What does jealousy look like for you?

Notice that they are more good at drawing and more popular make me jealous sometimes.
Usually go to a corner and cry for this and catch by brother is a habit lol.

Jealousy for me is rooted in not being happy where I'm at in the present. It's something that happens not just in art but in finances, respect, completed works, etc.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think all the validation/explanation in my head such as, "I'm jealous because I'm a better artist, but they are more famous," or, "I'm jealous because I feel that if I had been given their opportunities I would have done as well as them," are just me trying to give a reason for the emotion to exist. But the what is really happening is simply I'm not happy where I'm at today.

And when I am good with where I am today, then neither jealousy nor rationalization occurs. So yeah, lots of inner workings for me.

I won't go as far as to say I never feel jealous of other artists but I genuinely feel (and think?) very little about the 'competition' here and in other places. If I feel anything it's angry at myself for not doing enough- like if I see someone churning out page after page and showing loads of progress I mentally beat myself up for being slow. That's about as deep as it goes. Sometimes I don't understand why a series is popular and sometimes I get irked when the only apparent reason people follow something is for the promise of sexy stuff further down the line. That can be demoralising. But I'm not angry at the artist! I get a kind of 'well why the hell don't I just do that?' attitude then get annoyed at my own hang ups (like being too god damn shy to draw sexy/naked things when I have zero problem with that in person??). It's very frustrating.

Very true! I can't imagine how many of today's popular artists would have completely flown under the radar if not for the internet. I would have probably given up a long time ago if I had to deal with nothing but gatekeepers >u>;;

The only thing I'm jealous about these days is people whose hands/arms are still intact enough that they can draw or write whenever they have spare time and not have to wonder if it's too much abuse to their limbs on top of making a comic page. XP

Very often its with people I, for a lack of better word, hate, getting more recognition than me. A while ago, said artist who i really don't like was staff picked - and proceeded to go on hiatus for a few months (essentially mid 2016 to 2017) and it made me soooo mad. I don't do much about it than grump for a bit before moving on to something else to complain about.

only once have I gotten spiteful bc of how much more skilled an artist was than me and I got mad every time they posted, but now I'm friends with them and am no longer grumpy about it.....

i genuinely don't understand myself sometimes.

My jealously doesn't come from other artists usually. Not their skill or their fans anyways. I think I don't have these jealous feelings in that regard, because I have no way of knowing if those fans or subs or numbers on a webpage translate to anything useful for that artist. VSEPR had almost no subs on smackjeeves and maybe only 2 comments, despite months of advertising. We decided to try doing a kickstarter to take it to print and to our surprise it funded in 24 hours. We got lots of amazing feedback and got our book printed and distributed. So, although I wasn't popular online, plenty of folks still thought I was good enough to invest in with their hard earned dollars. It was a humbling experience for sure.

Things I do get jealous of are when artists I know who share a similar success level in terms of books published, cons attended and general known-ness online, get invited to cons as guests. I want to be a guest so bad! I won a badge art contest and I thought that would be cool, but I was treated with a lot of hostility at the con where I won, by other artists who entered... so I can check that off my bucket list to never do again... so maybe being a guest wouldn't be the best wish, but you never know till it happens right? nervous laugh

Hate to revive this thread, but I need to speak my piece while I'm waiting for my new drawing tablet to come in the mail (RIP old tablet of 4 years, you will be missed.) and thus am unable to otherwise work on my comic Life of an Aspie1.

Jealousy is an ugly mistress for me. I've tried to distance myself from it as much as possible in the past, but there's only so long you can ignore a problem before you are forced to confront it and so for me, I get jealous at the same stuff everybody here gets jealous at.

I bust my ass to keep a buffer for LoaA going strong giving up time I would have otherwise spent playing video games. Meanwhile, another creator practically throws something mediocre (imo) together and gets instant praise from everybody and their cousin on social media.

Related to the above point, again, I stick to the grind as best I can making sure LoaA updates three times a week. Meanwhile, someone who's just starting out automatically has their success handed to them on a silver platter courtesy of a Staff Pick. Now to be fair to staff, they have seemingly gotten better as of late about not handing out staff picks like free candy to new creators especially those who really are just starting out and don't already have a strong fanbase elsewhere on the interwebs. Also, its worth pointing out that just because something's popular doesn't automatically make it good. Look at Fifty Shades of Gray. (Is it too late to rag on that piece of crap?)

And of course people around the same age as me or even younger who draw like gods in comparison to me though I'm past the point of wanting my art to look uber professional having realized that pretty art doesn't always translate to good writing, but that meh artwork can be salvaged if the writing has something going for it.

takes deep breathe

Okay, this is going to be long winded.

Let me start off saying that I don't have a comic on this site. I probably won't for a couple of years because I don't feel like my skill level is quite there yet. So when I get jealous of another artist, it isn't because I am envious of their success, it's because I'm envious of their skill level.

I've always liked to draw. I haven't always been good at drawing, despite how much I enjoy it. My cousins used to tease me when I was in the eighth grade because of how god-awful my drawings were. And then I saw How to Draw Manga with Mark Crilley on Funimation's free On Demand section one day. I watched the videos. I practiced. I discovered his video tutorials on youtube. I practiced more. And I improved. I received tons of compliments from my family, including said cousins.

A few years later, I took an art class. It was fun, but I quickly realized that both my friends and people several years younger than me were way more skilled than I was.

I would never say anything out loud, but internally I wallowed in self-pity about how unfair it was that they were so good and I sucked. It was irritating.

I got discouraged. I drew, but not nearly as much.

It's only been these past few years where I have matured enough to realize that they weren't born 'better' than me. They just had more practice. A lot of those kids were put into art classes at young ages and/or grew up in artistic families. I didn't. When I asked to experiment with art projects I was told, 'Wait until we get some newspaper so you don't make a mess'. And then it was forgotten about until I brought it up again and those same words were repeated again.

Now that I'm an adult, I can experiment with art projects all I want. I'm the one that pays for it and cleans up the mess. There are still a lot of people--some that are in their mid-teens--who are significantly more skilled than I am. But I'm getting better at not being discouraged so easily. I look back at my sketchpads from a year ago and see how much I've improved. Yes, I have a long way to go. But whining about how people who have been practicing nonstop since they were born are better than me isn't going to improve anything. Only practice will.

tldr; I get jealous of people who draw better than me, but I realize that's stupid because all that means is that I should go practice more. Like now. Seriously, what am I still doing here on the forums.

I think the closest thing I get to jealousy is when a lot of people on here including my friends are able to produce more pages than I do xD

We debated a long time before responding to this due to the prickly nature of discussing negative human behaviors and how things can rapidly devolve into becoming personal.

Envy is a very common emotion in society, that if left unchecked, can spiral into a lot of negative actions and consequences. Envy is heavily encouraged in a society that has a strong emphasis on consumption. After all, if you can make customer B envious of what customer A has, then customer B will more likely buy it. With envy being encouraged at the earliest of ages, it can be difficult to try to overcome later in life. Unforunately some individuals end up spending their entire lives chasing what other individuals have, wracking their bodies with unnecessary stress, self-inflicting their households with cripping debt, and taking out their fustrations on others, all in an attempt to keep up with the Joneses.

The cure for envy is gratitude. Rather than comparing oneself to others ("why don't I have as much as them") why not compare yourself to yourself and appreciate the progression? "Wow, my art is much better than last year." We have a dance competition training studio in the same complex as our office and the studio has a sign that reads in the entryway, "It's not about being perfect. It's about being better today than you were yesterday."

Also, rather than thinking about what you don't have, consider what you do. "My webcomic has more subscribers than it did last month." Now think, what if there was no Tapastic, no internet, and no way to publish your comic because everything was controlled by gatekeepers? Then what?

Most here are creators and therefore are artists. A story that really spoke to us as artists is the Land Philharmonic. Despite the conditions they are in, by no fault of their own, they rise above and execute their art to the best of their ability with the tools that they can find.

It's much easier to be a thankful artist, and not jealous artist, after knowing their story.

Land Philharmonic1

My jealousy is more admiration I think? Is like oh wow I wish I was like that, lol. Sometimes I wish I had more willpower in order to focus more in learning to draw. But, look a butterfly isn't it pretty?

I'm jealous of artists that manage to put out so many pieces of art in a year. I see them upload something nearly once a week and I think, "How?? Do you have time???"

It makes me feel like I'm unproductive and should try to produce finished pieces more often. They spend there time practicing their trade/hobby in order to actively improve while I just play around and draw once in a while.

Generally I'm not jealous of artists younger than me/better than me/more popular than me.

In the last months I have watched my baby learn how to crawl. 9 months old, and she only manages to move on her own on the ground now. What's the link with the topic, you might ask? The link is that I no longer believe that young people learn faster than adults. I am pretty sure that if I spent every single awake hour drawing for nine months, I'd improve a lot.

I believe that adults (or older young people) just get frustrated earlier, because they compare themselves to others, because others are doing better younger. So jealousy? Jealousy is a distraction. If my baby spent her time looking angrily at 9 months old who are already learning to walk and being angry about it, she probably wouldn't be crawling now! It's not easy every day, but I'll try to imitate her, and while I don't have 9 months to spend on drawing only (alas), I can at least be as stubborn and patient as she is.

I was getting jealous about sub counts for some time. I thought the amount of subs for my work compared to someone who might have something that I saw as inferior compared to mine was frustrating (I'll admit sometimes I still struggle with it). I was used to getting likes from my wordpress, and I became desperate for any kind of acknowledgement including re-working my series twice and asking multiple times for feedback. While I am working on the feedback I have gotten I've stopped comparing my work with others. I wanted to make friends and dedicated subscribers on Tapastic, and even though it's still small I think I've done pretty well with that for the time being. Jealousy only made me paranoid about my work being "bad" but honestly I should've already known better. I love my characters, I know that my stories are relatively entertaining and can either be hit or miss. I've been doing this for years and I have to remember it's a waiting game (like a dmv with no one at the counter, but I still have a number). I'm still hopeful of getting 50 subs and comments by the end of the year, but for the time being I'm content in giving the best strips I can for my current subs.

I guess I didn't really answer the question... I'm also jealous of the fact that some jokes I come up with turn out to be done by someone else...

Wow. This is a kind of powerful thought. I'm a parent with a little one at home. I love art. I love all the paint and the pencils and everything. But I have absolutely done this to my son and he is little so he doesn't understand. He is just sad he doesn't get to make art and moves on. I am 100% absolutely not going to do this any more. He wants to make art, gosh darn it, its gunna happen. To heck with the newspaper! I'm sorry this happened to you.

Your welcome!

Humans are capable of so many amazing things, such as adapting garbage into instruments they've never heard before.

But humans are also capable of so many terrible things.

It's quite a dichotomy. So much potential for good, so much potential for evil.

And why so many choose to do negative or outright evil things to each other will never make sense to us.

I think jealously is a small issue that like to display itself as a much bigger issue. You look at people and think to themselves. My life would be better if i was more like blank or i bet their life is so blank. You think your life is complete hell and it will always be. Because you are not like that person. Then you find their life is exactly the same or maybe a little worse.