Today I’d like to discuss how various hangups we accrue as artists (or just regular human beings) holds us back from improving, and stifles our creativity. These hangups, come from a plethora of sources. These could be your art teachers, your parents, or even you as a stunted tween concocting some bizarre hatred for something in lue of a personality. That last ones is oddly specific, because it’s me.

So allow me, as exhibit A, to be your guide.

This is the script I wrote for the video, there’s an entire Q&A section in the video I did off the cuff, so I’d recommend diving into the vid if you want the full experience. There are a few paragraphs in this that didn’t make the cut, but yeah. Enjoy it in any format you like!

Refusing to Draw Fanart

As a teenager who was obviously better than everyone else back in the day I refused to draw fanart. Why should I draw other peoples stuff just to pander to an audience that didn’t belong to me when I could draw my own stuff, popularity be damned. I think this was a pet hate I grew over time when I saw other artists succeed by just drawing Steven Universe or whatever.

I think the weird bigotry on this specific topic is quite prevalent, and not at all unique to me. I got it from somewhere after all. I think because artists can see it as a desperate clawing for attention. And to that I say, YES! AND? I’m not drawing naked people screwing each other because I want a quiet life in the countryside starving to death.

Now if you can forge a career with an awesome OC that everyone really vibes with that’s friggin awesome and even preferable long term. Everybody loves those artists that are just totally smashing it on their own terms with their OC, for a great new example of that you should check out Peachy. Their smashing it every time they post, great clean art that pops, a positive personality that owns and the audience to prove it. Slugbox’s many characters also come to mind. The great thing about OC’s is that you’re the only source people can go for that specific character, and if you aren’t then that means people are fanarting YOU, giving you even more exposure. Anyway I went on a tangent about the value of Original characters, this is supposed to be about how fanart isn’t the antithesis to creativity.

Fanart can be a fun method of learning methods and techniques from other artists if you’re following their style closely enough. And if you aren’t aping the style you’re expressing your own look, and having fun seeing how it would look with different IPs.

But closing avenues for yourself that are proven methods for exposure is just hamstringing your growth.

Hating on Anime

While I was on the topic of writing manifestos for myself I also refused to be influenced by anime aesthetics. Despite the fact that as a kid I would get some paper and press it up against some glass so I could trace Sailor Moon without her skirt on and obsessively draw Trunks from Dragon Ball Z over and over again. Anime will find you, and it WILL get you.  

I actually count that sailor moon tracing as my first foray into NSFW. I felt super guilty after doing it and tried throwing it away. But apparently my mum is some sort of bin monster that knows when even the slightest hint of contraband has been thrown away and she went and found it. She brought it to me and was like “Did you draw this.”

“Yeah. Yeah I did..”

“It’s pretty good.”

Why did I fight the fanart thing when it could have been beneficial for me when I drew it so much as a kid? I don’t know, maybe I was growing through a phase and was trying to leave my childhood behind in the most bizarre ways possible.

I think I hated the idea of being influenced by Anime because again, it seemed like it was what everyone else was doing. Doing it meant that I’d just become part of this homogenous broth, like that red blushy nosed Tumblr kid artwork was later on down the line.

In the end it just meant that I’m now playing catchup, because I have and always will love the anime aesthetic, everybody does! And it doesn’t all look the same, everyone brings their own vibe to the party. It can teach you a different set of interesting scales and proportions that the more cartoony western style I sort of half arsedly drifted into didn’t. I cut off an avenue of learning because I was an asshole about it.

I stunted myself both creatively and successifevily (it’s a word now) just because I thought that Hipster Jesus would give me a couple more acres to make homebrew in when I go to Hipster heaven.

Making Bullshit Rules

While I’m thinking back on it now I remember another detrimental decision I made for myself. Prior to going NSFW I drew a webcomic, Instead of playing to my strengths of comedy and current affairs I decided to rule out doing anything that might date the comic, so that limited the material I could hit. This might not be a bad idea to be honest, It’s good to have a mission statement for your projects so it works as a cohesive whole. But I ended up just denying my strengths and only finding middling success in the process. If I did what I enjoyed I have no doubt I would have done better with the project, and I wouldn’t have ended up burning out on it. Purely because I would have been following my passions and not my made up rules to forcibly hobble myself creatively.

Once again I found a door to close, and hurt myself in the process by slamming it shut. Maybe I should have been more flexible with the project to allow myself to go back and open the right door. But in the end it was a smarter play to know when to quit and to reset entirely. I think I did a video about that particular idea already so feel free to go check that out.

I guess the best summary of these rambling anecdotes is this.. Be led by your passions, not your hate.