i almost cancelled an entire project I was genuinely excited about because of one stranger's casual opinion who didn’t agree with my art choice. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but being the insecure person I am, it sounded like a perfectly rational idea at the time.
Seeing that one person just not like my art was fine. You will never have something perfect and loved. It's the specific words that stick, no matter the intent. I don't even remember their name. It would have hit exactly the same if I got it as an anonymous sticky note pushed under the door after I taped my silly little crayon drawing to the window for the world to see. It has no association to the person, it is just their opinion, it is just words written down. Really, I can't blame them.
You know what I can blame? My own mind. I gave those words so much power to push me to change it into something I didn't like, all to satisfy the fear of reading it again and thinking it was objectively true. I felt like a complete failure of an artist.
And yes, as an artist, the goal is to grow or learn or create. Sometimes you need feedback to listen to and apply in order to learn. Sometimes that feedback will help you progress your art into something better, something you like, and... sometimes it won't. That's the point. You’re experimenting and doing both good and bad things to learn from them.
In the end, I realized that changing it into something that didn’t make me happy and messed up my motivation is obviously a stupid idea to follow through with. Even if one person who has an entirely different life and thoughts than me disagrees with my art choice, I’m doing what I want to do first, because, well, it’s my art! It’s my journey! Whether I want to improve or not based on that choice of the art is entirely up to me. When I was a beginner, I didn’t try to improve or learn at first, I just did my own thing, and it took time to decide to push myself to learn and take it seriously. Right now for this project I do not intend to push myself in a way where I can grow my art or rendering or lighting or anatomy skills, my goal is to push myself to create something I care about and learn more about creativity and inspiration.
I find that recognizing the goal, the reason you made something in the first place, is what keeps it going. The whole reason I wanted to create the project stemmed from seeing someone do the exact same thing, and I went “wowh can I do that I wanna do that that looks cool and fun woah.” Of course, I still have other pieces or projects that have goals that DO focus on my art skills. This one wasn’t. Some things are for the simple joy of creating a piece simmering in your mind that you need to transfer to the real world. Some people want to create for fun, some people want take things more seriously, and both are fine to do.
“Uh, okay, Vanter, what’s the point of this??” (I know bro like dude, SHUT UP!! Holy yap!)
Well, imaginary audience, upon this whole crisis I experienced and solved in two hours, I realized I’m not the only one who struggles with this. I have seen many, many people who create get lost in doubt and fear. Especially beginners. Come on, I can’t be the only one who sees artists quit or lose hope, mainly because of other people and their apparent obsession with putting beginners down, all because they’re not talented from the start. While it’s not the exact thing I experienced, which was taking a simple (probably in good faith) sentence as a shot to the heart, the feelings are still there to relate and see it’s worse for them. Being a failure. Not being good enough. All those nice phrases.
This video wasn’t meant to be from such a deep place, and I had already made it before I even went through all that. It was just rotting in my private videos due to hesitation and embarrassment. It was all just a fun “heheh look at the art progress throughout the years” that I didn’t put ANY effort into, by the way.
But no, as I went through probably a million different thoughts during my sob story, one of them landed on this video. I am not a failure of an artist. Even if my art now isn’t perfect (and will never be), even if it may not resonate with some other people, there has still been progress and passion and dedication put into the growth, and if that’s what makes me love art, that’s all that matters.
So, while I highly doubt this will make at least one person reflect or feel better, and while I’ll probably regret saying this in an hour, I just want to put it out there, you know? Your creative journey is yours and yours only, and whether you have ups or downs during the ride, it all has to start somewhere and you will grow with each thing you make. The fact you’re making things from your own imagination, from your own perspective and experiences and care and love, that’s… probably worth something, right?
Anyway, enjoy seeing my old art when I had no idea wtf I was doing lmao I’m gonna go cringe at my own words now.
(I hate that the thumbnail chose that one character I made one piece of and it was for someone else’s birthday bro I’m not even in that fandom. Also some of the art isn’t perfectly in order of when I made it, but it’s still around the same time)
If you’re wondering what the mysterious project I’ve been talking about the whole time is… just wait >:] it’ll be out soon. Not really. Forget I said that. It’ll be out some day.
