I was asked by one of you recently how I stay motivated with my projects and how I keep going. I thought regurgitating my thoughts here into a video might be useful for more than just that one person. So here I go.

Below is the video version of this post. Otherwise keep reading below for the full transcript. 

In 2005 I drew a webcomic that stretched for 249 pages. I drew it using only a mouse and Macromedia Flash because I’m an idiot.

From 2015 to about 2018 I did a better webcomic about 3 times a week using a Bamboo pen and Touch and Photoshop. 

In 2018 I started doing NSFW art. I made 770 jpegs, including sketches and alts. 

In 2019 I did around 650 images, and in 2020 I capped off at about 800 images.

I have never drawn this much in my entire life.

Now I don’t say this to bolster my advice with any sort of credibility that I know how to stay motivated. This laundry list of shit I’ve done is a symptom of being a workaholic, and taking advice from a workaholic on how to stay motivated is like asking a crack addict how to stop doing crack. Now If you wanted to ask me something like “How do you take breaks without your head getting full of crippling guilt that you might be wasting your life” then I might be able to give you a confident answer. It’d be along the lines of “just don’t take a break.”

Anyway, here are my top tips on staying motivated and achieving your artistic dreams.

1. Make your dreams smaller

Wow I sure do sound like a disapproving parent telling you to stop drawing and get a real job.

Every newbie artist want’s to make their magnum opus on the first go. They’ll get started, quickly get intimidated by their timeline showing that it would probably take years to complete a project this large and then just stop. Stop trying to write Lord of the Rings. Not even Tolkein could do Lord of the Rings on his first go. He did the Hobbit which was snack sized in comparison.

2. Break Things into manageable chunks

Look I know you’re not going to listen to me and try and do your magnum opus anyway. To actually come out with any sort of finished product try and break the project into finashable chunks. So for example a single chapter could be entirely self contained, unreliant on the sprawling narrative that follows.

Full disclosure: I tried this on a project once where I got like 30 pages deep. I didn’t even get close to the arc I wanted to hit. At least I tried practicing what I preach I guess.

3. Work with your burnout

This is sort of reiterating what I just said, but How many pages did you get into your last project before burning out? Let’s pretend that is your max stamina for a moment. Now make your next project fit within your stamina range. Did you only get 5 pages into your last story before getting distracted and moving on? Make your next project only 5 pages. Consider it penance for what you did to your last project if you have to. If you’re wanting to do NSFW comics 5 pages is more than enough anyway. 2 for setup and winddown and 3 for action!

4. Give yourself a style guideline that doesn’t tax you too hard.

So you’ve got your big project and you’ve done insane colouring and shading and backgrounds and EVERYTHING. Now you only need to do it for around 25 more pages, or infinite if it’s a webcomic. Maybe work with a certain colour range, or decide on some stylistic choices that cuts your workload down. Make the craft itself manageable, it works for XKCD!

5. Stay motivated by the constant threat of eviction

Nothing is more motivating than needing to work to eat. Move out of your parent’s basement and into a New York loft apartment that you can’t afford. Panic every day that you can’t afford the place and then hustle like a mofo. You’ll make tons of art in no time! The bonus of this is that you can now watch things like Friends and How I Met Your Mother and say “how the fuck do these people afford to go out every single night. How do these people afford to have friends.”

6. Set external expectations 

If you’ve built up any sort of audience yet having them lean on you for the next piece of content might be worth looking into. If you made a promise online that you’re doing two pages a day, that might be able to add a little guilt into the mix that you’re letting your fans down.

7. Know when to quit

Knowing when to stop a project is as important as being able to stick through it. I had to drop thousands of projects that were never going to get me anywhere in order to get where I am today. Know when to quit, and don’t get trapped by the sunk cost fallacy. If you aren’t familiar with this concept it means that you continue in a certain way due to the time and money you’ve already invested into it, in the mistaken belief that if you only double down and add more time and money, you might get it all back. This is what leads businesses and gamblers to go bankrupt, and you to be spending too much time on a bad project when you could just be right around the corner from the one that really hits the spot with your audience.

Going back to those last projects I mentioned, the webcomic i was doing prior to my current gig made us a lot of industry friends, and it was an amazing experience, but it wasn’t paying it’s way. Trying to be an overglorified shirt and pin salesman wasn’t working out for me. So although it was a passion a project, I had to put it down eventually and find something else I was just as jazzed about. And that’s how I became the president of the united states of New Zealand.