I've been feeling a bit discouraged about my drawings lately. Could you give me some tips or something?
The best kind of motivation comes from seeing your progress. I.e., look at this:
(2007) I think this would have taken me ~24 hours back then. Younger me thought I was the shit. Well I was so wrongâŠ
(2016) 4 hours? Iâm still shit at some stuff but man look at that. Me in 2007 would have been so stoked at being able to make that.
Try doing that with some of your older work?
Other general things about art (that work for me):
Take a break - do something else that isnât art. Read stories. Walk your dog. Go on (MMO) raids, play a match. Bug a SO/friend/internet stranger with shitty memes. Daydream. Whatever makes you happy, but also:
Build discipline - this is like going to the gym. Motivation comes and goes but discipline stays. It will take time, but the reward is worth it. No matter how talented you are, you will not be great overnight. I like these quotes:Â
You donât need talent to practice. Hard work beats talent when talent doesnât work hard. (source)
IMO behind every good artist is countless nights of frustration, of thinking youâre not good enough, of actually being not good enough. Literally thousands of hours of shitty drawings and studies. Youâre not alone in feeling like this, itâs normal.
Donât wait for motivation to work. You feel discouraged? You feel like what youâre doing is crap? Too bad, the world isnât going to wait for you to get your shit together. Set a schedule and stick to it.Â
So what if you did a scribbly doodle in five minutes? Thatâs five more minutes of experience over someone who did nothing because they gave up.
Be an optimist - I know this is hard. You find an artist you look up to (mine are Peter Mohrbacher, Noah Bradley, sackcloth and ashes, Frank Frazetta, Milo Manara, among others) and you think okay cool, theyâre awesome - but it took me a long time to go from âIâll never be able to do thisâ to âgive me enough time, Iâll do itâ.Â
You need to realize, itâs not a competition. There will always be someone better than you. Which brings us to the next point:
Remember why you enjoy your work - Why did you start doing this? Did you want to tell stories? Did you want to interact with an audience? Did you want to see if you could do something?Â
I find that intrinsic motivation - doing something for its own sake - works better for me. The feelings of knowing I want something done and figuring out how to do it, and looking at something you made and going, âWow, I made that,â is what drives me (hence why I like software development and art), but that is a personality thing, I think, so it may be different for you.
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