How do you keep your confidence up when working on your projects?

[aqua03]

Hey guys, I recently finished my final-ish draft for DRAGOONS: Days & Knights and was feeling great about how it was as I got ready to start work on the comic proper.

However, as I began to work on the thumbnails for my comic, my confidence in it rapidly began to deflate as I thought about given it another drastic rewrite.....

Have any of you ever dealt with this problem? If so, how do you stop/fight it?

Thanks for the help!

[ar-ninetysix]

There's a part of me that says to just go for the rewrite, but there's also a part of me that says at this rate, you're never gonna put it out.

I don't think the issue's execution of the story, but moreso that you might not be very confident about your skills. And if that's what's keeping you from working on it to the end.. then that's not good.

To use a bit of a gamer analogy, it's like trying to grind and get XP to get up to the next level.. but you turn off the game and reset midway. You never save your progress and let yourself level up, so leveling up feels undoable. The confidence in finishing isn't all that much there because you keep stopping yourself from getting to the final pages.

I say all this, bc I had this same issue with music back then. It was hard being satisfied with the raw execution, so I'd always go back and fix it. I asked a friend about this and they basically told me. Just finish it all the way to the end, even if you don't like where it's going. You can't see improvements without your mistakes, pretty much. So, now whenever I start something, it's with the intent of finishing.. obviously, it doesn't exactly work for everything, but it's a good step to help you learn to be satisfied enough as opposed to never being satisfied.

[racheldenucci]

Find at least one person willing to be your personal cheering squad, share your stuff with them, and let them drown out the voice saying it isn't good enough..... Works well enough until you gain back any lost confidence.

[VibrantFox]

mute the inner critic

it's an odd way to phrase it but just ignoring those negative thoughts and emotions as you start to feel them bubble up sometimes helps, or a least it's done some good for me. It's not completely ignoring them though, it's a bit more introspective. See what it is, identify it then put it in it's place (which is away, out of earshot where it won't get in the way)

As for the re-write cycle sometimes it's better to just push forward and do the thing rather than keep going back trying to fix or edit. As you go forward if something feels it requires change do it then but for the most part pushing on and just making is the best that can be done.

[Shanny8]

You have to trust that what you wrote is good enough. If you keep going to re-writes, you are never going to start or finish your project. If you "want to make it better" then make the next installment or the next comic/project better...

[AilyneGouveia]

When I have a doubt about the story or my drawings I ask the opinion of my entourage, they are really a big source of inspiration and always manages to motivate me ! For example, I could not find a name for my next chapter, my whole family did a brain storming with me and at the end of the day I had the perfect title !

[punkarsenic]

hmm... its really hard, bc you essentially need to find the equilibrium between unsunstainable perfectionism and sloppiness. you need to find the place where you can say 'fuck it, thatll do.' and then, when you find that place, you need to go produce the rest of the comic without descending into apathy haha.

an important thing to remember is that whatever you produce, it will never be whats in your head, and you will never be satisfied. therell be a lot of things you could do better that youll only see when youre finished. but ALSO!!! whatever you produce, you have made an achievement and made progress, because youve produced something. if you keep editing and redrafting something ad nauseum, you arent producing anything, and what can feel like improvement is stagnation. whatever you dont like about this comic, you just take that learning moment to the next project.

i stop myself from doing drastic rewrites or redraws by A: having absolute deadlines and B: being lazy. if ive got all the inks done on a page, like fuck am i redrafting it now, even if i can see AAAALL the flaws and its making me mad. ive made my bed, i'll lie in it. by setting absolute deadlines (and internal deadlines!) you have to force yourself to move on, and its good practice for the industry. the only way i can stop myself from sinking into a black hole of doubt is to divide my time into research phase / development phase / drafting phase / production phase - no matter where im at, when those deadlines hit i MUST move on. sure, if i gave myself a year for research on this 20 page oneshot it could consume aaaaaaaall the content even vaguely related to that genre and fill it with a THOUSAND obscure references and have my thematic symbolism on POINT, but more likely id just never climb out of that research hole. learn to recognise when youve got enough to move forward, even if you havent got 100%

i also find it heartening to go watch a really popular or acclaimed movie and pick out the flaws. its the only way i got through detective pikachu. if you can see the writing flaws in something everyone around you is loving, youll realise that every piece of art is flawed, but can still have a heart that brings joy to people - and most people will not notice.

[unknown_user]

When I can't keep my confidence up (which is often the case), I just continue to draw or to write without it

[Azifri]

I have little confidence in myself, and this applies to my comic, paintings, and my job that is heavily based on my own ideas. Very often I feel like a clown making a fool of myself, but it's my circus scene and I made it the best I could at the moment, so I keep going. Sometimes I feel like I should scrap what I'm doing, but I also like the feeling of finishing things. And when I'm feeling particularly insecure about something, asking people I trust about their opinion on the matter helps me a lot.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

• If there must be people who are better than you, there must be something of the reverse. Enjoy your middle ground position.

• If learning from people's achievements make you feel envious and intimidated, then learn from their mistakes and failure. Nothing put a smile on me than learning about those imperfections but despite that they still put the work out there and it sometimes still acclaimed, we are all flawed and that is the right way.

• Just be lazy.

[baasinsimple]

I've created this "persona" I guess, that I really don't care at all, which is half true, so what little confidence I had wasn't completely squashed by the lack of interest in my projects.

[JRHoch]

Sometimes a lack of confidence is a good thing. It can be your gut telling you that your art or writing isn't where it needs to be yet. So...you just keep practicing.

However, I'm pretty sure almost all artists feel a loss of confidence at some point, thinking "if only I can up with something better." Sometimes you have to accept you're as good as you're going to get and it's time to take the leap.

You just have to be honest with yourself and know what camp you're in.

[irene_addler]

Don't compare your work to other people's! Comparison is the thief of joy. Sure, you may know that your art needs work (like mine does), but your art is unique in and of itself because it's yours, and the more you practice, the better you'll get! For example, I'll be feeling good about my work, and feel like I'm finally getting somewhere, then I'll start thinking about my favorite comics and suddenly feel terrible about my work in comparison, and want to scrap the whole thing and start over again, which really gets me nowhere. Sometimes you just have to be brave and put it out there, and just keep chugging on, working and getting better! Maybe someday you'll be able to go back and see all the progress you've made and even redo your first comics in your new and improved style! That's probably what I'll end up doing!

[Domae]

Oh gosh yes. I cringe every time I look at episode one of The Nymph's Story because I see a million small errors here and there. It makes me want to give up/start over, but I have to remind myself that I had to draw episode one in order to make it to episodes 6, 7, 8, etc.

Also, I tell myself that there are at least 3 people somewhere looking forward to the next TNS update, so I owe it to them to get it done.

The first one helps me get started on the next episode when I want to give up, and the second one motivates me to finish.

The Nymph's Story | Tapas

[winterpenwell]

When I’m hating everything about my current project (it happens with every project) and in need of a confidence boost, I revisit what I consider to be my best work.

[ble]

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[JRHoch]

It's often three people that keep us off the ledge!

[Kittosaurus]

My motto for comic making is "finished not perfect". Which is more difficult to follow on some episodes over others...

[qwerty]

Lack of confidence is just what happens when some part of you feels like something isn't going to work. In my particular case, that part of me is almost always the smart part. The dumb part ignores at its own peril.

So generally I avoid trying to make myself feel confident. If I am confident naturally, that's great! If not, there is probably a good reason and I try to address it before moving on.

Usually that reason involves unrealistic expectations. So I adjust them until they are realistic.

Then, voila ~ confidence! lol