#because have I been sucking in animation techniques and stuff for years even tho I haven't tried it? yea

[arrowpunk]

My hubris will be my downfall

[mcrmadness]

“Rant” about my artblock that has lasted for several years already...

I was just arranging some old stuff and found my old sketchbook from a few years ago. First drawings were drawn in 2010 or so and the last ones in 2013. I also found other random stuff I had drawn back in the 2013 which I have never uploaded to anywhere but I really liked them.

Anyway, I would really love to draw again. This other day I did a small sketch about something and even after years, it seems I still know the techniques. My biggest problem just is that I have no ideas. My mind is completely blank. I have way too wild imagination but I think I use all my energy to my mental health problems so I have a hard time to channel anything to my own use really. I mean, it’s making up weird-ass scenarios in my head and then I’m left with empty head with nothing to draw or write about. Actually in 2013 all my drawing were mental health centered as well.

For years I also tried to start drawing comics about my life and that I’d have a blog for that. But nothing interesting ever happened. And those times I had something to draw, they all ended up just being boxes of text with small pics. Like the complete opposite of what a comic is like. So that didn’t work really. And they all were just about my mental health which I couldn’t really draw, just write about.

Even before that, I used to draw lots of portraits, mainly fanart tho. Also lots of animal portraits, basically just copying photos I found. I gave up on that after my friend said that technique doesn’t mean anything if the drawing is lacking the soul. I kinda took that too personally because I started seeing my drawing very fake and I realized that I was just lying to myself. Preending to be a good artist when in the end I was just good at copying and even on that I wasn’t perfect.

Yes, I’m a perfectionist.

Later I realized I’ve been drawing portraits to gain attention because I needed to feel good about myself and I needed to feel that I can do at least something right. But every time I tried drawing something without a photo, it just sucked. I started drawing horses when I was, well a kid, and even tho I’ve drawn many many horses, with and without photos, comic book horses and actual horses, I can never draw a perfect horse. Or anything perfectly. I envied people who could draw perfectly. Sometimes I searched for badly drawn drawings to make myself feel better as an artist. I was also so envy that my siblings, who are 3,5 years younger than me, mastered the skill of drawing horses and comic horses so fast and I had been trying for years and never could achieve what they had.

And I still can’t draw a horse. I try and try and try and it never looks like a (perfect) horse. I just don’t see anything in my head clearly enough that my hand could copy anything.

I’m really passive-aggressive as an artist. Not succeeding at drawing makes me more angry than basically anything. I don’t get angry easily but when my hand doesn’t do what my mind sees, that’s when the papers and pencils are flying. (Okay I don’t really throw my pencils because that would make them useless, but the paper will survive so...)

Perfectionism and drawing is just pain in the ass. I think that’s why I haven’t drawn in years, just makes my blood pressure way too high because I take it so seriously. I was more easy on my comics tho BUT the ideas stopped about 6 years ago so I haven’t drawn comics ever since. I haven’t created new characters either.

I could basically ask for prompts but I guess I’d discard 99% of them and with the rest of them I wouldn’t be happy with so I’d upload them and keep saying I’m sorry that I suck, I can’t draw. 

People say you just need to draw, a lot, every day. But it’s so frustrating when you’ve been drawing your whole life (or the first 20 years of it after you could hold a pen) and tried and tried and tried. And it feels like you already mastered your skill like when you were 20 and your maximum skill just stops there and you can’t get any better yet you’re not good enough to yourself. You see other people improving and being awesome but you stay forever at where you got when you were at a certain age and stay at that stage forever.