training programs like Escape (I live in London) and considered doing one-two years self-taught, and then drop the C# job and start the training course. If I get a job, I would then be able to focus on animation/VFX full time.

My question for you guys, then, is whether you think animation is a viable route for me, or if you think I’m ‘blatantly suited for VFX programming’ or maybe should just stick to my day job and writing and stop writing wall-sized posts. 🙂

All advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

–Will