Throwing Darts at a Dartboard 🎯
Janice Lee joins our "25C" lineup
blog.fifty // Fifty blogs. The big five-oh.
It’s crazy to think that this little space, which started as a side project—sharing notes from the road and observations from my purview—has evolved into so much more.
We’re now checking in twice a week with new interviews, fresh product collaborations, original reporting, and a print zine featuring Hank and John Green. We’ve also been using this space to announce our upcoming gatherings at the studio and beyond—including our first Coffee Shop “Office Hours,” which we’ll be hosting in Lakeview next Tuesday (RSVP here).
We’ve been making this thing alongside you, dear reader. Speaking of which: Last blog, we asked what you’d like more of from our team and potential guest contributors. Here’s how that poll shook out →
Essays: 29%
Interviews: 18%
Behind-the-scenes: 29%
Games: 24%
We appreciate the feedback and will tailor things accordingly (we are building the airplane as we fly it, after all). In the meantime, cheers to our first fifty blogs—here’s to the next fifty.
— NGL
P.S. Last blog, we wrote about doing things that don’t scale. You can read it here.
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Janice Lee is a 3D artist and creator based in New York City. By day, she’s a consultant at IBM; she balances her full-time job with sharing Blender tutorials and partnering with brands like Dell and NVIDIA.
The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Nate Graber-Lipperman: Hey Janice! First question I have for you—what was your biggest win of 2024?
Janice Lee: Oh, okay. This is exciting.
It was a very experimental year, and a high point was creating a beginner Blender course on Skillshare. It was the right sponsorship, but throughout that whole ordeal, I learned so much about myself and what it takes to really teach.
I've been doing a lot of bite-sized tutorials on my Instagram page—that's kind of what I was known for. So I wanted to take a step deeper, but I never really had the reason or right timing to do it until I got approached by someone who asked me to do it.
It took a quarter of my year just filming, planning, editing, and putting together the entire course. It wasn't really, like, my biggest brand deal. But it was just something, personally, that I've been wanting to do for a while, and I feel like that has a much more tangible impact for people trying to learn 3D art than my usual stuff.
NGL: Such a big part of your story and your journey has been creating on the side, right? I mean, you're still working full-time.
JL: That is correct.
NGL: For a big project like the course, it sounds like a long process to get there. Do you feel like you've kind of struck a balance with being able to take on a big project while also, you know, still working a full-time job?
JL: I'm not sure if I really have the final answer for that. Like, I can't really say yes or no concretely, but I can definitely say I found out what I like and what I don't like through that workflow.
Basically, I’m working a nine-to-five. And then a lot of my creative work, I do from, like, five-to-nine. Or on the weekends—whenever I have time.
Making this course did take up a lot of that time. It takes a lot to teach. Teachers have a really talented skill—it's definitely not something that you just do really easily. It's something that you have to learn.
NGL: I mean, that leads me directly into my next question. What do you feel like is the biggest learning you're bringing into 2025, as you look at the year ahead?
JL: In 2024, I was very led by what was happening around me. Most of the time that I kind of planned my year around was for trips—or bigger pieces of work, or sponsorships, or videos that I had in mind.
And I feel like that guided my direction for the 3D art that I made, and the shorts and longform videos that I made. Because of that, I felt like I was throwing darts at a wall at some points. I was letting outside influences steer me a little too much.
I thought about it a lot over winter break, and I realized that—especially if I am going to, you know, keep doing this particular work-life balance—I need to be a little bit better with what I want to focus on. I fleshed out a pretty good plan for the skills that I want to learn and the direction I want to move in terms of my content, rather than just kind of letting events and sponsorships direct me.
I’m making it work more on my schedule.
NGL: Sounds like you’ve kind of oriented yourself around a North Star. Any last thoughts or comments?
JL: I feel like I have a good workflow now. I have chunks of two-week periods where I'm home and living in this big city. I don't always have to travel to New York these days just to go to events and stuff.
I kinda mentally prepared myself a lot more for the worst in terms of how much I'll be traveling for work, or the times I'll be away from my apartment—and my filming and editing equipment with it.
It's nice that there's something set for you, and then you kind of build off of that territory.
Keep up with Janice’s journey here.
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