Pff. I mean "longwinded nonsense" might be more accurate. But this is how my mind works. Just hope there was something useful in all that.
Viewing post in Chapter 3 Progress Update: Getting There comments
there absolutely is!! honestly it's a very grounding truth that's very easy to kind of skirt around with excuses like "I'm just learning" or "I'll come back to this." makes me want to pick something out of the backlog and really commit to finishing it. even projects that i've been pretty passionate about just have too much of the "work" part and i drop them in favor for lighter, faster projects. part of that it's not my job (sadly) so it's a lot easier to treat it like a hobby. but the singular major project i've actually committed to finishing is the thing i'm most proud of so gosh, maybe i should try treating it like work again and force myself to ship stuff!!
Ha, glad to inspire then. And yeah, I do have somewhat of an "advantage" in that this my main focus. Even with a hobby though, it's more fun to lock in and actually get something done. More satisfying. So definitely give it a try.
And the other thing I'll add, briefly, is that to some degree people don't want to follow things through to the end because they're afraid of failure. You can't fail if you never finish anything. But you also can't learn anything, or improve. It's cliche, but to some extent it really is true that you only learn the RIGHT way to do something by learning all the WRONG ways to do it first. If you're lucky you won't have to learn ALL the wrong ways first hand, but you do have to wade through a lot. But the result, eventually, is that you actually improve.
The first nsfw art piece I ever shared was a VERY simple Celestia comic. People liked it. The second was a multi-panel, multi-page Luna comic. People HATED it. But I just kept going. Making terrible stuff, and good stuff. And now, most of the time, people seem to enjoy my "style". Just takes a lot of misses to finally start hitting.
very true!! and gosh, i don't know if it's more fun, but it definitely does make a difference in things actually getting made. when i pushed to finish my text game last year i was doing weekly sprints and meetings with my dev team and without that, i certainly would not have finished it by the deadline, especially since i ended up cutting it very close anyway!! i think it's interesting that, in my experience, "forcing" art vs making it when you're really inspired doesn't actually change the final quality all that much. the only way to set yourself up for making something low-quality is, in my opinion, refusing to experiment or challenge yourself regularly and/or settling when something doesn't feel quite right
""forcing" art vs making it when you're really inspired doesn't actually change the final quality all that much."
Bingo. You have just cracked the code that many, many people interested in making art never manage to. Now, it is true that there are CERTAIN things, certain parts of the process that require more creativity, higher brain function etc, which is why I often won't even try to do those things when I'm braindead from massive amounts of stress, lack of sleep etc. There are, especially, certain times of the day where I just do other, non-creative things because I know most of what I try to make then will be trash. It's a waste of time. But the key is to not let that become an excuse. Some times are good? Fine. I better be working during those times then.
But "Inspiration" is like "Passion", people get enraptured by these magic words. Making stuff isn't about "Inspiration". I had ONE bit of inspiration nearly 3 years ago now when I had a fucked up dream and went "Actually, maybe I can make this work for the third chapter". And occasionally little bits here and there as I work, most of which I throw out as they don't fit the flow of what I'm doing. But mostly it's not about "Inspiration", it's about tuning in to the general...vibe of what you're making, like tuning in a radio station, or floating down a river, and letting that pull you along. It's not some grand lightning bolt from above that gets you through 95% of it, it's just this calm, ongoing intuition of "yeah, yeah that feels right" or "No no, that doesn't work, throw it out, try something else." It's like anything else in life, it doesn't live in the grand and earth-shattering, but the practical everyday continuations, building slowly through trial and error till you have something. But I like it that way, it feels more real than if I was constantly getting revelations from the heavens. Because then my stuff would be written by the heavens. It wouldn't be written by me. My failures. My successes.
But I've definitely enjoyed your stuff Sheep, and time allowing I'd definitely like to see a bigger project when you can manage it.