Image Comics Community

Any artists here have issues with confidence and get crippling paralysis at the art table? I'm only making comics for fun and I make copies and give some out to friends,.. and I get so critical of my own stuff that I end up quitting several times a week because I feel like the few people I give the comics to will hate it. I'm always super critical of every single aspect, the storytelling, plot, panel-to panel flow, if I show enough backgrounds, character motivation, how natural the dialogue is, if anything is at all confusing to the reader, holy shit I don't even think about tangents,..etc....

I guess it's good to worry about that stuff if you want to do your best,.. but for me it's goes overboard to the point where I give up because it's never good enough. (Keep in mind,.. I'm doing this for fun. No pro aspirations. You think I'd relax a little.) I think I've read way too much overly critical nit-picking about EVERYTHING on the internet that I assume that everyone is a super-critical snob and it screws with my confidence. If I had internet access when I was a kid I would've been scared to draw pictures with crayons and put them on the fridge for fear that mom and dad would rip me a new one for how much I sucked.

Is this an issue of not seeing the forest for the trees?

Yeah, there's varying manner of confidence / creative indifference issues that we all struggle with. What you describe is more of a personal matter that may be you not necessarily being comfortable with your own self and what you want your work to look like, and wanting the work to be accepted by your audience.

The first thing you need to understand is that no matter what you do, you're not going to please everybody, and that it's okay for other people to not like what you do. You can't control what they like or don't like. All you can do is move on doing what your thing is (and continually strive to improve, of course).

The second thing - and this is a more difficult issue for creators to tackle - is determining whether doing what you do is worth the time and effort for you as a person. Not just monetarily speaking, but emotionally and creatively as well, as the latter can in fact be more important than the former. In your case, you're giving the work away; it's all 'in fun'. So my advice is you should just try to just keep that your priority- have fun with it. As long as it's still fun for you, it really doesn't matter what other people think.

Now, if you're looking towards a monetary / business view of comics... sadly this business can sap the 'fun' of comics right out of you. So be certain that whatever you do, keep it 'fun', somehow. Because once this stuff stops being fun, it's no longer worth anything.

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From my deviant art journal:

A lot of what keeps me from working is that I become super critical at my own mistakes. I'm just as critical of others work and so I have to keep all this to myself. I hold myself accountable to producing "the best" with the same critical eye that I would apply to others. I have grand visions of what I wish to accomplish and I barely scratch the surface of what I want to do. When I compare my work to stuff I don't like I often find that their work is more plentiful and more polished than what I've done. This discourages me and makes me feel like drawing is a waste of time. Suddenly I feel like, "I'll never get THERE".

It's occurred to me lately that I only have a certain amount of time in order to accomplish what I want to get done. I can wait until the day that I feel like I'm getting better in order to draw. That would be a waste of my life. It's also occurred to me that I can only get better by drawing on a more regular basis. Waiting until I'm good just won't happen soon enough. It's with repeated practice that I'll even manage to get better.

So essentially I have stopped believing the lie that I am great. If I ever want to be great I'm going to have to work through a big pile of drawings before I ever get there.

I tip my hat to all those who constantly produce work and I'm humbled by your growth.

What can I say other than draw constantly. It'll take the importance out of it and also make you a better artist.

Also don't worry about invisible critics especially if you're just doing it for nothing more than your own fun.

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