#and the raging sense of inferiority i've been fighting off since i was like. 8.

[belfrygargoyles]

1) the composition, posing, framing, anatomy, stylization, all has to be consistent and done with purpose. it cant be done clumsily, appear as a "regression" in my art style, or have any room for visible error beyond what I can categorize as "permissible". The process of art generally is not a very easy or smooth one, and the less time and paper space "wasted" on adjustments, the less revisions i have to make, the less i have to erase and redraw and put the entire piece on pause at a rudimentary stage lest i waste time on details that will be erased, the better.

2) I can say "i want to draw a character." okay, now what pose? what style? what focus? what composition? what outfit, color palette, tone, etc. too much decision. unless i already know what i want i just... can't. really decide.

3) Idk man I stopped drawing consistently some time during high school and just got out of a 5 year relationship during which i rewired my brain to constantly think about & create for another person to the point that even when i got out, i found that i couldn't even write or come up with ideas for myself because i was stopping every step with what someone else would want instead. the act of writing and drawing and engaging with ocs had for the past 5 years stopped being something to do for fun and instead been made into a primary and foundational means of reciprocal "proof" of interest and investment in the other person and for at least a full year and a half I stopped getting anything back. Part of my brain is still stuck in that tired, burnt out, frustrated resignation. Part of my brain is still trapped in the mindset that i have to focus on and create for someone else specifically, that i have a target audience that i need to regularly and consistently "prove" that i care about by making things not because its what I think about, but because everything i make HAS to be for someone else or else I am being self centered and neglecting my upkeep of the relationship. Part of my brain still just feels so dead, like it's given up entirely, after repeatedly putting 110% into catering wholly and perfectly to someone else with the expectation, promise, and increasingly desperate belief that it would be mutual, that it was mutual and my expectations were too high or my memory too unreliable, only to finally learn that no, i was right, i actually wasn't getting anything back, i was being fed empty promises to "try harder" and "be better for me" for years and put my full faith that change was happening, an effort was being put in, that i'm just too self-centered and want too much attention to myself to notice.

and, if i'll be honest. there were some comments made during that time about my art that have still stuck. really minor comments, well meaning, honestly pretty inoffensive (if not a bit annoying) unwelcome and unasked for critique on wips i was showing progress on, without the context of how it felt with the years of invisible, built up, unidentifiable frustration that made me a hair trigger desperately trying to validate my feelings by finding fault anywhere and everywhere. i dont want to hold onto those comments like this, but something about them is sticking, and i still feel stupidly hyper defensive over my art. they were just small, unintentionally mildly rude comments made without thinking that they could cause offense at all, but who they were coming from, the time they were said, the state i and the relationship was in- they really meant so, so much more, in a way that is kind of emblematic of everything that was wrong with the relationship. and part of me is still holding onto those feelings, i guess- maybe because it was about something that's always been deeply personal in a kind of delicate way for me?

ugh

hurgh i wish i could still just pick up a pen think of a character and draw when the fuck ever- now even if i want to draw, if i dont already have an idea of what exactly i want to draw i just... cant. i dont know if this is a result of focusing too much on quality/the "it has to be perfect or it cant exist at all" mentality, a weird kind of decision paralysis (which it actually is sometimes), or longterm effects of burnout and relying on extrinsic motivators for so long.

actually its probably all of that at the same time now that i wrote that out