when it comes to others, anyone in the discord knows i like to motivate you to keep drawing and that you WILL improve!! i love all kinds of art so yours is no different! also artists here?? reading this? love your art! when it comes to me? i just remember i draw for fun!! i literally cant go a week without drawing at least something anymore..... even when i dont want to, i do it to remind myself art is a fun hobby i do! it should stay fun and i want to see myself improve over time!!!
When it comes to my drawings, the best thing I can do for my self esteem is to not draw when I'm around my older sister, who is actually going to school for art. She's better than drawing than I am, and it's a little hard to feel happy about my work when she's sitting next to me drawing a masterpiece. My writing though...I don't really feel all that self-conscious about my writing, just because I feel so much more confident in what I write than in what I say. It's really hard for me to articulate what I think and how I feel, but when I'm sitting in front of a keyboard, the words just come to me. I feel like I can express how I feel through written words much better than I will ever be able to out loud, and because of this I don't really feel bad about my writing.
I find that not looking at anyone elses art online makes me feel just a tad better about my skills. I have a very nasty habit of comparing my work to others... I guess looking at my really old drawings helps too. I mean, some of my drawings from even as recent as 3-ish years ago look atrocious. I could barely draw hands or anything remotely humanoid. Haha At least now I can draw half decent humans.
I just do whatever and try to fun, to be perfectly honest. It's not like I'm getting paid for any of it, so I may as well just try my best to have fun with it. I would draw more if I was better at it (I'm not bad at it, there's just not a lot I can actually draw), sure, but I'd like to think my writing is at least decent compared to my past work. Of course, my other hobby (video games) gets in the way sometimes.
The main thing that keeps me from getting down on myself about my art is that I will have zero chances of improving if I don’t actually do it. It’s difficult sometimes, but that’s how you get better in the first place. Done is better than perfect, and you will (hopefully) learn what works and what doesn’t as you keep making more stuff. It also helps when I have other people around who are making similar artistic journeys. My motivation has been a little low for a while because no one close to me really does GFX anymore. There’s no friendly competition for me these days, and I feel like my progress has been stagnating as a result. Looking back at my old stuff also motivates me. It’s amazing how much you improve at little things as the years progress. You realize that a lot of the things that you had to work super hard for are now second nature.
I have the terrible habit of being constantly unsatisfied with my writing, and therefore continuously going back to change things I've already written long ago. For me, a story isn't finished even after I've written the final word, I'll always keep going back and changing things, editing tiny mistakes that I think are stupid (but perhaps in a lot of cases the original wording would've been much better).
