Hey Fear! You're stupid!

Considering I started this blog for the sole purpose of keeping me on track while drawing, and a place to vent my frustrations and discuss the challenges of beginning a new art form, I guess I haven't really stuck to my "mission statement" of sorts.

I have started working on the comic strip, which thrills me. However, I haven't spent enough time on it to make myself proud to say so, so this is me confessing. I am fabulous at wasting time. When I come home from work, at which I usually sit alone in an office staring at a computer screen, the last thing I want to do is sit in my room alone staring at a computer screen. I have started to lug my lap top and (very large) tablet onto the couch to watch tv with my folks, but very rarely does work actually get produced. (American Idol is very distracting....) (Yes, it did make me sad to type that.)

Besides the desperate need to prioritize time, I have been finding it incredibly difficult to get past the first strip. I have drawn it 3 or 4 times now, but I think I'm finally satisfied with it. The first version I hadn't written the story out enough, so when I finally wrote out the first couple chapters, the beginning had changed. Then I wasn't happy with how realistic it was - I wanted it to be in a style that is more simplified (read: quicker to draw). I also found myself leaning WAY to heavily on "resource material", and quickly stepping over the line into infringement. Tracing a picture grabbed off of Google image search is a really great way to get sued and lose artistic confidence - not necessarily in that order. I think what bugged me the most is that I was purely not trusting myself, my eye and my hand. I can draw. I know that. So why did I feel like I had to rely on tracing?

When I accepted that and quickly spewed out a nice first panel, I realized I had to redo the other 2 I had drawn already.

Which brings me to another reason why I haven't worked much on it. The next panel scares me. There are a lot of people in it. I just need to grab myself up by my own boot straps and get to it, but at this point I'm letting the fear get to me.

This is stupid.

So, when I return home from a weekend visiting friends, I shall draw panel 2. Even if it takes me 10 attempts to get it right, I will do it. I don't really know what I want it to look like right now, which is probably part of the problem, but I don't care. I'm going to face the stupid fear and tell it to it's face, "You're stupid! I can draw!"

Yup. I will do that Tuesday. Or Wednesday, I think I'm busy Tuesday night.