Do you get "overexposed" to your own art?

[ezpeen90]

When you spend a very long long time on a particular set of panels, do you feel like you get overexposed to your art? What I mean is that the art goes from telling you a story to just being a bunch of lines that you just look at without actually being able to truly experience the story the same way as when you wrote it, and made the initial thoughts/sketches of the situation. It's kind of like when you read a sentence over and over again, and it ends up just being a set of words in a particular order, instead of telling you something.

What do you do to better experience a story you've been overexposed to again?

[doublethickcustard]

This definitely happens to me to some extent. You focus on every detail so much that you stop being able to stand back and look at it as a whole, but its really important to be able to do that. Walking away from it and doing something else and coming back seems to fix that for me for the most part. Remembering to step back and look at all of the page or even the last few helps too.

[punkarsenic]

yes, ugh.

it usually ends up that i hate what ive drawn, halfway through shading, or ive gone through it so many times that i miss key details. thats why ive changed the art style of my new comic so it takes about? three goes round to finish the whole thing off so i dont have that problem as much.

[marcinkamil]

My "comic" is very simple and yet it happens to me too. Not only with drawing, but with other arts as well. It's annoying.

[Michelle]

Sometimes, usually when I'm inking because it's very slow and tedious work for me. When I'm doing faster, more sweeping kind of work like during the sketching and toning phases, it's easier to view the page as a whole. I find working in stages helps, and stepping back for a bit between thumbnailing, sketching, inking and toning/colour.

Usually if a page isn't feeling as engaging as it was when I was writing or thumbnailing it, it's because something about the execution of the page isn't working. The current page I'm working on had me feeling this a lot, until I realized the problem-- some of my compositions were static and dull, because I was in a hurry and went with my first idea for them. When I went back in and re-drew them with much more interesting and compelling compositions, the page as a whole felt less bland to work on.

Of course, nothing is going to stop that feeling if you've been grinding away at a page for 20+ hours ~v~;; every now and then I have a monster of a page that I just couldn't be happier to be done with.

[Shanny8]

I think I'm having one of those episodes right now...been working on my comic since March, and though I'm about to hit the stretch towards the end, I feel like I've run myself into the ground. I do other stuff and look at other creator's works, but when I turn my attention back to my own, I feel like I've been grinding on this project a little too long.

[Ringarune]

Oh yeah, all the time, especially when I'm writing comedic scenes into my story. The more I re-read it, the less funny it gets and I worry a lot about whether it actually is funny. The best way for me to get over this is just time. When I go back to read things months later it all works out fine

[Puppisama]

When I do pages where no fight or action other than talk happens, I just feel like "meh, I should just skip this and go to the interesting part". Since I do many things at one time, instead of just doing the page I'm watching a movie, for example, I don't get that exposed, but if I dedicate the whole day just to draw, draw and draw, there are high chances the next day I wont draw anything because it feels "meh".

[Shanny8]

@Puppisama I also think that may have been a reason to why I slowed down over the week- last week I was working on "non-action" pages, and I think it soured me out. I gotten most of them done, but it took a bit of a toll on me. I just started working on action pages again today and all of a sudden I got this energy burst out of nowhere..!

[Puppisama]

Yeah, it worns you out just to draw people sitting around talking, more fun if they are throwing stuff at each other hahaha.

[indagold]

It's more like sometimes getting bored with my work especially when working on a slow part. At least now I made a decision to do short pieces instead of something that'll drain me. Two giant comics over the course of 8 separate years, never again.