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Myers Briggs Type Indicator – Being an INTJ Artist

by Ben June 11, 2021 in Art Talk, Personal, Thoughts 0 comments tags: #arttalk, personality

artist pic1

 

MBTI and Art

Much of my life has been spent attempting to understand both myself and the world I inhabit. Part of this journey of discovery involved reading up on Psychology related topics where I'd learnt about the MBTI (Myres-Briggs Type Indicator). It's a test to reveal which 1 of 16 specific personality types you resemble. You can take the test here if you're interested in seeing which type you belong to.

My type? INTJ. I'm a person with the Introverted (I), Intuitive (N), Thinking (T), and Judging (J) personality traits.

"These thoughtful tacticians love perfecting the details of life, applying creativity and rationality to everything they do. Their inner world is often a private, complex one", says 16personalities.com.

Are all INJTs artists? From what I've found, most aren't! INTJs like myself are usually given the label of 'Architect' or 'Strategist'. I should be the type to work as a scientist or analyst, playing chess and reading technical books for fun. While I do enjoy analysing things, playing board games and would often rather read a manual or something more factual than fiction, I also love art and design. Rather 'ISFP' types are often considered to have the artist personality type in the MBTI world.

As a side-note, 'Psychology Junkie' assigned a Myres-Briggs type to a list of famous fine artists with different personalities on their site. It's interesting but may not be completely accurate. It at least highlights the fact that no matter your personality, there's potential for you to become an artist if that's what you want to do. 

 

My Experience and thoughts...

One thing I often felt didn't quite work with the MBTI was determining a person's stress sensitivity. Whether or not an individual is more prone to positive or negative emotions makes a big, noticeable difference in one's life choices, habits and interests. Unlike another personality model- 'The Big 5', stress sensitivity wasn't taken into account with the MBTI. Take the big 5 test here. Although 16personalities.com have added a suffix of T for Turbulent / stress-sensitive types and A for Assertive types to help address this. Although this does now kind of indicate 32 potential personality types and starts to defeat the purpose of pigeonholing in order to make quick generalizations. Suffice to say, MBTI is not the perfect personality model, but is still useful.

The reason I bring this up is because unfortunately for me I'm high up on the negative emotions spectrum. A guy with the 'Turbulent' INTJ variant who's easily stressed and cautious. And so my experience of being an INTJ artist might differ from the next INTJ. I want to discuss my experiences all the same.

[Aside: Having a more cautious personality can have it's advantages. Without going in depth; You'll be less likely to get involved in risky activities or having accidents. It'll make you more aware of and considerate towards the people around you - an otherwise common criticism of the INTJ type. To know stress and negativity so well allows one to fully appreciate positivity when it does arrive.]

 

Why do you create the things you do?

It's a deep and interesting question.

I would speculate that the type of art you focus on i.e. the theme and style would have some correlation to your Myers-Briggs personality type. Although I'm sure other personality dimensions such as orderliness and agreeableness could be used to more likely determine the theme and style an artist tends to prefer. Our tastes are shaped by both our innate personalities, but also the experiences we've had throughout our lives. Having grown up on 80s cartoons as a kid, then moving to anime into my pre-teens ensured a desire to imitate what I thought was inspiring. Hence I went on to produce and sell a million copies of manga related art books as an adult.

 

Being an INTJ makes me very forward-thinking

When it comes to creating art, I'm often focused on the end result rather than process. This can be challenging when I have a 50 hour image waiting to be created and I'm not always 'in the moment'. I've often felt agitated or unsatisfied until I'm on the home stretch and working on the last 10-20% of an image.

 

I want to bring beauty into reality

My philosophy for creating has always been "because it looks cool". A sentiment I share with one of my favoured anime directors Yoshiaki Kawajiri. As well as comic artist Todd McFarlane. I care about the aesthetics more than the deeper meaning behind the image. Every artwork an artist creates will communicate something, but my aim is to convey my own tastes with a literal illustration. Style, technique and subject often takes precedent over producing narrative, mood, something abstract and ambiguous.

Don't get me wrong, I can walk into a modern art gallery and understand what I'm looking at, unlike the laymen who might question "what the hell is this supposed to be?", but I have little interest in producing modern art and hate the pretentious side to it. Ascribing meaning to nothing then giving yourself a pat on the back? Yuck!

 

I want to create perfection

If an image doesn't look as close to perfect as I'm able to produce, I'm unhappy. I'm bound by the limits of my own competency, so while I know I'll never achieve true perfection, if such a thing exists, at least I'll try to get as close to the best thing I'm capable of. Not that perfectionism is an INTJ specific trait, but there's satisfaction when the plan comes together and everything looks just right.

Expertness is important to me. In general I like to be good at everything I do. Perhaps it's some ego thing whereby I don't want to believe I'm as useless as I actually am? But certainly I'm happier when others can recognise my accomplishments. If art happens to be something I'm being praised for, then I'll continue to do it. But more important to what anyone else thinks, I want to produce work to my own self-imposed, exacting standards. 

 

Best suited art careers for INTJs

INTJs are not the typical, whimsical artist types. INTJs will need to find a way to make certain artistic roles work to suit their needs. I've spent the past two decades dabbling with different artistic jobs and some worked better for me than others. I list these below.

I appreciate no two INTJs are the exactly same, and in fact some won't even understand the point of art! But INJT types like myself are a testament to how it's still possible to pursue and succeed in different disciplines within the field of art and design.

Most art jobs are going to require 1- a lot of time on your own (being an introvert makes this easier) and 2- devoting a lot of time to building competency in your craft. If you happen to be an INJT, or even if you're not, here are some job options within the field of art and design:

 
Graphic Designer:

Graphic Design roles gives an opportunity to create but with tighter restrictions than working with a blank canvas and paint. For example, you might like the idea of exploring the subtleties of typography and becoming an expert on the use of lettering. It's direct, clean, to the point and serves a purpose. No messy paints required since it's mostly all digital. Freelancing from home might be the way to go if you don't like the idea of mixing with other employees in an office or studio.

 
Web designer:

Allows for planning how a site should look and function, while coding gives the mathematical and logical circuits of the brain a chance to fire up. There's something quite satisfying about being able to read a page of code as well as design the visuals for an attractive, functional site.

 
Illustrator:    

This can be for books, ads, promo material. I suspect that understanding the rules of art and design and then applying them is the best way to go for an INTJ type. There are rules to art such as composition and colour theory, and once those rules are established, being able to come up with a plan to maximize each design's potential is the way to go. Illustration has a clear goal to communicate something specific up-front. Often the best advertising illustrations are well thought out and witty, giving an INJT like myself an opportunity to make use of that part of my mind.

 
Concept Artist:

For those who love to create characters or environments for games and films. INTJs may prefer this as it requires becoming a competent technical artist. Non-INTJ artists who are keen to create but have no talent, little skill or patience may instead gravitate towards abstract, modern art or learn to blag their way to a successful art career. You can't blag a your way into a concept artist roll. Of all the artist fields, I would guess Concept art might be one of the hardest art professions to succeed in due to the fact it's so popular and already holds a large pool of highly competent artists. 

 
Tattoo artist:

One of the few art careers these days which will allow for a lot of time away from the screen. You'll be more likely to get praise from customers on a daily basis, which helps facilitate the need for acknowledgment of accomplishments. It means working with people and being social which introverts generally prefer minimizing, although it's primarily 1-1 communication. Having worked part-time as a tattoo artist myself for over 10 years, I can say that the aspect of dealing with customers can be challenging but has helped me grow as a person.

 
Animator:

Although having worked on a several basic animation projects, I've not professionally worked as an animator for any length of time. It requires technical skills and patience which an INTJ might have a better time dealing with. Although animation takes a long time to reach your future vision and it's often repetitive. Despite being a huge fan of anime, cartoons and animation, I've always been put off by the prospect of needing to devote an entire day or more just to make a character move an arm or walk from one room to other for example.

 
Manga / Comic Artist:

This requires high level of technical ability. If you can handle lot of time on your own, this will suit you. If you like to write and conceptualise your own stories, this is the career for you. Although most employed comic artists will end up spending much of their time working from another writer's script. Having a successful career as a manga ka (artist) or comic artist is extremely tough. I would imagine the task of conveying different emotions through characters might be a little challenging to INTJs at first also.

 
Fine Artist:

You'll specialise in a particular medium and concentrate on a particular subject matter and type of art i.e. landscapes, portraits. It allows for a lot of autonomy which is great, but you'll need to work on selling which will be the hardest obstacle for an INTJ as selling will involve interactions with other people either face to face or through online videos. Having the freedom to create whatever you want is the dream of many artists, but for most, monetizing your creations will be extremely difficult.

 

[Aside: Being an artist is not someone who does modern dance, plays drums or writes poetry. As per what was described in a Reddit thread I was reading while researching this post. All those things are considered creative pursuits, sure, but you're only an artist if you design and create something tangible in 99.9% of cases. There's no criticism towards being a dancer, musician or creative writer, however there's no point over complicating definitions.]

 

 

To finish off

While I love art, design and illustration I often wonder; if I were to re-play my life would I have chosen it as a career? It's probably too late to trade up this profession so I shouldn't have regrets. I've been doing it a while and couldn't bare to give up the 20,000 or so hours I've invested in my pursuit of art and design. I suspect that inheriting my dad's  traits (a fellow INTJ) while having an artistically minded mum encouraging my creative side would always lead me to where I am now?

I can't feel guilty for my time spent on art. And I'm sure I would engage in it even as a hobby, if not my career. To think of an idea and to then bring it into reality through one's creative endeavours is an amazing thing and a worthwhile goal. No matter your 'type', if you're making or improving something, even through analysis and carefully considered critique then you're on the right track. I would argue, to bring beauty into existence is one of humanities' most important contributions to the universe. What do you think? Are you contributing?

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Photo Gallery: Sunsets

by Ben February 23, 2018 in Instagram, Personal 0 comments tags: #photography, photo, sunsets

Thought I'd share a little gallery of photos I'd previously taken and posted on Instagram. I usually just post art on Instagram, but sometimes you just come across something interesting and want to capture or document it.

[gallery type="square" size="medium" ids="3490,3491,3492,3493,3494,3495,3496,3497,3498,3499,3500,3501,3502,3503"]

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Photo Gallery: Various

by Ben August 20, 2015 in Personal 0 comments tags: #photography, Instagram, photo

Thought I'd share a little gallery of photos I'd previously taken and posted on Instagram. I usually just post art on Instagram, but sometimes you just come across something interesting and want to capture or document it.

[gallery type="square" size="medium" ids="3469,3470,3471,3472,3473,3474,3475,3476,3477,3478,3479,3480,3481,3482,3483,3484,3485,3486,3487"]

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I made my own T-shirt

by Ben August 04, 2015 in Art, Art Talk, Personal 0 comments tags: art, design, review, tshirt

Designing something a bit different

Most designs you find at local retailers are boring, ordinary, common or look cheap and tacky- especially this recent craze for rectangle prints on the fronts of t-shirts which look like an uninspiring ink-jet transfer paper job. A design on shirts, any other clothing, or even tattoos on skin need to be placed properly. A top-heavy shirt with a design covering just the shoulders and chest or an a-symmetric piece of artwork can look great, but most companies just churn out the same, basic, small to medium sized square or round design slapped in the centre with no consideration to flow, composition or just trying to do something a bit different.

Tshirt doodle design1Recently I designed a full-print shirt with one of my doodle-mech designs after stumbling upon a UK company who can process full-coverage 'dye sublimation' shirts at small quantities. Check out www.sublab.co.uk for more info. I designed the shirt to fit the provided template, then sent it back as a PSD Photoshop file. Wanted a dark purple tee with contrasting orange for a while, so here's my opportunity to get one :)

 

All-Over Shirt printing

There was no mention of shirt dimensions other than chest size on site at the time, so did a little research for "American apparel t-shirt" to get a fairly good idea of the size I'd need. Being 6'1" male, with a 40" chest and 35" waist, I went for a medium and it fit pretty well. Some sizes hinted at a large being more appropriate for me. Although I prefer a slightly tighter fit, so wonder if a 'small' (described as a 34-36" chest size) would have looked better on my frame? I wondered if it would be possible to find and supply your own shirts for printing to guarantee a better fit? If spending over £30 for a t-shirt, you'd hope for it to fit well as well as look good.

The design came out very nicely with colours nearly as vibrant as my RGB computer screen. Tonal contrast was lacking a touch in certain areas, which is worth taking into consideration when designing my next shirt. There wasn't enough contrast with the subtle greys on the inside neck logo, so would also look to make that darker for next time. Very fine lines don't show up so well- keeping things a little bigger and bolder is the way to go.

The biggest problem was the inevitable white creases around the seams and armpit areas. Patches, nooks and crannies where the print doesn't reach. I knew there would be a strong possibility of this happening and they looked pretty bad if the arms were raised. I manually filled these areas with a black Sharpie, which over time fades out to a grey tone. Took some effort but now looks A LOT better than it did upon arrival, and probably not noticeable unless pointed out. I'm hoping it'll hold up in the wash. I may need to try other permanent ink or fabric markers if not.

 

The Result

I like the idea of selling full front and back print shirt designs, but with my mark-up on top, I'm not sure people would be willing to pay £40-£50 for a single t-shirt? It may not be everyone's cup of tea, so for now I'll continue to create my own custom shirts from time to time for personal use and leave it at that. Many thanks to Sublab for providing the opportunity to try this. The shirt looks awesome!

Tshirt doodle photo2

Tshirt doodle photo1

Apologies for the poor photo quality of on my phone, but you get the idea :)

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Car Detailing

by Ben June 24, 2014 in Personal 0 comments tags: rx8

Mazda RX8 2Including some extensive chip an scuff repair, I gave my RX8 an extensive deep clean and detail which in total totted up to around 40 hours! Most of that was down to removing thousands of tiny black specks from the paintwork, the first step is ask yourself where to start when restoring a car and then comes the others. Still not sure if it was tar, tree sap, break dust or carbon dust from the exhaust, but it was a time consuming pain to get rid of them all. Hopefully if I keep it regularly shampooed and waxed it's not going to need so much attention in the future.

Full detail consisted of~

Alloy Kerbing Repair:
- Sand
- Primer
- Sand
- Primer
- Paint
- Blend
- Paint

Stone Chips Repair:
- Chipex Tri-coat

Exterior Clean:
- Pressure Wash
- Fallout Remover
- Shampoo
- Rinse Wash
- Claybar+ Detailer

Polish:
- Resin Polish
- Gloss Sealant
- Wax Layer

Extras:
- Tyres- Black
- Plastics- Black
- Chrome Clean
- Glass Polish

Interior Clean:
- Hoover Floor, boot etc
- Seat & Side Panels
- Leather
- Gloss Plastics
- Matt Plastics
- Glass

Results:

Mazda RX8 Mazda RX8 2Mazda RX8 1There was a nice sun set while I was driving along so I pulled over into a nearby lane and took these with my HTC One phone if you ask me what to do next i will make it a gas powered car soon. Not ideal, but with a few Photoshop contrast adjustments, they'll do :)

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Chip Fix

by Ben June 11, 2014 in Personal 0 comments tags: rx8

It's my RX8's 5th birthday in a couple of months time and decided to make it a little prettier by fixing dozens of chips, scuffs and giving it a thorough clean [in progress].

ChipsThis is one of the more noticeable bodywork scuffs. I fixed up around 30-35 other small chips.

ChipsRepaired using the Chipex system. An ok result.

ChipsAfter adding some primer with a brush and a bottle of touch up paint off of eBay for £6 for the wheels, I used some of the Chipex blending solution to help level it out.

ChipsThese were pretty badly curbed in places so needed a little sanding before repainting. These photos are taken after sanding and priming with the primer filling in some of the curbing gaps.

ChipsI'd say these repairs are only 85% perfect, but to professionally recondition and spray the wheels alone might set me back £200-£300 so more than adequate for an interim fix up job and perhaps have them fully restored to perfection by a pro in a few years time.

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Music Collection

by Ben May 12, 2014 in Personal 0 comments tags: music

Waiting until they create a smart phone with enough capacity to house my music collection. In the mean time I've got several thousand ID3 tags to update >_<

music screen capture

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Devil Man Pumpkin

by Ben October 27, 2013 in Art, Personal 0 comments tags: art, devil man, devilman, go nagai, halloween, pumpkin

Tried some pumpkin carving of Devilman (from Go Nagai's manga). Happy Halloween ^_^Devilman Pumpkin Devilman Pumpkin Devilman Pumpkin

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Bloject in progress

by Ben August 23, 2013 in Personal 0 comments tags: blog, internet

I've been privately blogging for years and occasionally I'll blog to the public via my personal site or social media sites. I wanted to create a Blog network through the same UI instead of having to log into OM, Wordpress and Blogger separately. And also wanted to have a primary master Blog which re-posts to social media sites to save potentially posting the same info on multiple platforms to different audiences.

I'm getting there!

I've set up Wordpress Multi-site, installed a few plugins which should do the trick and added some basic customization to my private and public blogs. Now I am trying to figure out what to post and to where- should I keep things fairly general, allow more personal posts to be shared, or just share art related things? And should I re-post everything on this master blog to my Facebook, Twitter and Tumbr?

I've never got on 100% with social media. Partly because I don't have the time to update them all, partly because I don't like the idea of making all my thoughts or interactions public. Now that so many people communicate this way and since I have a handful of friends and followers who use these sites, I want them to know what's going on in my world. I also want an audience- people interested in checking out what I have to share, say and show.

I'm also wondering if I should create a separate domain for the master blog- is it worth it right now? Can I easily migrate this to a new domain or server location at a later date if needs be? - I need to figure that out. Rather than this be part of Organic Metal, I like the idea of having a new, separate, simple site just for the Blog with a few extra add on pages to house permanent info and picture gallery. Then again, I also like the idea of creating a new professional portfolio site and not sure if a personal blog would belong on it?

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MicroMen- FIGHT!

by Ben March 16, 2013 in Art Talk, Personal 0 comments tags: action figures, art tools, artist, figures, micromen, toys

[gallery]

I’m now selling both my Microman and Microlady on eBay. Would definitely recommend buying a Microman for drawing reference. Beats those crappy wooden manikins hands down!

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