i think... trusting myself. i can often fall into an editing rut where i just read and reread something, going 'I DONT KNOW IF ITS GOOD ENOUGH!!!'
Hardest part for me is research. I mean, I know my story is fictions but I still want to make it as real as possible. Sometimes, what you need can be researched easily. But sometimes, even big bro google can't help you much.
It's funny that when you write, then suddenly you have to do research on CT scan. How the machine works and what is the side effect etc etc... Of course, I only do basic on that. Thus why, disclaimers always helps! Don't sue me for any misinformation on medical stuff! I'm not going to do in-depth research on CT scan when its not even that important in my story.
The time it takes. My brain can move through a story in minutes but both my hands and skills are far from it. Writing takes too long, art takes even longer, and it always feels like I'm not getting efficient even if I'm improving.
Sometimes I'll create a really cool painted panel in one hour and then the next one takes 4 hours and is a struggle and I wonder where my ability went.
I'm never working at the same level, but there are flashes where I'm like damn, you go!
Making myself do it. There's lots of time in the day and I just decide to procrastinate instead. Daydreaming is really important (pick up the Time magazine about creativity if you haven't yet -it's a great read)! But that's not my problem. My problem largely is just lack of the habit of writing or drawing. I try to make myself do it and have others hold me accountable, like setting set times to stream or something, and just... no one shows up to hold me to it or anything so I just don't do it. It's a hard wall to break through when largely you're just doing it for yourself, and if you have any fans, they're so... so.... SO silent. I'm actually considering getting a beta reader, but at 300k, and past tries to get one (when the story was 150k) didn't work out, I'm constantly disheartened about it.
I have ways around it, and some involve just writing on physical paper and not my computer, or changing which keyboard I'm on/where I'm sitting.
Yeah, I fully agree! The story passes through my mind quicker than my hands can draw. By the time I've sketched out a few pages, the story has progressed so much that it overwhelms me >w< ''
The tyranny of the blank page. Once you get those first pencil marks down the rest is plain sailing, but first you have to get past that pristine sheet of white paper...
This is why i always size up my thumbnails and work off of them. It feels like the page isnt blank even when the art is super scribbly and rough.
focus, i always feel like my mind is a million places at once and to have better focus would make the creative process among other things so much easier.
aside from that it's a lot of the really specific detail oriented parts. Nailing down the script for a scene from dialogue, to interactions and movement, or coming up with interesting but also functional character designs, and environments and bgs will be my bane for a long time i'm sure.
Mine is kind of two parts:
1.) My sketches are usually too messy to use as my finalized line art but then I also feel like my sketches are closer to the general style/aesthetic that I'm looking for usually compared to my inks/lineart... it always feels like something gets lost in that stage, and I haven't been able to find a good solution yet (either sketching cleaner or improving my lining technique seems like the two obvious answers... working on both lol)
2.) Part of the above problem might be partially because i just don't like doing the inking/lineart step... like at all lmao. It's like the one step out of the whole process that I feel like I do out of necessity rather than enjoying doing it. Sketching, Coloring, Lettering, Effects... all of those things I like a lot. Linework is bleh to me.
Finding balance with the pacing of the particular chapter I'm writing. I always wanna make the chapter even keeled, but then I start kind of second guessing myself if I'm making it too slow or if I'm making it too action packed...
different angles and positions. I have a hard time visualizing a pose for my characters fully, except for the main details which really make the final version pretty awkward. Also low angles are a huge weakness to me.
I struggle with never feeling good enough. The story is suddenly not good enough, the art is suddenly not good enough, and by proxy, it means I'm not good enough. It's so hard not to compare my art to other people's and get discouraged. Comparison really is the thief of joy. Enough mopey-ness from me, though. I can see improvement, and that always encourages me. Maybe someday I'll get closer to what I want my art to look like!
Time and health, I'm always busy and it's hard to write/draw when you just want to rest after work. Most of the time, the timing was never right for me 🤦♀️ but hey, at first I continously draw at night after work and now my back's f up from then on. So sad.
Art Block, everyone experienced this for sure.
Pressure. Usually if its my series, when I got pressured my work's gonna be messed up. I'm usually good if it's not mine (like working with other artist)
Even though I haven't updated my series, I can see my improvements through my freelance work with the other artist. I can definitely say it was not an easy road. You'll constantly experience hard rock, trial and error.
I think the two main hardest parts for me are actually taking the time to write it and writing it in a way that doesn't sound boring.
There's also just general things I fear about constantly
- bad grammar
- choppy, distracting sentences that I haven't caught
- pieces that are hard to understand for the reader for various different reasons
- pieces that make the reader misunderstand what I've wrote
- etc
Hi all. The most challenging part for me when writing is determining whether to write in 1st person or 3rd person. I prefer writing in 1st person because it's easier in my opinion. Another challenge is trying to incorporate feelings and other expressions like interjections in the story. I find myself constantly googling the correct interjections to use to express situations like choking, coughing, sighing, sneezing, surprise, laughter, indifference, etc.
Regards
Sometimes I'll attempt something pretty difficult and pull it off, but the next time it's much more of a struggle. I'm surprised at how my skill level is so inconsistent.
... I guess on the art side the biggest problem would be consistency. I've never been great about using the ideal methods of preparation for your work like, oh, I dunno, making character references and stuff. Perhaps unsurprisingly my characters tend to vary radically in design especially after their first appearance. It might kind of be justify-able as I usually don't have the character just the way I want to draw them starting out, but otherwise I sort of wish I could be more consistent.
As for writing the problem is about holding back important events in the story. I'm only releasing one page a week which means the story isn't progressing all that quickly at the moment. It can be really tempting to start dumping one major event after another into the story and really pushing things forward at a break-neck pace but I worry about anyone binge-reading the comic becoming worn out by that.