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Sometimes I wish I was less good at art.
6 months ago
General
Have you ever been good at something but wished you weren't?
I think I've done a pretty good job at repeatedly proving to myself that, when I put sufficient time and effort into digital art, I can come up with some pretty passable results. Perhaps not great, but passable, occasionally bordering on rather good.
Or at least good enough to keep me doing it occasionally. And just good enough for that to be a problem.
More specifically, I'm talking about the amount of "sufficient time and effort" spent on each artwork produced, because it's a lot. It's far more than what's typical, according to what I've observed over years of watching art streams from more competent artists. It's time and effort that I could have - and likely should have - been directing towards other ends. I could be programming. I could be working on music. I could try to find something actually profitable that I could be doing with my time, instead of spending days at a time wrestling with 20-year-old software, a poor quality two-dollar mouse, and aphantasia that hits like a truck sometimes when I'm trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing with that empty canvas. I'm definitely not playing to my own strengths when I do that.
I could compare the situation to the age-old phenomenon of "buyer's remorse", in which I obtain something I wanted but wonder for the rest of my life if the cost - in hours and braincells if not dollars - was too high.
I'm sure I'm good enough to keep doing art. After all, I have the ideas, so I might as well let some of them out every now and then! I'm just also bad enough to constantly wonder if it's worth it.
I think I've done a pretty good job at repeatedly proving to myself that, when I put sufficient time and effort into digital art, I can come up with some pretty passable results. Perhaps not great, but passable, occasionally bordering on rather good.
Or at least good enough to keep me doing it occasionally. And just good enough for that to be a problem.
More specifically, I'm talking about the amount of "sufficient time and effort" spent on each artwork produced, because it's a lot. It's far more than what's typical, according to what I've observed over years of watching art streams from more competent artists. It's time and effort that I could have - and likely should have - been directing towards other ends. I could be programming. I could be working on music. I could try to find something actually profitable that I could be doing with my time, instead of spending days at a time wrestling with 20-year-old software, a poor quality two-dollar mouse, and aphantasia that hits like a truck sometimes when I'm trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing with that empty canvas. I'm definitely not playing to my own strengths when I do that.
I could compare the situation to the age-old phenomenon of "buyer's remorse", in which I obtain something I wanted but wonder for the rest of my life if the cost - in hours and braincells if not dollars - was too high.
I'm sure I'm good enough to keep doing art. After all, I have the ideas, so I might as well let some of them out every now and then! I'm just also bad enough to constantly wonder if it's worth it.
It sucks lol.