What happens if the people you love, trust, and support don’t want you to go to social media anymore and force you to delete all your art accounts and social media accounts. I lost faith in strangers, and now I lost all faith!

[thetrivyadeabhb2]

Hi everybody, I have bad news. I’m a failure. I haven’t written any new stories, i have not made any new comics. I have to do what my family wants, and follow every rule for the sake of restricting and making manga, because my teachers want to make them happy because rules have to be followed now and immediately.
This is happening now, because I wrote a pen pal letter to my family from a social media site, and yet he was a sex offender who wants to send more letters. And based on my knowledge my teachers, mom, and principal saw that letter and I didn’t find it in the mail, because they were all scared of me. I have been doing dangerous things and I wasn’t trying to be dangerous or unsafe. But they were right to an extent: I was reckless.
The only thing I have now for digital art is an iPad.
My family is now an angry and attacking bounty hunter, my teachers might seem trust me but, are out and about to track me down, I’m officially a black hole of guilt, depression, anger, sadness, and dissatisfaction and disappointment. I hate to break it to you, but the only people I can rely on now are librarians, the counselor, and my friends. It’s this knowledge that I come to the conclusion, that I’m done. I’ve fulfilled my purpose of asking questions, and am on the verge of fatally thinking up more ideas, and make my manga and comics like a school assignment. The truth is this:
I’m not good enough, and trying to make a story is getting out of my control. Even worse, I can’t do anything about it.
People are in a harsh society now, for multiple reasons and in reality, are setting the bar high. And it’s so high and competitive to make everything perfect, to a point were no matter who you are, it won’t reach to that level. Everyone aspires to be a manga artists, and now for reason where overhating and rage baiting is the norm, we can’t win anything. This is the reason why people outside of Japan don’t get nice things, and we are utter failures. People will never give you a level of kindness anymore, and people are rude, gross, and mean now. I shouldn’t have trusted strangers.
How can I make manga and make good things if i can’t write a good story good enough? I lost my ability to write good stories, and when I think of my stories, I can’t put it on paper because everything has to be perfect and set the super high bar’s expectations!
And how can I make a good comic story any ideas and tips? And how can I draw monochrome manga (not grayscale) they want monochrome! And I’m really bad at coloring things.
I’m not a great storyteller and I need advice and help. I deleted all of my social media accounts because I get nothing.
I don’t write stories because no one give me advice, and I have to do everything by myself. Times are changing and I don’t want to chat win a stranger anymore. I lost hope and I don’t know how to draw on an iPad tablet anymore for manga, and I need advice now on storytelling and drawing manga now or it will be too late. Thanks for the support. It’s time I draw manga and detach myself to harm myself and lose myself to avoid drawing ever again in the process.

[moontokkym]

Hi there!
I get that what's happening can be very frustrating, but reading this post and skimming your previous posts, I'm getting the impression that they may be right, i don't think you're ready for social media yet.

Your most recent posts before this one show you having trouble with jealousy of others and misreading things as aggressive in tone, and now you're saying your parents took you off websites because you were in a dangerous situation, and you're obviously feeling the pressure and the illusion of perfection in others and inadequecy in yourself that social media can give people, and it seems you've got a really bad case of it.

I honestly think that your parents made the right call: you need a social media break to talk with your friends in real life, people around you who love you and want to encourage your hobbies, and so you can stop comparing yourself with everyone to the point it paralyses you. Spoiler: the standards in art have always been high, but all artists start somewhere and you're not seeing their first rodeo, you're seeing their Olympic show jumping performance. That's why it looks like your stuff is bad and everyone else is better.

You need a break from online and try to relearn to love the process of making art again. I hope you feel better soon.

PS: Japan is not the idealised place you seem to think it is. Japan has similar problems to other Asian and European countries. I'm not saying this to say Japan is bad, Japan is beautiful and rich in culture, language, art and history, with good creative kind people who live there like any other country, but that's the point, it's just a country, so it also has flaws like any other country. There are ragebaiters and haters and unkind people in Japan too. This also could come from you being too online so you have a biased view of things.

[thetrivyadeabhb2]

Thank you for the advice. I appreciate it.
Also, how do I find friends who would really help me make manga, if there are none that know or watch manga like me at school, and the only friends that I have that red it don’t care?
I have friends that know nothing about manga, and the only people that do are not here anymore and they moved to different schools, and I cannot get the support i need for making manga and manga stories. Where I live there are no writing workshops, no friends that know a lot about manga (and only know about western comics or graphic novels instead), there are none that live close to where I live. And what happens if I got no support with no parents who know how to write or draw manga?

I keep changing what I want my stories to be about. I also have trouble reading books now, because I don’t know what to read, I certainly don’t want to fail making manga and the stories i want to make. What can I do?

[feuersichel]

Woow, wow... I think, the first thing you need to do is take a good breath ... and then another one. Go off (un)social media and take care of yourself first. Get some professional help, if possible. It helps, I had some myself aswell.

Your situation seems like something, noone here can realy help with...
The only advice I can give you: There will always be someone better or worse than you. So, just draw, what you love to draw. Don't mesure yourself with others, but with your own progress. If possibe, get a non art related job. This way, you free yourself from the pressure of perfection, and you are able to draw all the little imperfection, that makes a story lifely.

I wish you the best.

[Lensing]

You need mileage to get good, writing stories and drawing.
The last thing you need is social media.
You have to suck first to get good in years.
Draw and write a lot when you are serious about it.
Ask pros for advice to level up your skills.
Don´t give up before your journey even started.

[moontokkym]

What you seem to want from your friends is a teacher, not a peer.

I'm going to be pretty harsh here, but because it's necessary: if you go into manga because you want recognition and admiration, you will fail. Manga, though quicker than western styles a lot of the time, still takes months and years of work behind the scenes on your own before you even get the chance of recognition, and even then it's not guaranteed. It's a lonely job and it's easy to get in your head or overwork, so it's important to keep friends whom you share other hobbies with and who love you for you, not your work.

It is also almost 100% guaranteed that you will have at least one "failure" before you have any semblance of success. Your first works are, by definition, going to be a bit naff, but you have to make them to get the practice in to be able to make something better. I started writing at 14, i started making comic pages at 15. I made the first version of my current comic Petrichor in 2020, the current version's first page was made in 2021. My first comic pages were incredibly bad compared to what I'm currently putting out, but I love them because they are what allowed me to make Petrichor today.

For your manga to work, you have to have a fire in you that keeps you wanting to make your manga just for the satisfaction of having made it. Any recognition is extra.

As for teachers, i recommend the good old way of books, as right now social media seems to be unproductive. I personnally used Mark Crilley's manga tutorial books when I started and I can still recommend for people starting out. I know you said you can't read rn because you keep changing the story you want to tell, try separating different things into different stories and then develop the one you like the most right now, and try to make it short. All of it is good practice.

Once you recenter yourself a bit, i can recommend Proko's beginner series in figure drawing and gesture drawing on Youtube, provided you can stay on that specific channel and not read the comments. The videos are made to help people learn. Learning to draw fundamentals is really important in manga and any stylisation.

[kyupol]

A couple of things...

1) if you want to make Manga, just go. Regardless of your skill level.

Here's my skill level when I started:

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2) dont let what anyone says get in your head to the point where it makes you a complete people pleaser. Because guess what.. THATS AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK. you cant please everybody lol