Nerdartist

Excellent! Hopefully we'll get a few more responses about a meet up. Otherwise, I'll just start a new thread with a plan of action and see who can make it Cheers!

Wow, I'm surprised at how few of folks actually live in Toronto around here! I was born and raised in and around the city and currently live right downtown by Trinity Bellwoods park As the weather turns a bit nicer, we could meet in the park for a frisbee/picnic day! Would anyone be interested in something nice and simple like that? Perhaps mid-May? Cheers!

Welcome to the boards! Cutting out processed foods is pretty tough since it's mostly ingrained in our minds from childhood. But! You can totally kick that stuff! I heartily agree with Athena; if you can eat good, clean foods instead of processed stuff, you're 3/4 of the way to your goal! I'm excited to hear that you're getting started and I wish you the best of luck!

Hey Panczo! Good to hear from you again. I can recommend a couple of books to skim through to help you start to think about shyness in new and different ways. As you mentioned, it really can be quite different from person to person, but luckily us human beings do have quite a few things in common too Most of my 'official' research on the topic of shyness began thanks to a bunch of Steve Kamb's posts on NF! I would suggest reading all of his posts on the subject and trying to do some of the things that he suggests. Similar to the physical challenges, he suggests some social challenges which I found to be kinda fun! My favourite was trying to get at least 5 people to smile on my way to and from work each day, simply by smiling at them. I tend to walk with my head up but don't make eye contact, another challenge that Steve put out. He suggested trying not to be the person who looks away or flinches when holding eye contact. I started to do these two and would set myself new challenges if I hit my previous one. So, Monday I'd try to get 5 people to smile, and if I did that I'd go for 6 on the way home! It was great fun! I picked up a book a little while ago called "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" by Dale Carnegie. There are some pretty good ideas in it and lots of things to help with getting out and about more regularly. Some of the stuff he says didn't really gel with me, but a bunch of it did so I'd say it's worth having a look. You can read some of it here to see if it vibes with you before buying it Another really great read is Epictetus' Enchiridion, or The Handbook. Read up on it here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchiridion_of_Epictetus. The Handbook is basically a condensed version of his teachings which were compiled into a series of four books (eight originally) called the Discourses. I'm currently reading through a book called Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness by Gillian Butler. She attempts to explain why people get socially anxious first, and then goes into ways of overcoming things. It reads a bit drier than Dale Carnegie's book, and even Epictetus' to a point, but it's pretty good so far. What I've found has helped me the most so far is actually talking about the things which make me feel shy or nervous. Part of the way I've been able to ease into that is by telling people about some of the interesting ideas that I've been reading about in my research. Almost every time I mention something I end up in a discussion with someone about how they have shyness issues! It's really wonderful to make that connection and not feel so isolated and afraid. I'm figuring out more and more that a lot of my shyness comes from the thought of being judged by others, and subsequently ridiculed, which makes me feel isolated and hopeless. By putting myself into situations where I am vulnerable but hopefully around people whom I trust, I'm finding that it's easier to make friends and it's getting easier to speak my mind without fear of ridicule. Instead of fearing it, I welcome it as a chance to try a new method I've read in a book, or online! Right then! If you're looking to be a 3D animator for film, you're best bet is Maya as most studios use it for animation. I studied traditional animation for a few years as well, and Maya was the go-to program. I would definitely suggest that you put some time in to learning the program. Check out www.digitaltutors.com for a really great spread of lessons on what all the bells and whistles do Most game studios still use 3DSmax for their 3D pipeline, so if you're looking to get into games, it's a really good idea to learn Max. The most important thing is to really nail down a solid foundation of the fundamentals of animation, since most of the 3D packages out there are all performing the exact same functions and are simply called by different names. Much like you, I didn't start out on this career straight away. After high school I was a labourer, carpenter, and generally demolished stuff for a while. I was very lucky to have family who work in the film industry, so I was able to work on a few really big productions. Being in that collaborative work environment really helped set me up for working in the games industry. As a nerdy kid with aspiration of wanting to be a comic or video game artist, I was always really nervous and, to be honest, frightened of a lot of the dudes that work in various construction industries. Once you're past their gruff demeanour though, they are cool dudes. That was another good education that I didn't even realize I'd received until recently! I'm quite the slow learner at times If you need any further info on 3D stuff, fire me off a direct message and I'll do my best to provide answers. Keep going strong bud! We'll talk soon Hey SSquirrel! Thanks for the welcome I had a look at Kittenmancer's thread as you suggested, and it sounds like she's really getting her stuff together! Quite the inspiration! Thanks for bringing her post to my attention. I hope you're able to find a gig down there in Louisville soon! Best of luck to ya Cheers!

Hey there Gilfren! Going entirely Paleo is quite a huge feat in reality, given that when we eat out at a restaurant we don't know exactly what's going into any seemingly Paleo friendly meal. But to be honest, if you can follow a more or less Paleo lifestyle, you'll be able to reap the benefits of eating healthy without the stress that comes with calorie counting. I eat as Paleo as I can when it's within my control, which for me means breakfast, lunches, and dinners during the week. I make my lunches for a few days on Sunday evening (chicken salads, nice and simple but tasty) and have a few simple to make dinners which consist of a meat/protein portion and the rest vegetables. Breakfast is a couple of eggs, some sort of bacon, and some more veggies and/or salad. Bam! All easy to do, and all nice and tasty! Knowing that I'm able to eat right during the week means that I really don't feel bad if I get hammered and eat a greasy hamburger on the weekend! So long as you keep those tasty sounding almond butter and peach sandwiches relegated to the weekends, or perhaps one night out of the week, then it lessens the hassle of counting those annoying calories at every meal and you can still feel the benefits of eating well on a regular basis. And when it's possible, try to get something that is mostly Paleo friendly when you are out at a restaurant, since basically everything at a restaurant is made to taste the best it can anyway. So far, I've been eating well and still enjoying the occasional non-Paleo meal and I've lost a solid amount of fat in a shorter amount of time than when I would have previously hit the gym and gone all mental counting calories and reading labels. As for overcoming that plateau you're at, the only way I know to do that is to change things up and surprise your body. There are definitely people around here who are better suited to help on you out with advice on that though! I hope you're able to keep going with a healthy lifestyle and are able to avoid bogging yourself down with calorie counting in the future Keep at it, you aspiring ranger you! Cheers

Dude, that is SUPER inspirational! It's great that you managed to lose so much all on your own! One thing I've definitely learned from Nerd Fitness is that you gotta take matters into your own hands and not rely on other people to do any of the work. You are proof of that effort and I wanna say good on ya mate! The community here will totally have your back on the second leg of your journey to 175lbs! Welcome to NF! Hey Gilfren! As someone who is a self proclaimed shy nerdy weirdo, I've had a similar revelation regarding fitness and extroversion. Over the past year I've become more fit, as opposed to the many years of being just on the wrong side of being in shape. However, as I've become more comfortable and proud of my physical form I've found that it's far easier to be extroverted which has surprised and pleased me greatly! So yeah, you're right; focus on what you can control in your life and don't sweat the things you can't, and you're off to the races! Cheers!

Hey Panczo, Thanks for asking! Still digging into the shyness arena and I believe I'm making some headway, although it's slow going, which is fine. As to participating in a challenge I'm not sure I feel the need to do a physical challenge just now. I did Muay Thai for a bit but after a while I realized that I had ZERO plans to compete in the ring and by rout decided that I didn't really have a goal beyond getting out some aggression I was holding onto at the time. I'll likely do a challenge at some point though, but for now I'm really finding that eating right is enough for the moment In answer to your second question, I'm an environment artist. I've worked most extensively with the Unity engine in the industry, but prior to that I worked with Unreal 2 editor. One of my favorite games to date is the Myst series, because of the sense of wonder in it's environments and the sense of peace that I could achieve while just walking around in them. I'd always enjoyed the sense of place that really good video games could convey to the player and that kinda helped to solidify my desire for world building. I almost became a level designer right after college but that opportunity didn't pan out in the end. lol Most of my gigs have focused on low poly titles or on high poly, pre-rendered, which is what I'm currently doing. I can't tell you much I long to be back in the real-time space of a proper 3D game and engine though! Gah! It's murder fiddling about with renders for half a day, based on tinsy little changes that some director or producer wants to see, haha! So what do you do then? What sort of projects have you worked on or would you like to work on? Cheers!

Thanks Panczo! It's great to find more artists on the boards here! I'm definitely in NF for good too

Wow, that's a lot of tough things to have piled on you in a short span of time, and you still managed to get through a PhD dissertation?! Amazing and inspiring! As Terrormortus said, things will get better and we'll be here if you need support! Best of luck on the challenge!

Oops! Double post :\

Hi Leonine! I'm honoured to have been able to read your story and it's really inspiring to hear you state it all so frankly! It sounds like you're doing a lot of the right things and sharing with a really great community is another step in the right direction! It's definitely time to get those interests back into your life! They're all so awesome! More power to ya Cheers!

Oh man! I was so hoping that there would be other game artists on here! I've always found it difficult to explain some of the things that artists deal with to people who don't have to deal with the same things on as regular a basis, so I'm glad there are other artists around here Thanks for the warm welcome!

Thanks Terrormortus! And you are right about stretching! I need to learn a few more solid ways to stretch and think of it as being more of an important part of working out Sneaky, that's rough! I have managed to slightly pull a muscle in my calve from just walking lol

Thanks for the warm welcome Sneaky! And yeah, the job can definitely be lots of fun at times

Hi! My name is Dave, I'm a 3D artist, and I work in the video game industry! I'll jump straight into the fire here; I struggle with social anxiety/shyness, worry, and self esteem issues, which have stunted my potential as an artist and a person for far too many years. However, after reading several of the Nerd Fitness articles I made the decision to start on a quest to level up and to finally try to live a consistently happy life! Since February 2nd of this year I have been living a 'paleo-lite' lifestyle. It all started because I had been trying to figure myself out after a largely reckless year of dealing with the fallout of a long relationship ending. The thing that tipped the scales and got me into Paleo was when I started drinking heavily after years of abstaining, and I began to notice that I was leaning on the drink to make me feel 'happy' or 'normal' throughout the week. I also noticed that I had gained a spare tire 'round my midsection and felt physically awful most of the time. After about 3-4 weeks of eating Paleo and only drinking on weekends, if at all, I quickly started to notice the weight dropping off of me and I began to perk up a bit emotionally as well! The reason that I'm posting on the forums now is because I don't feel as though I have a good enough support group who can help me when things get a bit rough, which they are at the moment. I'm also not much of a fitness guy, having lived the slovenly life of a video gamer and nerd for many years, and I could use some motivation to at least continue doing the basic bodyweight exercises. I did them once or twice in February and had to ease off to allow my legs to recover since I went all out on the first go and was in a fair bit of pain for a few days afterwards. However, I noticed such a difference in simply changing my diet that I didn't end up doing the exercises regularly. Still, I would like to at least maintain a mostly flat stomach (I still have a little bit of pudge round the middle) as well as see to some digestive issues which I've been told could be more mental rather than physical. So, my Obi-Wans, I need your help! Even though I would like some help, a lot of the struggles over the last year have helped me to realize that I am truly the only one who can help me. With that said, I started a blog to try and help me face up to some of my mental and emotional shortcomings. I call it Art+Life. It's mostly inspired by the Nerd Fitness blog, but there are a few artistic folks who also inspired me to start it up. I was taken in by the way that Steve talks so openly about his own issues that I just had to start writing! With all of that said, I hope that with the support of the community I can finally learn how to be comfortable in my own skin, both physically and mentally, and become the great artist and person that I know I can be! If there is anything that I skipped that you feel would be good to know, please don't hesitate to mention it! I'm usually more of a lurker than a poster on web forums, so any interactions are a good step forward Cheers!