When people let me review their portfolios (on career day or open days at my game design school) I explicitly ban them from commenting during the review… …because otherwise they will follow the impulse to downplay everything I see in an attempt at being humble.
“this is an old image…”
“I’m not happy with that one…”
“this is just a sketch…”
“I did this really quickly…”
“there is better stuff on later pages…”
It’s totally understandable to have those impulses. The quality of art is not empirical data and therefore impossible to measure. Good art, bad art, it all comes down to standards. And you don’t want to come off as naive or self-absorbed.
But just don’t do it. Don’t talk yourself down in front of others. In the best case you have someone supportive who now thinks “damn, this person needs to be prepped up all the time. Do I really want to work with somebody like that” or in worst case “now that you say it, yeah, this is kinda lame/rushed/unfinished/lazy, go away.”
You can only submit what you have. If that is not enough, then it’s not enough. Your attitude will not change that. But if it is enough, you can do serious harm by not being confident of who you are now.
This means appreciating what you are able to do right now and have a clear vision of what you want to learn, be confident that you will learn it in time.
Be proud.
This is really important. Eliminate this urge. Eliminate it professionally, when having contact with people in a position to buy your work. Eliminate it socially, when you just share your work for fun. Destroy this urge as thoroughly as you possibly can.
Because when you have done that, you’ll find that you feel at least 25% less shitty about your own work. You lose the urge to do it. You stop reinforcing those negative thoughts, and they retreat. They may never go away completely (although they might!) but this is good practice for ignoring those thoughts flat-out.
Don’t shit-talk yourself. Even if you can’t be SO PROUD, don’t ever try to influence anyone’s opinion toward your work in the negative.
Try to love your work. Try to see what you learned from each piece, even if it’s a failure. If you feel that you learned nothing, appreciate the fact that just spending time on it is honing your skills and giving you valuable practice.
i used to be super not-confident in my own work. When I stopped pointing out the flaws in my own stuff, I felt better about it almost immediately.
THIS! I see so many people post art or stories and say it’s just a drabble or doodle, it probably isn’t any good, people aren’t going to like it.
There are always going to be people who are willing to tear you down. Don’t do their work for them. Even if you can’t say good things, it doesn’t mean you have to say negative things.
This goes for writing too, I used to do this all the time until someone called me out on it. I’ve seen it a lot recently…“oh this is about the Internet, I don’t blame you if you don’t read it,” or “what follows is kinda a thinkpiece turn back now lolz”….and it is a really good way to make someone not want to read your writing.
The Badlands region in Utah is famous for its arid and unforgiving landscape, which is decorated by sharp and eroded spires of stone. If you catch it at just the right moment and in the right conditions, however, these apparent wastelands can give birth to an extraordinary explosion of colour and life in the form of beautiful wildflowers. Via
