Watching the Paint Off competition in Tilt Brush live a few days ago, I was immediately inspired. I grabbed my VR headset and challenged myself to work on the theme they set for the competition in the allotted time of 1 hour. The theme was ‘Colorful: use colour to communicate’.
This was, of course, way easier to do without the stress of being watched, making sure the technical aspects work and competing against experienced and super talented artists. But the self-imposed time limit made it interesting as I usually spend way more time on each piece. It was great. I think it’s a great skill to have to throw together something fast, especially if you’re demonstrating the program to someone. The audience gets more instant gratification and won’t lose interest simply because it takes too long.
I think that a helpful tool for creating quickly is to use only a small number of brushes. The frequent switching can get time consuming. If you have remaining time, you can start adding animated brushes to wrap up your piece and add the wow factor. But as I watched the stream, I quickly realized that everyone has a completely different style and strategy that helps them complete the challenge.
For my specific piece “Let’s talk colour…”, I started with the smallest mouth with paint coming out and dripping on to the palette. After I was done with this initial idea, I still had time leftover so I decided to build on it and added other mouths (voices), creating a ‘conversation’, which provided the spilled paint below the palette.
When I went back to the video from the competition I noticed the logo and I really had to laugh. My brain was definitely primed for this piece without me even knowing…
The Tilt Brush Paint Off competition was so inspiring and educational – I even reflected on the experience in a separate blog post. I loved the creative and supportive community feel! Maybe I’ll be brave enough to participate next year!
“There is no challenge more challenging that the challenge to improve yourself.”
Michael F. Staley
Check out some of my other creations:
