I've never had any confidence in anything I've ever done. I try to watch your streams sometimes to see if there's anything I could pick up or learn but eventually I get really angry at myself and stop watching after a few minutes. What (in your opinion) should I do? I want to draw really REALLY badly and I have so many ideas floating around in my head but no one ever seems interested and I don't feel like I could ever be nearly as good as you.
Gosh, this is a very interesting question - I’ll try to answer as best and genuinely as I can.- Confidence: You’d be so surprised how your peers have little either, I certainly question and overthink every image I work on. I can’t say that I’ve built up ‘confidence’ over the years, but I have definitely learned how to accept the fact that I’m not perfect and share art even when I’m not confident in it. I’ve never been confident in anything I do either, I have some intense anxiety myself.
- Learning from Streams: That’s actually a very tough thing to do, unless the artist is giving a step-by-step of their process. (Which you can absolutely ask me for anytime when I work) I watch them more to relax and take a peek into an artist’s personal style, but learning from a stream is incredibly tough at least for me. Sometimes you can find little “Ah ha!” moments by watching, so perhaps watching streams to learn is only going to frustrate you. (Unless it’s a stream for learning, then hey that’s awesome)- Anger: When I was a fair bit younger and just starting out, I would find myself getting jealous, envious, even angry. I’d look at an artist with this hopeless feeling of “I’ll never be that.” But… the best you or anyone can do is keep trying. Use that anger to push yourself. Most of all, try hard not to compare yourself to others - generally those people may have quite a few years on you in experience! I still sometimes get a heart wrenching feeling when looking at my favorite artists, and wonder if I should be farther along in my own skill. There will always be someone better, and that anger will subside as you gain experience.- Getting Interest: This is one topic I have little advice on, because to me art is more of a passion. Interest from others is a wonderful thing that can occur from putting yourself out there and being active - but to me, it’s not that important. I have ideas to share, but I would share them in private even if I didn’t online. I have many things I don’t share as well, but this comes from a point of view of an introvert. I don’t like much attention, I appreciate what I get, but at the same time it makes me incredibly nervous. The only way to get interest is to be active, and that takes a lot out of people who don’t have the time to invest in it.- Good as _____ : The wonderful thing about creativity is you don’t have to be as good or as bad as anyone! You can make things and share them, even if they are simple sketches, or stories or any format. If you have ideas, write them down! Keep a logbook, get them out of your head and into something you can read. I feel if I don’t get my ideas out on paper (computer screen) I might explode. I want to be as good as my idols, but in the end being as “good” as someone isn’t what’s important. Being good for -yourself- is. If you want to make art then you have to just do it, there’s no shortcut to working on things for yourself.___
This is long, I know haha. But your questions come from a very unique place, and although I’m not a guru or anything I’ve definitely been in a similar situation. Putting yourself below someone else doesn’t work, because chances are that person is good because they worked at it every day, hours and hours and years of practice to become where they are. The circle is complete when you do the same thing and work hard, then someday you too will have a person wishing they were as “good” as you.
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