No, I don't think so. I've never been too hard on myself in the present, it's only when I look back on what I drew in the past that the self deprecating begins. I think I have a health relationship with my art work with me both recognizing that I am a good artist, but that I'm not super great and amazing and that I have room for improvement.

I can be hard on myself yeah. Especially coupled with the nasty habit of mine to compare myself to other artists I know and who I'm friends with.

I can be. I often think that I'm terrible at drawing characters in certain poses (which I am). I definitely need to work on my artistic confidence.

Oh absolutely. I'm always second guessing myself and hyper-focusing on even the tiniest of errors in my art or wishing I was a better artist. I try to use those feelings as motivation to just keep practicing and trying. After all, the more you practice, the better you'll get! Still my fixation on the flaws in my art does sometimes wear me down to the point of being unable to draw for weeks at a time. It's just something I have to work on and work through in the meantime!

To anyone else struggling with these feelings, though, I promise you that you are so much more skilled than you think you are. Just keep at it!

I used to be extremely self deprecating. Almost every word out of my mouth was about how my art was garbage, especially when people complimented it.

But in the last 5 years or so, I actively made sure to not talk like that about my art, or myself. Every once in a while I'll slip up and badmouth my art. But thankfully, my wife doesn't put up with that and glares at me when I do xD
She's the biggest reason I don't talk down about myself anymore. She always encourages me, and calls me out on my crap when I'm being too negative.

I'm incredibly hard on myself. I'm always satisfied with my art right after I finish it, but then I get really negative and find all sorts of flaws with it the next day. I really struggle with self confidence in my art even though people say lots of nice things about it and about my comic. I just can't help but notice all my flaws. I think part of it is growing up in a household where my parents implied that if I'm not the best at something, then it's not worth doing.

I've gotten a little bit better about it since I graduated college, but it's a silent battle that I still struggle with. I'm always afraid to say something about it too. I think surrounding myself with people that tell me it's okay when something isn't perfect has helped.

Impostor syndrome comes with the OC artist package, I feel like.

The thing that helps me the most is saving others' words of encouragement and looking back on my work. I try to gather a lot of stuff to have for when my motivation gets really low, because when I reread my old pages, old scripts, and comments from friends and fans, I might laugh at some of my mistakes, but I can't help but see how far I've come. It might feel silly at first to save the compliments and not delete old art, you get but it makes a world of difference when you need any and all words to reassure your creations aren't bad like what your brain is telling you.

I am INCREDIBLY hard on myself. To the point that it stops me from taking risks. In fact, the only reason I took the leap of faith into starting to create my own webcomic is because I had an anxiety attack when another creator said they'd love to see me start one. I had to go down a whole spiral of questioning why I was having a panic attack in response to encouragement.

TL;DR on that experience: I was raised in a way where if everything I produce isn't perfect and productive, it's not worth the time I spent on it. It took a lot to walk through the steps of "if I have fun and learn something, it's worth it even if I don't finish it" over and over. And over.

seems like everybody here is saying to read back your old work, one of the things I recently found to encourage me since I draw almost exclusively comic pages, was too grab sheets of paper for each page I have ever drawn (about 376 sheets) and stack them up, it's a very simple thing but the size really gives me a feel of how much I have actually worked and strived for (now if I count all my drawings plus reference material it goes to about 600 sheets so almost double the size) =0

it really puts in perspective how much work you have done

I think that's fairly normal. Everyone's their own worst critic. I know I end up being too harsh on myself sometimes, especially when comparing my work to other people's

I've always been pretty accepting of my art and where it's at. Always things that I don't think are great and could be better, but I've never been one to like... actively talk down my work (to either myself or others).

That said recently I have found some frustration with past Me- looking back at some of my work recently from Middle and High School and seeing how little I pushed myself during that period- and consequentially how little I improved- is annoying xD Like I definitely got better from point A to point B. But it's like... I can tell I wasn't pushing myself enough and chilling in my comfort zone too much because I've seen so much more progress the last 2 or so years that I've gotten back into art and consciously been pushing myself to work on problem areas and leaving my comfort zone constantly vs. those like 5 or 6 years. Sure, those years provided the foundation from which I was able to launch off of when I got back to it, but still...

BUT that's okay! It's full steam ahead now, baby >;D

I am extremely hard on my art. I tend to compare my own artwork to those of actual professionals and super popular digital artists, which can become super demoralizing. On the other hand, with a more optimistic mindset it can also be super inspiring.

What I've learned to do instead of just comparing my art to others and putting myself down is yes, compare, but analyze the differences - pick out the small things, make a note of them, and keep them in mind the next time I draw. I'm still being critical, but in a more productive way if that makes sense.

The most important thing, I think, is to focus on how far you've come. Sure, it might feel like your progress is stagnant, but I doubt it actually is. Sometimes when I feel like my art is at a standstill, I put some of my newer art next to stuff I drew years (or even months) ago, and seeing them side by side really shows how much I've improved. It's not much, but it helps a lot.

I'm probably too hard on myself in an attempt to improve. Like I try to be critical to see the flaws and what should I work on improving next. I think it helps me grow. I also try to do the same for the positives too though. What do I think I did really well and should try to continue replicating and such. I probably should keep it to myself more, but sometimes it slips with friends and I feel sort of bad for that

oman yeah, I actually did this as well when I finished inking the last page of my one-shot I'm probably not going to do another physical comic again for a really long time, so I won't get another opportunity to do this for a while... but it was really cool to see a year of progress in 3D space!

I'm really hard on myself to the point I almost can't draw. I was trying to study anatomy but I talked myself out of it because I just think I stink. Comparing myself to others is really not helping...

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

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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