What do you do when you write/draw an episode and have doubts?

[EncryptedWriting]

Wow, I am depressed.

Finished writing a long chapter (over 3500 words), and I am super happy with the first part of it, at least. Yet, thinking about the second part, I am like, wow, this sucks. I don't want to go back and rewrite the whole thing because we are talking maybe 2000 words of rewriting, and I know you're thinking "that isn't a lot" but to a college student who has any time to even think, it is a LOT of time. With most tapas featured episodes clocking in at 500-700 words, think of this as rewriting three to four flipping chapters!

How do you deal with these doubts, as a writer or artists? I know part of me is happy with it but the other part of me just sighs and wants to bang my head into a wall.

Have you ever felt this way before?

What advice do you have, writer or artist? Or both?

[TheLemmaLlama]

I just go 'screw it, I'm declaring it finished and never looking at it again'

I do sometimes end up looking at it again, but only if I realised I screwed up in a way that fucks up the continuity for future episodes. And sometimes, if you look back on it after some time, you find you don't hate it that much after all. And even if you do, the occasional bad episode doesn't really turn me off from a series I enjoy overall, speaking for myself as a reader :]

[Mallory]

I walk away for at least 24 hours and do something else. When I come back it's either not as big of a deal as I thought (particularly with art, I tend to get attached to nebulous ideas and if my product doesn't match my vision I often pout, even if the product, on its own, is completely fine. After 24 hours I'm usually more used to the final product and I can then see that it's not as bad as I thought it was), or I have enough energy/right head space to fix it.

[BLTX]

I walk away for at least 24 hours and do something else. When I come back it's either not as big of a deal as I thought (particularly with art) or I have enough energy/right head space to fix it.

This.

[Questionable_Liquid]

Yup yup! With you there.

If I mess up on a drawing over a sketch and knowing erasing it would only leave a fat smudge, I just go with it.

Honestly though, I blame my erasers for not giving me reassurance that I can redraw over what I failed at while covering what was removed.

[river121693]

Aside from what others have said (I would even say let it stew for a month), you could also ask others for critique.

[descendantsofether]

I'm actually encountering the same issue right now. I wrote 2 chapters in advance which ended up getting split into 3 chapters each. The latter three, however, were way more engaging and about 3x as long as the first set, so now I have to go back and redo the first set of 3 to make it as good as the second set. I've been working on the alterations for about a month and a half now, so it's safe to say it's not going well haha.

I think whenever I find myself in a position like this one, its better to get another pair of eyes on the whole thing and see what can stay and what can go. It becomes rather easy to get lost in your own self-doubt and want to scrap the whole thing, but the prospect of starting over is arguably more stressful than just releasing it as a piece of garbage. When you have someone else take a look at it though, it makes it easier to determine which parts of your work are worth keeping and which can be trashed/reworked.

Now if only I could take my own advice...

Hope this helps!

[Lev404]

you have to remember that only u think its bad, only you know that you could of done better, your readers just see it as a regular episode, they don't know that you could of done better so they would see that episode as a regular one, so don't overthink these things

[TedGravesArt]

That's tough dude. It's a hard call to make between keeping all that work or killing your darlings.
Story time. When I was penciling the second issue of my comic, I made a really dumb mistake and accidentally deleted the first 9 pages. Irrevocable, absolute, soul crushing. I kept thinking about all that work I lost, and how long I spent on it, and those panels I meticulously crafted and was really happy with. Much gnashing of teeth. The next day I sucked it up and started all over again. The redraw took me a shorter amount of time, and since it was my second stab at the panels, the art turned out far better than the first go around. Plus I grew in skill from all that extra practice, and I get to carry that forward.
Ultimately you gotta make this choice yourself, but maybe a change in perspective is what you need. If you're not happy with how the second half of that chapter turned out, maybe consider what you can gain rather than what you'd lose.

[doublemelon]

Yes, I drew the longest episode I've ever made and felt doubt about the necessity of the episode.

The only way to fix it was by getting a feedback. I don't have an editor or beta readers so I asked online. Thankfully enough, someone who was already reading my comic saw my post and gave feedback. She suggested good ideas to make the episode work.

In the end, I only had to edit the dialogue for the episode to make sense and more enjoyable to read.

[WoollyPAR]

Honestly, I just keep going. Doubts suck, they don't feel good, it doesn't get you anywhere, you just feel stuck. It's kinda insensitive to say "just keep going" when I know it's not that easy. I'm a perfectionist myself, but I know I've gotta move on eventually. Even if you fix the cringe as hell parts now, when you look back on it later in your career, you're gonna see even more cringe as hell parts. That's a good thing tho, it means you're getting better! You're able to more easily recognize your flaws. The only hard part is resisting the urge to correct them. I just say "fuck it" and upload, since I already know the next thing I do is going to be MILES betterthan the cringe things I've started to notice. SO instead of focuzing on the mistakes you've made and wanting to correct them, or just throw the whole thing away and start over, focus on the next thing. There's not enough time to focus on your past, look ahead and do better moving forward, that's how you improve and keep going.

Hope I could help :3

[faisalhussein394]

When in DOUBT, Shut it DOWN!

Aside from that, I have made multiple (5-6 times I think) comics before I even got an appropriate job and they all went downhill.

Even with the fanfiction comic, I made that got so many views, comments, and likes I still dropped it.

Why? Because it is not what I wanted and also it's not the right website to publish my own comics (deviant art).

You have to find what you're passionate about. Is it history? Mythology? Real-life event? Horror? Sci-fi?

The reason why I make the current comic is that it is based on what I love, inspired by middle eastern history, mythology with a set of fantasy, worldbuilding, and lore.

If I'm ever in doubt, I go back to reading and listening to more histories and mythologies that inspire my comics. That doubt will go away, and it's back to making more pages.

[system]

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