You know you are a Technical Artist when

Professional
#1

A common type of subject on many online forums is the well-known “You know you are an X when…” -thread, mainly created to provide the readers and contributors with a laugh.
So why not have such a thread here at tech-artists.org? Precisely my thought: we have enough serious discussions here already!

You know you are a Technical Artist when…

…no one in your family has even the slightest clue what you do for a living.
…you discover bugs in popular software packages (Maya, Max, zBrush, Photoshop, Modo, etc) that has gone unnoticed for years by the developer.
…“good enough” is not in your vocabulary; “excellent” is your lowest acceptable standard and “perfect” is the goal.
…you notice and point out pipeline problems before anyone else.
…you more than anyone else seem to understand how much time can be saved in the long run by doing “very repetitive task X” three seconds faster

#2

#3

You could say this about just about any discipline.

Also, give it a few more years and this gets flipped around. “Perfection” is the goal, “excellent” is what you try to shoot for and “good enough” is what the schedule allows.

“Why the hell are you still working on that tool? It’s never going to be used again after Tuesday?!?”

#4

Ugh, this is me. I get so excited mid-tool development about making it modular, robust, well designed, and ready for any scenario…

Been trying to get myself to be accepting of the “good enough” solutions, but it’s hard when I get so much enjoyment out of designing and refining pipelines!

It’s not like we’re artists who can go home and paint to get it out of our system… I go into that “zen” state when I’m working on these tools and processes, and making them the best they can be is like a painter finishing up a huge piece that they’re really proud of.

But, we’re doing it for the benefit of others (and ourselves as well) and you have to recognize that cutoff point where you’ve officially satisfied the requirements.