Are you TOO HARD on your ART?

[gempompadour]

Lol I hate my art and sometimes I love it, but it's mostly hate. I love drawing so this negativity will never stop me from going forwards. I'm a negative person in general too so that helps a lot. You could say I'm immune to my own poison.

I promised myself I wouldn't redraw my pages because I'm so slow already. Yet, lol, here I am. My deep hatred is driving me forwards! Re-scripting and drawing my first chapter... I hate the art in it and it's way too meandering, so re-doing it is making me feel better.

[bear1]

I’m kinda schizophrenic on myself. On one side I know I’m a skilled artist. On the other side I hate looking at my ‘recent‘ comics (some of them aren’t even a year old.)
However, when coming back to them after a year or so, browsing through them, I feel good about them again, even when seeing the mistakes and struggles in it.
I mean, even if some of them are cringy, it feels great that I did them and was able to grow.

So, yeah, you don’t need to love your art atm. But as long as you apply yourself and do your best, your art will morph into something you like.
Also, keep in mind that people see your work with different eyes. While we as creators are focused on our shortcomings, our audience enjoys the overall feel of the work.

To make things short, strife for better skills and products but don’t hate yourself or your work. Respect your efforts and your skills and keep on drawing

[colorgoat]

I've been super critical of my art lately, to the point where looking at anyone else's art makes me think "god, I can do this better, I can do that better." I try to turn the insecurity around into inspiration so I can work harder on improving and experimenting with my art. But THEN, I start to get impatient that my style isn't evolving as quickly as I'd like, but I try not to let that get to me and just keep chugging along.

[allenT]

Not particular really. I'm more excited creating contents I like, than chasing a high industry standard. I do expect a bit more of myself every year and that's about it.

For comic series I prefer art consistency. I'm instinctively a 'big-picture' person and I always have that mental images of the finished product and have samples and references to keep track with. I just work on what I feel are the weaker parts in overall-- like certain shading/toning methods, sound effects(onomatopoeia), and my dialogues-- by doing the pages and get better naturally. Slow is okay.

I do however have an emphasis on backgrounds and environments because I care about them feeling real to the readers and also myself, like "it's there, it's a REAL place!"

[Freemints30]

yes, and that feeling just grows with each passing year. I know its because I'm now more skilled but I see all the flaws. However since I always keep in mind that this is just my hobby, I tend to not take it as hard as I would be. I know its because since I drew it I can see all the flaws but it hard to be critical.

Look through my old art from 2017 does however brings up my spirits and helps me realize just how far I have come. I just wish I could have saved more of it before my computer went cu-put.

[NickRowler]

I very shy and insecure so yes I am very hard on myself.

However I do remind myself that I am not the worst artist on the internet and I do get some likes, so I guess I am not that bad.

It is difficult to motivate myself to clean up my line work when I notice no difference in likes with messy vs clean line work. I am doing this for free with not much of an audience so I will be messy whatever.

[Toolkitz]

I was as I've always felt like I was just struggling to draw rather than just draw. But then, one day, I decided that my art was at an acceptable level. By no means this is true, it can definitely be better, but I started to realize that I'm never going to be satisfied with my art, not in a million years, and I seem to get good responses from people who see my art. So now I'm no longer hard on myself or my art, I just accepted what I have and now I'm so much happier. I no longer feel like I'm struggling to achieve an invisible goal that I never actually set in the first place. I can now draw and be satisfied with the end result.

[rajillustration]

I was real hard on my art until I studied illustration and saw how much styles have changed over the centuries--we put waaaay too much attention nowadays on perfect workmanship, and not enough attention on --but did they get it done? Like art can be done to impress other artists--and those pieces are real fun--but art is supposed to just do the job within a pretty strict time limit. If it's imperfect--well, at least it's done.

[Kiweevil]

I'm told I'm too hard on myself, but frankly I don't think I'm hard enough on myself. I've improved vastly even in just the past year because I've forced myself to do more when I wasn't happy with my results.

My progress makes me happy, but I know this isn't healthy for me. I sit hours in front of a computer or stack of papers, angrily scribbling away until I make just one thing I find presentable. I lose sleep over it, and I forget to eat. So I wouldn't recommend it at all.

[IdiotWithPencil]

knock yourself out XD,

@Rhonder
if you're primarily digital just use blank sheets and if it's the web-toon style 6 panels per page I would say.

the point is to put in perspective how much work you have made and how tall you stand (your thickness as the manga page I showed said), it really helps to see all your progress stacked up like that like an xp bar in a video game

[Rhonder]

just use blank sheets

That's p genius, I would have never thought of that lmao

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I kinda think trying to impress other artists, at least for me is a waste of time. When I focused on that, all I did was destroy myself and get even more negative in my language.
I'm aware of my limits, and I do try to push them, but at some point I can only push so much before I run out of time.
So all that to say...I totally agree with your last sentence. At least it's done XD

[onyisart]

I feel this-or at least something similar. I made art for social media - for the likes and to gain followers - to feel a sense of worth in my art but not for myself. This is why I'm currently on a social media break I kind of want to remain off of social media but at the same time it's necessary for business in a sense. Plus, I do enjoy connecting with followers/fellow art enthusiasts. I haven't made art since my break, but I will soon.