I don't do as much artwork nowadays as I did when I first got into the fandom. That's largely because I don't have as much time as I used to - but it's also partly because these days, I've lost much of the joy I used to get from creating pictures through the never-ending pursuit of technical improvement.

Part of the problem with trying to produce artwork to your best possible standard is it becomes more like work than play. When it gets like that, it also means you can easily become irritated by the smallest things which subsequently put you off bothering with art altogether.

Having been drawing on and off for most of my life - and having been drawing for the fandom for five years - over time I have experienced a whole variety of feelings and irritations with the wonderful adventure that is being an artist. But I find myself wondering whether anybody else has these same experiences.

As such, I have formed a list of sixty feelings and problems I know I have experienced as an artist. Many refer to problems while drawing with pencil/pen and paper, others when using a tablet, some relate to the hazards of secret fetish drawing and others even allude to the fickle obsession one can have with FA statistics.

Note that these are not malicious ramblings about being an artist in the fandom. It is merely a light-hearted and somewhat cathartic reflection upon the inner conflicts and little frustrations one can go through as an artist. I dare say somebody has done something like this before, but I just wanted to have a go from the basis of my own experience.


So, TO ALL YOU ARTISTS - please tell me if you have ever:-

1. Had to draft a picture more than five times.
2. Been using an eraser on a picture only for the paper to suddenly fold up.
3. Felt ready to roar like The Incredible Hulk after your pencil lead snaps.
4. Ruined a picture by drawing something too dark which can't be erased properly.
5. Ruined a picture with a big smudge mark.
6. Ruined a picture by accidentally tearing the paper in some farcical fashion.
7. Sat/leant on a drawing and left a really annoying fold right through it.
8. Rubbed a hole in a piece of paper or ended up with the surface peeling from too much erasing.
9. Been drawing on an uneven surface and punctured the paper with your pencil.
10. Sneezed/drooled on your piece of paper and left one of those funny translucent grey dots on the page.
11. Spilled a drink or dropped food on your drawing.
12. Had a sudden noise cause you to jerk suddenly and inadvertently draw a massive line over your picture.
13. Had a pencil break and leave a massive black mark on one of the most intricate parts of your picture.
14. Finished a drawing which you are pleased with only to mirror/flip it and suddenly discover 10,000 errors.
15. Erased something you felt just didn't quite look right, then regretted it when you realise you've ended up redrawing it 1,000 times and only succeeded in making it look worse.
16. Spent hours drawing something and not getting it right, only to come back after a break and miraculously draw it perfectly first time, rendering the previous few hours a confusing waste.
17. Noticed a problem with an almost completed picture which requires you to start all over again in order to fix it.
18. Lost your pencil/pen/rubber midway through drawing a picture.
19. Ground away an entire pencil through a pencil sharpener because it either keeps breaking the lead or leaves it with a really crappy tip.
20. Drawn a perfect picture on A4 only to run out of room for one little detail and discover you need to redraw the whole damn thing on A3, or start attaching additional sheets of paper.
21. Been colouring/shading on a textured surface which has left an annoying pattern on your picture.
22. Accidentally used the wrong colouring pencil/pen on part of your picture and then attempted to cover it up, only to end up mixing the colours into a weird muddy tone.
23. Been working in the hot weather next to a fan and tried to draw a picture whilst your paper is being blown about everywhere.
24. Delayed the completion of a picture by having to stop every 5 minutes to masturbate over it.
25. Realised your knowledge of anatomy is crap and you are trying to draw outlines for muscles or bones in places where you don't even know whether muscles or bones exist.
26. Started drawing something from an angle which you then realise was a really bad idea.
27. Started drawing a complex pose which you then realise was a really bad idea.
28. Completed a perfect picture of a famous character only to belatedly realise you've somehow missed drawing a crucial identifying detail that everybody will pick up on.
29. Misinterpreted how an everyday object is shaped and drawn it based on that misconception, resulting in loads of people saying "that looks weird".
30. Been shading a picture only to realise that for some reason you just cannot get the light to look right on one part of the picture.
31. Drawn a picture which simply refuses to scan/photograph properly.
32. Lost an hour or more of work through your computer crashing when you haven't saved your picture.
33. Lost your work through a file or disk drive becoming corrupted.
34. Discovered that you've done too many steps to undo everything since the moment you first went wrong on a picture.
35. Been drawing with a tablet and had to press Ctrl+Z 50 times until you finally get the line you want.
36. Been drawing a straight line with a tablet which then suddenly kinks for absolutely no bloody reason at all.
37. Drawn a perfect line with a tablet which is then subsequently ruined by Adobe's auto smoothing.
38. Had your mouse and tablet interfering with each other in a way which makes the pointer jump all over the place.
39. Accidentally saved your picture with all the layers merged.
40. Accidentally saved over a newer version of your picture with an older one.
41. Done a perfect picture only to realise your monitor is not calibrated properly and discover that the picture actually doesn't look anything like you thought it did to anybody else.
42. Spent ages adding little details to your picture only to realise they can't be seen once you resize it.
43. Drawn an awesome multi-panel comic which you then realise you can’t structure effectively into pages without losing half of it through cropping/resizing everything to ridiculous proporitions.
44. Looked back at a picture you did several years ago and realised you've still not been able to better it.
45. Been creating a fetish picture which turns you on right up until the moment you complete it, after which point it is forever a flaccid affair.
46. Noticed an error on a fetish picture you have drawn which subsequently kills any attraction you have for it because you can't take your eye off what you did wrong.
47. Lost a drawing that you really wouldn't want your family/friends to find.
48. Temporarily lost a drawing that you really wouldn't want your family/friends to find, and only finding it after giving yourself a panic attack upon the discovery of its disappearance.
49. Had somebody inappropriately walk in on you drawing a picture that you really wouldn't want them to see, resulting in a mad scramble to hide the evidence.
50. Had somebody find one of your pictures that you really didn't want them to see after which they make an awkward comment/question.
51. Felt envious of another artist's ability.
52. Gotten a bit obsessed by your FA watch/favourite/comment/pageview counter.
53. Felt a bit annoyed when you find an artist who has more watches than you even though you're sure your work is better, especially if you've been a member of FA for longer than they have.
54. Felt a bit annoyed when you find an FA user who has more watches than you yet everything in their gallery is a commission which they didn't draw.
55. Felt a bit annoyed when you find an artist who can match or better your art standard in a fraction of the time.
56. Submitted a piece to FA which you spent ages on and think is brilliant but gets a distinctly underwhelming response from everybody else.
57. Obsessed over one little piece of criticism somebody has left on your submission.
58. Felt constricted by FA's 1280x1280 dimension limit.
59. Suffered from Artist's Block.
60. Felt like giving up art altogether.

Feel free to add your responses here or on your own profiles (if you do, link back to this page and let me know so I can see!). This isn't really a serious attempt to propagate a meme - I'm just interested to know whether other artists go through the same things I do.

And to anybody who has experienced all sixty - we need to get together and have a good collaborative MOAN.



RRRex