I have started one of my comics, but none of my bigger projects... Yet. So I guess I'll go through my reasons why and hopefully work through them and get a more positive outlook on it by the end of this.
1) Some of my ideas are fairly new and just need(ed) more time. It takes time for a new idea to take shape. At least for me. It's too vague in the beginning and no matter how much I try deliberately plotting and planning the story, it just doesn't work. The story needs to grow and develop in my head. I'm at a point where I have a bit of a basic outline though, or at least I can work on one. So I'm getting there.
2) The prep work was/is intimidating. Scripting, character sheets, more character sheets... I'm bad at this organised systematic stuff...until I'm not. Maybe that's linked to reason 1. All of my projects are kinda big and lengthy and have a lot of characters, which requires a lot of prep work. I've started. I'm doing it now. But it takes time. But I'm trying. It'll take some more time. But I'll get there.
3) I can't focus on just one thing for too long. This is a real struggle, especially with the scope of my projects. I'm pretty much at the mercy of my brain's whims. It'll get really inspired and motivated to work on one story for a few weeks to a few months and then switch to another one. So that makes starting a big project kind of intimidating because I always have this thought in the back of my head that I won't finish it anyway, or that I'm committed now and can't work on anything else. I'm trying to combat that by working in chapters or seasons and switching in between projects, as well as doing prep work for one comic while working on another. It's still a challenge. I can't hold on to my interest in any one thing too long. But eventually my brain always goes back to all the important things. They're not lost forever if I temporarily lose interest.
4) My digital art skills were just not enough to work on a comic. Okay, hear me out. I know you don't have to be a pro to make a good comic. Your art doesn't have to be perfect. And I was not a beginner at art in general when I started doing digital art. But I had little pen control and it took me a while to familiarise myself with my program. For a while, anything that wasn't a basic sketch took me ages because I didn't have the necessary pen control and I didn't know my program well enough. I had so much to take in and learn about it that tutorials were overwhelming too, especially since there is no one way to do anything in art, including digital art, and I had to develop my own process. I was discouraged after attempting a comic page that took me hours and looked nothing lik what I had envisioned. So yeah, I needed to practise digital art and just deaw whatever I felt like drawing (lots and lots of sketches) to get to a point where working on a comic wasn't a constant struggle, because my brain just... Won't do it then. Working on a comic entails drawing a lot of things your don't wanna draw, and if you're already struggling to wrap your head around your program and draw even one steady line it's just too much struggling, for me at least. Once my coordination, muscle memory (and visual memory) improved I could actually get started on a comic without every panel giving me a deathwish. So yeah, I think I'm at a point where I can create somewhat decent comic art in a reasonable amount of time. But that took time.
5) My mental health makes working on anything consistently very difficult. Yeah I don't really have a solution for that one. I live in a country with universal Healthcare and access to mental Healthcare is still limited. It is what it is.
6) Perfectionism. Kinda ties into reason 4. I had this vision for my comic that's pretty unrealistic because, well, I can't do several long illustration style comics while also pursuing another career. I'm not sure I've let go of Tha perfectionism enough. Working on a comic does help though because over time you just learn not to give a fuck about imperfect anatomy and perspective and move on (as long as the panel is still readable).
7) Some of my stories are pretty niche and I'm afraid they won't appeal to anyone. Including my current comic btw. I don't really know how to go about this one. I know numbers don't matter, but sometimes I still get that nagging thought that if I start working on some of these projects it'll be years of unpaid labour for nothing because no one will read them. And then I ask myself, is all that work worth it? I enjoy daydreaming about my stories just as much and that takes less time and energy than turning them into a comic. But I also really WANT to draw them and give them a chance. So yeah, I have some insecurities surrounding that that I don't know how to deal with.