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I have a problem. I really, really want to focus on Fade, but I keep getting distracted or I'm unmotivated. My goal for this year was a page a week. It's April, and I have posted 2 pages this year. 2 pages. I would really like someone to kick my ass into gear. Pester me, poke me. Go to my Tumblr or my Twitter and bug the living crap out of me. Please? Pretty please?

Tumblr: http://www.fadecomic.com
Twitter: @fadecomic

I do want to go back and fix some things. I don't like issue 1 at all. I consider it apocryphal. I don't like one page of issue 4 or so either because the dialogue is terrible and a bit sexist. Doing something about those is job one.

Problem is I get distracted. For October and December, it was my silly electronics projects. For this month I'm refactoring a massive codebase in C++ (which is worth it. I sold a license to the hastily coded F77 version I wrote in 2001 for $8K, and so far the refactored version is about 10x as fast and parallelized) . But I still want to draw.

It's not April yet!

I'm not sure how to keep you from being distracted; I just wasted the last few hours screwing with Photoshop on a pointless project when I have errands to run and chores to do.

I will give you this advice: don't go back and fix things when doing an ongoing comic. That leads to never moving on; you just keep fiddling with stuff to make it perfect. That's something you can do when a project is complete, not still underway. So don't go back and fix; just do better going forward.

Zero Esc said:

don't go back and fix things when doing an ongoing comic. That leads to never moving on; you just keep fiddling with stuff to make it perfect. That's something you can do when a project is complete, not still underway. So don't go back and fix; just do better going forward.

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I like this.

Keep notes about the sections you want to fix and what it is you want to do, but don't start actually fixing them until you've reached the (first) end. If you want to think of it like coding, get all the modules working first, worry about optimization later.

--Patrick

No argument there but remember these are done separate individual issues of the comic.

Look at @ThatNickGuy - rather than fussing with the book he's given to the publisher, trying to make it perfect, he's moved on to the next one. Get to work on a new comic


Now.

*cracks whip*

Gruebeard said:

Look at @ThatNickGuy - rather than fussing with the book he's given to the publisher, trying to make it perfect, he's moved on to the next one. Get to work on a new comic


Now.

*cracks whip*

Click to expand...

Actually, doing that with his book was the correct thing to do, but only once the book is finished. Nick's issue is that he continued to fiddle after he sent the book to the publisher, which is like sending edits to the professor after your essay is already turned in. But yeah, I'm pretty sure now he's working on the next one.

Zero Esc said:

Actually, doing that with his book was the correct thing to do, but only once the book is finished. Nick's issue is that he continued to fiddle after he sent the book to the publisher, which is like sending edits to the professor after your essay is already turned in. But yeah, I'm pretty sure now he's working on the next one.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that was...really bad form by me. I admit that and feel horrible about it.

But I HAVE started working on my next one.

Other than rendering the 1st issue either apocryphal or writing the story around it, I am just talking about one page. I'm fine with all the others. The first issue mainly needs to go away because the story diverged. And fridging the female lead feels stupid now.

Thanks for nothin'!

I keed, I keed. I did draw a page:

I have this problem a lot. It takes a lot of mental effort to carry through with a project for me and I will lose motivation and desire to continue. Last semester I failed two classes just from sheer lack of bothering to put pencil to paper and do the artwork. By the break, I felt I needed to truly reevaluate whether I wanted to try to make it as a professional artist, as I seemed to not have the drive for it. I spent my winter break sitting down and learning C++ and changed my schedule for this semester to focus on as many GE's as I could change to, planning to eventually change my major to computer science. And I enjoyed coding. I had played with it off and on in the past and gone through all the javascript lessons on Codecademy, but over a few weeks I had burned through three different C++ tutorials or books. It seemed like I had blasted through every topic that would be covered in the first two semesters of computer science. I had spent basically every day of those weeks, morning to evening, studying hard on my own.

Something strange happened after that. I still had two art classes that it was too late to replace, so I figured I would just stick through it and see about officially changing my major for next Fall. And then I started producing artwork again. Above and beyond what I had to for the grade. Including extra projects that I was now doing for fun. I was actually waking up in the morning and the first thing on my mind was wanting to get back to the school's cintiq lab and get to painting. I started making time to show up to life drawing practices and filling my sketchbooks. I feel like I've been more productive art-wise in the last three months than I have in the last three years. I'm not sure how, but taking that break rekindled something in my mind to view drawing as something to do for fun rather than a chore to procrastinate, like a game you want to sit down and spend all day playing. Maybe I was burnt out and needed to focus on something new for a little while. Maybe I just needed to kick myself into forming a regular habit of being productive. Maybe I'm just more of a "red mage" player, and have to dip my hands into a little of everything instead of focusing on one thing too long.

Perhaps something similar could be helpful to you? If you're procrastinating on your comic instead of it feeling like something you're actively craving to do, maybe take a break for a few weeks forgetting entirely about it to pick up something new?