I typed this up, so I just thought Id share it. Hoep its worth your times guys. Thanks. =]

Drive.

I get a lot a questions about how I manage to keep working on TroA. How I dont get distracted, upset, etc. But I do! I get discouraged all the time! It happens to the best of us. But the key to creating a comic, is to keep at it. Dont listen to anything negative that anyone has to say. If youre making pages, youre training yourself. You have to be able to tell the difference between the haters and the people who are giving advice. If someones being an ass, dont even finish reading what they have to say. Itll just bother you and make the next page more difficult to make.

If theyre trying to help, dont blow up at them, and dont take it to heart. Creating a comic is like exercise, youre practicing. My ONLY goal with TroA was that when I reach the last page, its two or three times better than the first pages. I can see improvements in my work, and looking back at the early pages inspire me. I can see how much better Ive gotten. Dont worry if you first pages arent up to par with your latest pages. If they were, then youre not improving anymore.

Inspiration.

Sometimes I have a little trouble getting inspired. Im sure we all do. After Ive spent all day coloring someone elses work or drawing storyboards, Im tired of looking at the computer screen, I just want to watch tv, or play some games, or sleep, etc. Theres NO drive to work on what needs to be worked on, my own stuff. What I usually do is just go to the park or workout for a little bit, take a shower, anything to rest my eyes for an hour. Then I come back and get to work on my own stuff. You just have to realize, it isnt Should I do it tonight? it is I am going to do this tonight. Thats just how it is, so you better get inspired.

If you know you should be working on something, then you need to get yourself inspired so what you produce isnt half-assed. Thats all there is to it. The first key to this, at least for me, is to find what inspires me. There are a few books I keep within arms reach of my work area, Spectrum, Blacksad, Pride of Baghdad, Blad eof the Immortal. Skydoll, and tons of conceptart books. Art of Halo, Halflife 2, Lord of the Rings, Warcraft, etc. Now, these books are sort of related to my own work. TroA is my baby because I enjoy making the world more than making the comic. So I keep that kind of stuff around me at all times. When I play games, I want to work on games, when I read books about world creation or look at amazing comic art done by my favorite artists, I want to work on comics and create.

So identify what inspires you. Then keep it nearby. When you say, I need to be making a page right now. Then pick up one of these, read ten pages, then put it down and use that drive. Realize, you have to start before you can finish, and theres nothing in the book youre reading that you cant one day do. Those books (or whatever inspires you) are your fuel, and your pencil is your rocket ship.

Be careful not to use these as a form of procrastination though. Im guilty of picking up a book, planning to read ten pages to get fired up to work, then reading thirty. Dont do this! You need that time to get your work done, read enough to get going, then put it away. Itll always be there and you might need those additional pages for more inspiration later! =P

And dont get discouraged, just work and create!

Hey, that's pretty cool. :-) Why don't you post on the forums more often, you'd be an even greater inspiration. I love the art on the Realms of Aegis.

I often find that the people who are naysayers are probably people who can't do what you do, so it pretty much means that they're full of it. Sometimes I get lazy with Nadya, but looking at my pageviews and comments kinda shows me that people're reading my stuff- it helps...

Not to mention the fact that I'm actually -doing- something. I used to spend so much time talking about what I wanted to do and not doing it, or saying "God, I could do so much better than that comic."

I enjoy doing my comic, but a lack a lot mentally, I guess (does that make any sence?). I mean, I try so hard to make everything look good, make the lines look as perfect as I can, make the coloring look neat. But I find myself still unhappy with everything. People say they like my art, but when *I* look at it all I see are imperfections (that panel's ugly, why did I choose that color, how can people look at this?, why did I post this page like this?). Sometimes I think people are just being polite, but we are our biggest critics, right...?

I'm on a one week break from my comic so I can try to make the next page and the pages after it better. Later, I'm going to re-draw everything. It's so hard because I know what I want to draw, I have pages and pages pre-written. But when I go to draw them, I feel so unhappy with the product, even though I worked so hard D:.

D0m, perfect. I dig Nadya, the colors, the atmosphere, I think it'll go far. And when you're on your tenth issue, and look back, you'll be amazed at how you've grown. It'll be a great feeling. And i'll try to post more often. ^_^

Nicotine, I honestly think you should think that way. There's nothing wrong with you're drawings now and thinking so won't help any. And if you do draw a bad panel, just remember we're all filled with good and bad art. Sometimes we just have to get the bad ones out first so the good ones can surface.

Just try not to question yourself too much. Realizing a mistake is one thing, but putting yourself or the art down because of it is another. You draw for you first, your readers second. Don't WORRY about what they think, I mean, acknoledge it, but 'worry' is just something else on your mind while you're trying to create.

Anyway, that's my advice. Keep creating guys. =]

@ Hyptosis : Great thread. You and I share many of the same drives and mentality when it comes to working on our books.

@ Nicotine: My best friend has that same problem. He is never satisfied with his work. He keeps restarting and at times can spend days or weeks redoing the same thing cause he is just never happy with it.

I have that problem to a degree but I want to get my story and comic out above all else so I don't have time to sulk at my work.

I will redraw something a few times. or I will skip it for a bit and draw something else. Or watch a show, type in this forum, something to take my mind off the picture. If the picture begins to take too long I have to say to myself
"Keith, this is it. You are drawing this picture and however it looks it stays"

Usually that makes the picture look a lot better but at times it is still off. I just try to look at my work and try not to reproduce the same errors.

Leaving errors is tolerable, repeating errors is not.

This way you can build speed improve on your art and get your story/pages out for everyone to view. Or at least for yourself to see. I love seeing a page done. That's 1 page closer to getting to draw cooler stuff.

So, beat yourself up as far as your artwork goes. Just don't let it consume you so that you either never get anywhere or you restart many times. That stuff is very depressing.

What Hyptosis said was so smart, wise, clever, or whatever other names you may use, that I saved it to my hardrive...

Hyptosis
I typed this up, so I just thought Id share it. Hoep its worth your times guys. Thanks. =]

Great post. It was worth my time. Thank you.

Awww, thanks a lot for the advice, guys.

Sometimes I think that I expect too much out of myself. I've tried to do many things before that never got finished because I always wanted them to be perfect. I *always* manage to see something wrong. Perhaps I'm OCD? Lol. Naw. I like to see my pages done too. I used to like the way I colored, but lately I've always been like "urg, the colors are too bright" or "the shading's not deep enough". I dunno. I guess I'll try to ignore those feelings and do what I can now.

I started Presence because I thought the idea was great and because I thought that I could create really nice visuals to go with everything I've written. I guess it started as something for myself, but when I found out that people were actually reading every update I got paranoid because I didn't want to put out sub-par art.

I enjoyed reading this as well.

It is important to have a goal in the storywriting or even a strip. I use that to keep motivated. My wife and I collaborate on the story and we try to have themes to each book and accomplish certain goals for each character in each book. Some days I have to take a break from it because I really don't feel like drawing or I don't feel like plotting out the script...but I like to keep a backlog of at least a couple of weeks of material, so that is a motivator, too.

Artistically, I am always looking to improve. I am perfectionistic but I won't let that stop me from finishing pages. I'm very driven and I don't like to leave things incomplete. My advice there is just keep working at things, they'll get to where you want, just don't take too long on any one page. Finish it and move on and keep trying to get where you want to be. :)

I don't think there's any such thing as a point at which an artist can stop and go 'okay, now my art is perfect.' You may well discover that as you get better, the things you're trying to improve become more and more specific. You also will probably find yourself noticing mistakes made by professional artists, even your favourite ones, when you get to a certain standard.

I try to give myself a list of goals for my art, like 'I'm going to draw more dynamic angles for my scenes, plan ahead where I'm putting my speech bubbles, and take into account what that reader comment said about how I'm drawing eyes a little odd and try to improve them' etc. If you even step it down to just one or two goals per page, or a few per chapter, and concentrate on improving the aspects of your comic one or two at a time, you'll find it's really not so hard!
Another good idea is to try your best not to avoid drawing things you find hard. Don't put the hands behind the back because you find them hard, just try your best to draw them. It might be difficult, but you'll find you'll improve on your weak points if you don't always just play to your strengths.

Seriously, when I was 18, I was this crap:
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/mongoose0/coeart.htm
*headdesk* But I got better! I was 20 when I started FanDanGo, and now I'm 22, and you can see the improvement in the artwork and layout and stuff.

Listen to criticism and comments, try to address your weaknesses, and don't get depressed about them, instead, do something about them. Oh, and don't give up. ^_^

Wonderful thread. Great thoughts.

Thanks for sharing it. Seriously.

Later,
Chip

For me, making comics is a breeding ground for stories that I don't want to leave unexplored but they are not in my 'book cue' list (yes, I'm mad enough that I have unwritten books cued in my head ready to be written after the final 9 chapters of book 3 of Art of Veiling are done) and I have not the commitment or time or luxury to do more than a couple of hours a day research on them.

However it is so EXCITING! It's like a new frontier, a land with all the potential for impact that the purely written word has. When I started to draw comics with commitment I knew I was at a pretty much base, beginner level, but I wanted to work my way up to make my work as uniformal and recognizable to be mine as possible. I am still working on it but each page presents a new challenge, a new frontier to be crossed or yet another to be held down, like a claim in the Wild West in the mid 1800s. ;)

What Hyptosis said holds true. And you must approach even a hobby like it were your day job if you want your work to yield results and others to be entertained by it. But you also must give yourself a pat on the back when the goal you have set is achieved (Darth Mongoose's method of goal setting is pretty much spot on). Before you know it, your work has improved in leaps and bounces, and you discover that you still have room to improve and not only that- you know just how to improve it.

And there's also another thing that I believe about art in general: It's not about perfection of performance as much as it is perfection in expression, delivery- getting across what you want, from emotions to plot to themes effectively and under your control. That is what any artist should be striving for. After all, real perfection is 20/20 vision, isn't it ;) Heh heh.

Good thread.

Your right, Hyptosis. I should quit worrying about comments and what people would think of each individual page. I'll get to work right away!

Awesome stuff guys. Thanks for sharring yours as well. ^_^

My comic pages have benefited from two things: Treating it like a job ~scheduling regular work times and trying for deadlines, and; always trying to improve on the last page, bettering myself each time.

Lately I've added a third element. Now I also think very hard about the way I tell my stories visually, what I want each panel to show and what I want to give the readers; i.e. a touch of eye candy, some crucial story elements, maybe more about a character's personality, revealing a bit more general info about the world they're in... It really helps a lot when you're more in control of those things. I used to just focus on a way to show off what I thought would be the coolest elements of the story I wanted to tell, but that doesn't help tell the story all that well; better to focus on what tells the story best and then work to make that look cool rather than the other way around.

Reading this thread alone has just become a driving factor for me - it's inspiring to see just how knowledgeable and talented some Drunk Duck artists really are. But yeah, I run into the same problem myself - more often than not I think the accursed thought: "What if I didn't do comics? What if my life were just being satisfied with my job and playing video games all day?" But then I get to thinking about life without my comics. I've been drawing them for so long, from my notebook scribbles as a kid to my earlier webcomics that were a bizarre marriage of Paint Shop Pro and MS Paint to my current Photoshopped 11x17 comics, and I realize that would be like chopping off a healthy chunk of my body. It's who I am, it's what I love, and even if I were to quit doing Pirate Terminators all that would mean is that I'd have to start over from scratch with a different comic, which I think would be pointless and stupid.

Another place I look for inspiration are hobbyists, including my own dad. He's into building airplane models and the like (He's even currently working on a model of Enterprise from Star Trek), and he knows a LOT about this stuff. Of course, there's no real financial or publicity gain or whatever from his work. It's not like he has a public museum or anything. Yet he continues to work to improve himself and invest plenty of time and money into his projects. I really admire people who do something just for the sheer enjoyment of doing it, and I'm working my way to being just like that.

Yes, this thread it stuffed full of inspiration. Thanks guys. You've totally spurred me one for a while. ^_^