I think it might be helpful to you to essentially "pants" your comic, just start drawing and draw as much as you can in a set period of time. Once you completed your comic or a block of work THEN go back and fine-tune to the drawings. If you are worrying too much about getting a drawing "perfect", you'll never get anything done.

Also, remember that you aren't making your comicbook series for anyone else but YOU! So, don't be afraid to give yourself a break!!! To reference my old scenic design teacher's 20ft rule, your average reader isn't going to notice or care about the proportions of your protagonist aren't 100% perfect. As long as the figures look relatively "normal" people are good to move on with the story. (Even comic series with unusual art design have still been popular) Even if some jerk makes a 30 minute video essay ragging on your work, it just means your work is good enough to merit a reaction. Most people I know if they see something that says "DON'T DO X" they will investigate it to form their own opinion. If they do that, your numbers will boost!

Give your self a break! You'll be okay!

I honestly went through something kind of like that years ago, when I was trying to change my comic for the better, but kept falling back to old habits with the "fear" cloud hanging above my head.

I ended up breaking my pattern when I decided to create it for myself only. That way, I wasn't constantly worrying about what other people think of it. That helped my artwork quite a bit. It got easier to design and we all know that no matter how perfect you want your comic to look, you're going to hate it a year later, or maybe even weeks later. As artists, we're always improving, so it's actually impossible to love every drawing. We can't spend all of our time focusing on such small details. The artwork is important, but it's not as important as the story.

On the story side, I broke my pattern by not trying to stay true to my original idea. It was getting in the way of my creative flow. I stuck to the basics. I knew what type of story I wanted to write, the names of the characters. Everything else was scraped.
I then blocked off where I wanted the story to start (point A), then blocked off what was Point B and then Point C, etc. After all of the key events were decided, I wrote Point A and let it flow in which ever way the characters took me. I don't force anything, but I have to get them to Point B somehow. I don't always agree with the decisions they end up making, so I have to re-route the story to somehow get them to Point B.

I found that writing that way, I wasn't able to fall into old pattern, because I was letting the characters do whatever they want. Yes, my characters have a mind of their own, they broke the mold and some are completely out of control. But, it makes unpredictable characters, even to the writer. It's really hard to fall into old patterns, when you write like that.

And, I never write more than one chapter at a time. Because, by the time I get to the next chapter, I might have changed my mind on what happens next. I was given a lot of time to think things over and I now have a better set up than before. it keeps the material fresh.

There is a phenomenon in the indie videogame development industry, where the creator/s get over-ambitious with a project and end up biting more than they could chew. I would not discard the existance of this in other creative fields.

The first goal of your product when you have a clear idea of your vision and the skills neccesary for a proper implementation, is to make it something than exist. This doesnt mean something rushed, but a consistent schesdule will lead you to something more viable.

The other goal, may sound silly, but will give you strenght to work on something you consider big......Have fun with it. If polishing the hair entertains you, cool, but otherwise, dont let it torment you.

For the time being, I'd just work under the assumption that it will stay small, and that it's a practice project more than anything else. Treat it as a fun means for skill development, and don't hang any further expectations on it than that.

My main character's facial proportions are being refined episode by episode, as I get more of a handle on drawing him the way I imagine him to look. That's reasonably normal even in professional comics, so I'm not losing any sleep over it. The likelihood of my comic becoming big enough that anyone is going to bother making a YouTube video about it is so utterly, monumentally unlikely, it's not worth worrying over. Even comics with hundreds of thousands of subscribers don't get that.

Keep your expectations firmly rooted in reality. Every time you start stressing about something super unlikely, use that awareness of reality to reign those worries back in. There's no use stressing about something which simply isn't going to happen. (I hope that doesn't sound harsh; I'm applying this to my own work as well. It's just real-talk.)

If your project did wind up with a sizeable audience, you could always re-launch it later on down the track with updated art. But if you don't just start making it, you'll never reach the rate of improvement where that's possible. Just start drawing, get those years and years of art practice in, and start worrying about the bigger stuff once you are beginning to see momentum in your audience.

An overabundance of perfectionism is one of the things which slows down artistic improvement the most. (The other thing is a lack of perfectionism. They're both bad.) At a certain point, creators have to just be willing to start a project, and see it through, so we can learn from all the mistakes we'll make, and therefore make the next project a little better. Rinse and repeat throughout a career.

It sounds a little like the fear of fear itself, right? Being afraid of failure is a natural thing, but when it gets to the point that it makes you feel like your project is doomed before it starts--it keeps you from ever starting that project. Like a lot of what you are currently afraid of has not happened and statistically, are probably not ever going to happen (a 1/2 hour roast of your comic on youtube is such a high effort form of harassment, like no one would bother, especially now that youtube ad revenue is ass.)

It seems a lot of your fears are about other people's perceptions of your work, and that can be really scary. But, remember that it's so hard to get visibility on this app. One of the blessings of that, is that means you only have to worry about a small audience (made largely of the people you talk to most, which would be people on this forum).

Remember that there's people out there putting out literal sketchy rough drafts for webcomics, there's grade schoolers drawing their comics in MSPaint with a mouse. There's people drawing comics on literal napkins (I have a friend with a gag comic that he used to draw on the scratch paper at our work during break--it was hella jank--but unlike a lot of perfectionist webcomic creators out there ((myself included, because I think I do far too much work for my comics)), he's STILL MAKING IT, and it started in 2002. It's almost 20 years old!)

Sometimes when we try to do "our best" we tend to overwork. But "Best" to me means that I finish my work. It doesn't mean everything is polished (hell if I can stay on model) but it means I had my eyes on the main goal, which was to stick to finish. So there's a lot I don't have completely cemented down--but that's OK because a.) it's a comic and you don't actually show every part of your world-building--most of that will get edited out ((much like most backgrounds, and most parts of your character, which will be offscreen most of the time)) and b.) I will be a different artist by the time I get there. Comics take a long time to make, don't forget it could be a year before you get to your 12th update. Looks short on a page...but a lot of stuff you simply don't need to think about yet.

For one thing, if you do watch videos like this about indie creators, or maybe cringe culture stuff in general, I'd 100% cut it out of your life. Second, maybe you need to sit and confront these fears? Worse case scenario, you make it big enough that this happens.... So what? Does someone else nitpicking you actually change what you've accomplished? It's scary, sure, but it's meaningless!* Nothing anyone makes will ever be perfect, and nor will everyone ever be satisfied. I'm not expert on this stuff, but I think confronting the "worst case" scenario, then talking yourself through it every time the fear rears up might start to take the teeth out of it.

(just want to note I'm not trying to diminish that fear. I super don't even want to get "too popular" because I don't want that level of scrutiny, lol)

Maybe work on calling yourself out when you're doing the perfectionism stuff? If you've spent X time fussing over something unimportant, you stop, and call yourself on it, and move on to the next thing. You can always revisit the imperfect thing later with fresh eyes and re-asses it's importance. Maybe make a schedule ahead of time that pushes you to move forward so you can't spend as much time spinning your wheels on unnecessary details. Also think about what your priorities are- whats most important and least important to your project? And ask yourself when you obsess "where does this issue fall on my scale of importance?" etc etc

Dear Aqua...this advice might not make sense to many people, but I know your work and some of your process. I think that you should stop planning. Just make a basic timeline, characters sheets and go for it. Your meticulous planning has been preventing you from posting your stuff. It's clearly not working for you. This "perfectionism" is just anxiety of not being good enough and fear of actually doing the comic. Like someone who is scared to jump into the water. Consider rethinking this idea "I'm a Perfectionist" in the context you are describing, because that's not it. And I think you use this word to disguise your insecurity with the name of a "quality". It is not an asset in this scenario.

I know you want to make mind blowing super complex projects...but that pressure has lead you nowhere. I don't even know why are the previous projects "dead". You didn't fail because you didn't even started. Just let them chill in the corner but don't feel defeated.

Maybe just make a simpler idea and start drawing. That's more productive than beating yourself down with super ambitious stuff that never gets released.

Aqua, I'll be honest with ya and don't worry, it won't be an essay on how to improve yourself.
To tell you the truth (or people with the same thing in mind), you do realize that webcomics aren't so popular as you think they are.
I mean, do you know any webcomic creators that got super famous when they uploaded their first webcomic?
I certainly don't. And the ones who made webcomics that do pop up in my mind are theodd1out and vivziepop. But they stopped working on their webcomic and were focusing on animation more, which made them famous as they are right now.
And you have to think you're not alone on this. There are over 61.000 creators on Tapas alone. And even if you manage to be heard here, you have to take on the other millions of creators worldwide to succeed. So your chances of being a one-hit-wonder are as tiny as an ant.
And speaking of being the next big thing, if you think that working alone on the webcomic will do the trick, that's like me trying to regrow my hair despite suffering after hair loss.
You have to branch out, working on multiple platforms doing more than one thing over and over again....The list is long.
I don't want to say dreaming of becoming a success is bad because everyone has this sliver of hope to be someone important in the near future. But doing one thing won't do the trick. And even if you become famous in some mysterious way, you'll have to work even harder than before. Because you have to be relevant to people, or you will die out like memes from the past. Plus, there will pop up people who don't like you and try to cancel you for just existing.
And the main thing that killed Drachenseele/Dagoons/DRGN or however you called your series was you, buddy. You thought you had 10 years behind in publishing, but all we saw was you worrying into oblivion if you become the next big thing. We didn't saw any pages, we saw only concept art, thoughts on story elements, and the multiple threads from you.
Look, I saw how you started to work on your new project and I was happy for you because you started something new and were full of excitement. And I want this Aqua, who doesn't worry about a thing and enjoyed working on something. And not the one that starts every week with a new thread with the same questions and answers given and received.
I don't want to speak for everyone, but I think everyone can agree that you should just work for yourself and the joy of creating. And not for the sake of being famous and chasing this spider's thread from hell.
I just want to see doing something before I lose all hope for you.

I think my most sincere advice at this point would be to just throw caution to the wind and go for it!

Having read your last few threads, I think you've arrived at a pretty neat new story idea. Some of your recent drawings that I've seen over the last few months and even into late 2020 have shown tons of improvement from early 2020 and 2019. And knowing that this isn't in fact your first published webcomic, I know that you know how the general process works.

Therefore I think just taking what you've got now and approaching it with a "YOLO, let's go" approach would be the most helpful I can only speculate, but I'm pretty confident that your work will actually do better than you might think if given a chance. Will it be a block buster? Probably not! But I see the potential for a strong indie audience~ More than anything I'd like to see it come to life

It sounds like the main problem is being too concerned about how people will look at your comic. Allow yourself to love the project you're working on, and nothing anyone could say about it can affect the way you work.

I've never read Drachenseele, but it sounds like you got some really rough criticism in the past for it. Still, creating a comic with the purpose of it being an "Anti-Drachenseele" isn't a healthy mindset either, it just reinforces the negativity that keeps you from liking your current work, because you're still caught up in what other people think.

Maybe a change of wording would help? Why not aim for the goal of creating a 'Better Drachenseele' or 'Drachenseele 2.0'? Look through your old story and find the things that are solid enough about it to keep in the new story, all while aiming to create something fun that you enjoy creating. I still look back through the old version of LOSTLAND from time to time, and find myself surprised by how solidly told certain parts of the story were.

This is quite the hefty message, but I hope this and the others help you out in some way. Don't let the negatives weigh you down! Create like no one's watching!