I wonder if I'm alone in this? I suspect that I'm not.
I find myself increasingly talking longer and longer on my artwork. I try and get it as perfect as possible... I have to be in exactly the right mood or I can't work at all. At times when I'm working and I'm in the "zone", it feels so fantastic and wonderful, and at other times, especially towards the end stages, it feels so horrible and desolate.

I'm just wondering how common this is with comic artists? Maybe you don't take your work very seriously? Or maybe a page doesn't matter so much as an entire chapter or full comic story?

It's funny how it can be such a fun process, and at the same time such an awful, dull, depressing one.

My karma:

I hate starting new projects and then I get elated as I near the end, feel a great rush upon completion and then the depression sets in again as any work I finish will always suck until a suitable time has passed and then it's halfway good.

Then the client ( or class) praises it to the stars (awards too) and of course they're all lying. :)

But I also experience the not wanting to work on it unless "I feel like it" Thankfully there's always that army "just f***ing do it sergeant! Continue the mission!" In the back of my head cracking the whip.

FIDO

Writer's block (but applicable to any art): staring at an empty page, waiting for blood to form on your forehead, drip down on the page and become words.

Oh heck yes. I was just now feeling this after taking a very long time on my latest page. -_-
The process is like building a model plane-
You start out with an easy one, takes like an hour, then you get better and into the harder and harder ones. They require lot's of tweaking, time, concentration and energy; on a small things that hardly matter. ^^
Overall it's fun, not like some chore. Just the sheer amount of effort it took you to make that one little model plane...

But that's okay, because eventually you'll make an airplane that can freaking fly. ;)

I've been dealing with something like that myself lately.

I've been really excited trying out photography and getting better and better results with each roll of film and at the same time feeling like I just don't want to do another one of those damn comic pages ever again. For me it's because I was never a digital artist and I find that I really don't like doing a lot of digital work so it's getting a little stale and I'm obsessed with doing different things all the time. The longer I work on a continuous project, the more I want to spend time on other projects. It makes it really hard to finish one thing before I start another, and I'm honestly surprised I've kept it up this far.

When I get into a mood where I'm not joking and happy I think it shows in my work. I put less into the background and I don't feel like the jokes are as humorous. But when I am in a good mood and I've had a day where I'm not burned out and tired, it just flows and everything works.

I don't find doing comics to be depressing, at all. I always get excited upon finishing a page or strip and I'm always eager to get it up on my site.

I tend to have to restrain myself from working on all kinds of projects at once, though. I've got four or five projects that I'd like to work on right now but I have to settle for design work and scripting until I have more time to work on more stuff.

Skullbie
Oh heck yes. I was just now feeling this after taking a very long time on my latest page. -_-
The process is like building a model plane-
You start out with an easy one, takes like an hour, then you get better and into the harder and harder ones. They require lot's of tweaking, time, concentration and energy; on a small things that hardly matter. ^^
Overall it's fun, not like some chore. Just the sheer amount of effort it took you to make that one little model plane...

But that's okay, because eventually you'll make an airplane that can freaking fly. ;)

Fly? No! Your kit will have everything the real plane did but in 1/48th scale. Win best in show at the IPMS Nationals! Be a first-rate trophy whore!

Pass the super-glue, photo-etch and more resin updates! Putty! Wet sanding!

Ah yes, to post shade or pre shade... where are my MiG pigments?

Model-building can be an obsessive compulsive illness. Stop Advanced Modeler's Syndrome now!
(being typed with my hands covered in Humbrol Light Olive that I had to strip off because the finish came out wrong) ;)

Frustration in a box: Toko 1/72 P-63 Kingcobra. I love putty. And why doesn't anything fit?

Artwork? Be thankful there's no putty and sandpaper required.
If I build enough kits I can jump right into artwork because it's so relaxing.

Artists are plagued with depression.

With planning, I rely partly on emotion. With drawing, I rely more on the willingness to get off my butt and do some productive artwork.

I'm more of a writer, actually, than anything else. With writing, mood heavily influences what I write and how good it is. I have long streakes of what I consider brilliance, followed by long interludes of a horrid, monotonous ring that is all my mind revolves around and I can't write anything creative. It's aggrivating.

So it's not just emotion, but that has an enormous roll in my creativity and productivity. So far, depression more so than elation. It's fun to juxtapose the poems and stories I come up with when I'm influenced by different emotions.

I'm more of a writer too. Trying to cut down all the exposition necessary in a written piece as opposed to a comic is very frustrating and depressing. Every word turns into a beloved child; then whole scenes fall to the axe.

So I go back to my workbench do some puttying or painting uniform piping on inch high figures and I get energized as creating just doesn't seem as hard anymore.

ozoneocean
I wonder if I'm alone in this? I suspect that I'm not.
I find myself increasingly talking longer and longer on my artwork. I try and get it as perfect as possible... I have to be in exactly the right mood or I can't work at all. At times when I'm working and I'm in the "zone", it feels so fantastic and wonderful, and at other times, especially towards the end stages, it feels so horrible and desolate.

I'm just wondering how common this is with comic artists? Maybe you don't take your work very seriously? Or maybe a page doesn't matter so much as an entire chapter or full comic story?

It's funny how it can be such a fun process, and at the same time such an awful, dull, depressing one.

I actually believe you are one of the few exceptions to the rule, Oz. You are not a comic book artist. You are a painter writing a comic book. Is it really any wonder?

you're not alone in this.

this is why I haven't been updating in a while... I've been working on redrawing all of Endless Dream's pages and putting my effort into making every page "perfect" to my liking when I'm in the mood.

and of course I do feel that lack of interest and depression too. The fact that my Computer is showing signs of slowly dying doesn't help nether....I might have to end up buying an new computer before this one goes Kaput. (and of course before I'm unable to transfer all of my Data and so on forth over to it).

Oh, you're definitely not alone in this. For me, it's up and down like some crazy rollercoaster.

When planning and sketching out a page, I'm usually all excited and elated and really into it, but when I start inking and colouring, the excitement fades bit by bit until I'm just forcing myself through it. Then, right at the end, when I'm adding speech bubbles and fixing the last details, the excitement returns.

It's strange, and it happens the same way on every page. o.O

I'm the same, you can go through moments of pure euphoria when you hit that sweet-spot, the zone or whatever you want to call it. Then when you come to the end of something, it's like you should be happy you've got that final segment to do and then you can sit back and see your creation, but more often than not there's this feeling of desolation that you describe.

I think though SpANG is right concerning you Oz, you are a painter telling a story in a visual format.

I can only speak from a writer's perspective of course.

ozoneocean
I find myself increasingly talking longer and longer on my artwork. I try and get it as perfect as possible... I have to be in exactly the right mood or I can't work at all. At times when I'm working and I'm in the "zone", it feels so fantastic and wonderful, and at other times, especially towards the end stages, it feels so horrible and desolate.

It's funny how it can be such a fun process, and at the same time such an awful, dull, depressing one.

Agree. (i know, stupid to post a message this short)

I believe I understand what Ozone's talking about... that feeling of "damn I've been sitting alone in this house for hours, working on this comics page." Page after page. We do it because we have that fire, that need to create. But we're still human, and the process is arduous and isolating. Creating art is not a team or spectator sport.

But if you have a kindred spirit to talk to, throughout the entire process, like a Tinkerbell sitting on your shoulder, the feeling of desolation goes away.

My tinkerbell is this site :(

Which is why (like now) I just have to stop. I start letting things get to me more and the process really upsets me. Wanting to do other things, get out of the house. It also starts making me more critical of my work. Like my biggest gripe right now is that my actual drawing isn't increasing in quality as much as my CG skills are.

Little things like that really get to me when the process starts getting arduous.

Usually 1 week... sometimes 2 of just leaving the comic alone is good for me and I start missing it. Then I feel my happy place again as I start back.

For now... no comic go away. I have games to play!!!

JustNoPoint
Like my biggest gripe right now is that my actual drawing isn't increasing in quality as much as my CG skills are.

Well at least im not in this boat alone......

I'm glad others feel this too. :)
Man I was on SUCH a high after I finished yesterday's page... On time for once too! Then it's reception was mostly weird... And I'd put so much thought and effort in, It really took me out of that post creation high pretty quickly. Shame, because when I take longer on a work I just feel down afterwards, I don't get a chance to indulge in post creation highs then at all.

Maybe if I worked even quicker...

Wait... you are happy that I am depressed? I am now depressed-er =(

ozoneocean
Maybe if I worked even quicker...

I have this feeling you would get depressed from thinking that your work had a 'rushed' feel. Or that you would push yourself too hard to focus on getting done faster and the process would become longer... then you'd get depressed 'cause of that. Um.... why are we making comics again? :P

mishi_hime
Well at least im not in this boat alone......

The boat feels too much like the small special bus.