I relate to this... I guess in the end, what keeps me going is wanting to tell my story, seeing the final villain show up, interacting with the fans, and so on. XD
I try to remind myself that I actually like my work and that I'm not a bad writer. It just seems "bad" or "tired" because I've read it a million times. When I read a sample out of context and with some perspective, the work is good.
Whenever this happens to me I just remember that I've put way too much time into my comic, so its far too late to turn back. I've come to learn that any thoughts of self doubt I have are all moot points because I know that pursuing my dreams is more important than a few measly thoughts, so I wont let them hold me back.
P.S. Meditation is a good way to get better control of your own mind, as meditation helps you become more conscious of your own thought patterns. (which it looks like your already doing).
In the end, there is always just one question that you should always ask yourself when you have doubts. And that question is: Do you love what you created and love doing it?
Being confident doesn't only come from art skills, storytelling, promotion, subs all that stuff. Everything starts in your own mind. When you look at people who succeeded, most of them are individuals who just loved doing something and wanted to show it to the world. With that love comes passion and confidence. Even when you need to learn on the way and work hard, your enjoyment of art and your story keeps you moving.
No one can fix this for you. Not even people who praise your work. If you don't love it yourself, it will ultimately fail. Practically, the short answer is, have fun, love what you do, everything good comes with that and you can't succeed without it. That's what I did.
It is good to take your time and get a breather here there. Also, looking at the high points of your art could help as well; I personally do this to see how I improved since then and pushes me to continue.
Staying off the internet a bit may help when the doubts come about.
A little bit, yeah. It mostly seemed to have stemmed from a general feeling of wanting to be stand out from the crowd, big and super successful, and perfect the first time around in the past. At least, that's the best I've gathered from my introspection over the past year or so.
The only thing that helps me is working offline until the work is finished. I find that of I start posting to early, I inevitably get unhappy about the story. Posting it after it is done, and on Tapas just scheduling and walking away is the best for my calm
Stop accepting self-depricating humor as funny and acceptable, and move on with your life. Get off any threads anywhere that are for reviews or feedback or critique and if a site you're posting to has comments that are those, quit the site. Negativity will breed and not help any self-esteem issues you may already have. The result is less voices are heard, yes, but the those that happen are authentic.
Instead of trying to ignore your own thoughts, maybe try changing your habits in a way that allow you to have a healthy relationship with them. Rather than picking up more practices, I tend to look inwards for understanding personal balance.
Why do you want to stand out of from the crowd so much?
Why do you want to be big and super successful?
Why do you want to be perfect the first time around?
For me I am a perfectionist. But I only enjoy perfecting something for the sake of personal mastery and inspiring others. So for me, I try to capture a moment of perfection in whatever I do, but I don't try to do everything perfectly. This really has allowed me to find value in what I've done and who I am, but also keeps me engaged in what I do. For me I went from trying to do comics to just doing portraits again. Now I feel like my art matters enough because I can do it well, but I can also do it better (and other people enjoy it).
I do stuff like meditation and yoga... but really without the inner-work they're really just bandaids.
So... here's a truth of making comics that a lot of people don't really seem to know.
The people who succeed in comics are the people who absolutely love making comics. They love making comics so much that even if the readership is small, they'll still make them. They've usually been making them for years.
You know Emma Vieceli who makes "Breaks", one of the most popular comics on this site? She started out like... doodling comics on just any old random paper and using ink flicked at doilys for screentone patterns, and photocopying them out as crappy little zines to share with friends and family. She had none of the tech, she had no big audience, she just loved making comics. She succeeded because she just made comics for years and years, built an audience, made friends and contacts, got good at making them and learned where her best areas lay. She's worked on so many comics and the early ones probably were only read by a handful of people.
If you want this comic to succeed, you need to find the fun in making comics. You need to absolutely LOVE just the act of drawing out your panels "oh boy, okay we're going to go from this long shot and then the next panel zoom right in on the face with a low-angle shot for impact. What shall I do with the background? Oh hell yeah, flame pattern! This is gonna be rad!" That's what all the pro comics artists I hang out with are like. They're not just nerdy about their IP (in fact for a lot of them, they'll talk in terms of their "current comic" and comics they'd like to make in the future in different styles and genres), they just are absolute dorks about things like panel structure and colour palette and things. A lot of them would make comics for literally nobody, they just happen to have been making comics because they like it for so long they accidentally got really good and people started giving them money.
If you only care about the IP, but don't love making comics, you need to look for another way to sell or pitch it. Comics are incredibly labour-intensive and require a huge amount of motivation, so if a handful of comments and some likes isn't enough to spur you on for several hours drawing next page or episode, it's not realistically gonna work out for you.
I echo @darthmongoose on this one.
When it comes to comics (or digital art even) it's ultra important to not let anything stop you. Obviously not every day you draw will be a cakewalk...that's just the nature of life. But the desire to create needs to be first and foremost. Then application.
Comics are hard, but in my mind are so rewarding. The challenge of each new page (for me) is invigorating.
If you want to change your thinking, it starts with the little things. Instead of thinking "backgrounds suck, I hate them. I'll never get where I want." Change it to "I'm not where I want to be with backgrounds, but if I practice more, I'll get there."
Changing your mentality isn't easy. But it is possible, I know, because I have fought the battle. Still fight it too.
Having a drive for comics is something you can grow, but the key is training it, and kindling that spark. But you won't get there if you don't actually want it deep down.
@LCT_m_a_d @darthmongoose @nathanKmcwilliams
Thanks for the really well thought out advice regarding this.
I think the main big thing I've realized is that even though I love the setting and characters I created and do want to do something great with them, I think I may have started out on the wrong foot when I first came up with them back in 2011. Because I know I mostly started out on my creative journey with these characters looking at the things like Bionicle and The Muppets and going "I wanna make something that's as big as that someday!" when I was a young teen who viewed my world as my oyster and then some. So I think I lot of re-wiring of expectations is in order.
I also realized today that despite the trouble I've been having with Drachenseele, most of those feelings seem to center around the first arc, because when I was planning out the arcs afterwards, I had a feeling of "Oh heck yeah! Now the party's really getting started! Can;t wait to get to this part or draw this character!" as opposed to the "Oh well, gotta get this part out of the way to get to the good stuff first..." feeling that I kinda have for the first arc even though there's a lot of stuff I really enjoy about the first arc as well. I think that might be because of the fact that despite the fact that for the most part, it's a completely new and separate project, it's still also a heavily overhauled remake of sorts for my old comic(s) DRAGOONS/DRGN that I had been working on in some shape or form since 2011 and thus, there might still be a bit of baggage regarding those past failed projects in that regard whereas even though the later arcs still have most of the same characters and some reworked versions of old ideas I toyed with back towards the end of the DRAGOONS era, they are almost entirely new and fresh compared to what I had in mind for the first arc which feels a little bit like I'm just going through the motions again kinda/have that lingering insecurity from the old failed projects even though I like a lot of the characters and stuff in the first arc of Drachenseele and a lot of stuff that's genuinely good about it as well now that I look at it.
So it's mostly just that part of Drachenseele where it seems the most of my doubts come from for some reason. Something I do hope I can get over, soon. Because i feel Drachenseele's got a lot of potential and I especially want to get to the more exciting later arcs as well that I am super hyped for as well.
I don't know what this process would look like, but I would think the first step then would be trying to rework the first arc into something that you enjoy more or have a stronger passion for.
That's definitely something that I can relate with- due to the time-intensive nature of making indie comics, I feel like it can be hard to strike a good balance for navigating the "set up phase". If it takes too long or is too mundane, then not only is it not super fun for the readers, but it's also rough on the creator, knowing that you'll be slogging through this portion of the comic for however many weeks/months before getting to "the good part". But on the flip side, it doesn't always work to just rush through or skip the beginning, you do have to introduce the world and characters in a way that the readers can digest and get invested in.
I'm still trying to figure out my personal ideal balance, but what I've found works for me so far is to expedite the beginning just a little bit. In past projects where I've trying to copy the pacing of professional long-running comic series, or shows, or anything really, I've found that the beginning just takes too long for me, the creator, to get through. I find that there's not much wrong with them as written, but if it takes me months to get to the "good part" I get discouraged and give up. So I have to either make the beginning brief (1-2 scenes, maybe. Enough to establish things, but not long enough that I'll have to spend months and months drawing them) orrrrr just rewrite the beginning to be more exciting to work with. I'm a fan of those "start in the action" type beginnings for this reason. This intro action might not be as exciting as what comes later, but it's still fun to draw and that keeps me going~ I dunno if this will work for you but food for thought 
yeeeee this, going through the same motions doesn't sound very fun, gotta take those motions and rotate them 90 degrees or something >: D 
maybe, idk.
Yeah, you're definitely right there. I do like the material I have for the first arc, it's a genuinely solid story with a lot of good stuff in it that people liked when I shared it with them, it's just it feels like I'm just trying again with a failed comic the fourth time and just going through the motions on a loop now. Especially since the first arc or "Season 1" is about 13 to 16 chapters in length with current plans before I get to the parts I'm hyped for.
Not quite sure what exactly I should do to overhaul things so they don't feel samey considering Arc 1 is pretty good and solid right now. I guess maybe I'm afraid of failing again with it as well. I know I probably won't now that I know what I'm doing, but I guess there's still that lingering anxiety from previous attempts with different projects.
This is probably just me, but I think these moments are the most important in any project for me as a programmer and artist. Not the good stuff. It's like when we lose something, we never find it because we keep looking for it in the places we're focused on. Despite the fact that if it were there it wouldn't be missing in the first place.
When I run into these moments I think the ordinary thing to do is rush through it. But anyone can do that and you don't an ordinary story. So the solution, give yourself a vision challenge. Take the "gotta get through" moment, and plug a muppet-like dynamic and see how the story changes itself. It's pretty much what I do whenever the honeymoon period is over in a difficult drawing, or software design. I learn something new about something I already have.
Good point. I should probably just get right to the storyboards instead of fretting about the scripts. If only to finally get the ball rolling enough to get going.
This is one hell of a run-on sentence. Are you sending good money after bad? Why don't you just start the story where you enjoy making it? With uncertainty like this, imo, it's not a great idea to repeat the past.
Edit: seriously, ever since I first popped up on this forum months ago, you keep agonizing over the same project, endlessly mentioning it. I think you need something else. It's dead, Jim...
That's something I've been debating doing as well. Problem is that the second arc's a direct follow up to the first one and builds off of the previous arc's events. So it might be kinda confusing and nonsensical to just pick up right there without heavy overhauling of the story in its current state.
I don't think so. At least, I certainly hope it's not. Because this time i feel I'm actually know what I'm doing this time around for the most part I think.