This thread is about those times when something devastating happens and you think you're never going to draw again. And how often times, it's not the end of the world and you get back up on your feet and keep going.

Okay, so long story short (to spare you all the technical weirdness that led up to this), while I was on hiatus I had to reinstall Procreate and lost a bunch of my recent documents. Everything since November was just gone - wips, finished artworks, everything else. I had tried to back it up, but because I didn't understand how my computer's built-in phone backup system works, that backup was completely lost.

I was emotionally destroyed for a few days afterwards. I was terrified of the idea that I had to remember every single wip I had lost and recreate them from the ground up. I was convinced that rather than take on the herculean task of recovering everything, I would just stop drawing from then.

Well... I didn't recreate everything. I managed to jog my memory some, recreated a few wips from images I'd sent on Discord, etc. But at the same time, just as much as I'd lost a whole lot of history, I also lost a whole lot of burdens I'd made for myself. Where I'd previously been convinced that "I have to finish all of these things", I've now realized that a lot of that stuff was just unnecessary tasks I hadn't been enjoying doing.

Actually, this might've been the best thing that happened for my art in a while. Getting a break for a while and then getting to use the app with new eyes again seems to have resulted in me taking my art in a different direction that I wasn't able to before, when I was stuck in that rut. I feel more free to experiment when I'm not stuck trying to finish old artworks all the time.

And if anyone's wondering, this was the first thing I did after getting the app back:

(You know me, I love Buckshot Roulette.)

So what about you? Any art-pocalypse come your way that you had to rebuild from? How did you do it?

There was periods where i felt this way, because i were frustrated not drawing the way i want or not improving fast enough, or just imposter syndrome kicking me all week lol

One day in highschool i decided to throw all my drawings in, and i felt really dumb some days later.

Often I'd go "it's over, I can't draw anymore, it's the end" and come back drawing 2 days later.

It's still frustrating, but at least I'm progressing as I draw. If I stop, I won't be able to progress, even if it's in an unexpected direction (or maybe i just have a skill issue?)

There was a point of a few years after I finished school that I really struggled. There was a lot going on in life, I was stressed, and I wasn’t drawing to relieve it. I kept getting more upset when I drew, because I could see myself getting worse. Looking back at what I made a few years prior, and still feeling proud of it, but hating everything I made currently. Nothing felt good enough. For that period of time , I switched my style so I couldn’t compare so much. Started doing very quick, cartoony doodles, instead of spending days on a project. This helped me build back up the habits to make things regularly, and not feel so disappointed. The biggest help was getting out of that situation( intentionally vague) . Less stress, and more time to begin with.

I’m glad it ended up working out for you , that definitely sounds distressing

I basically managed to burn myself out during the early 2020s doing art way way too frequently I feel like and it got to the point I kinda literally just mentally snapped one day and on top of some personal problems I basically took down some of my old accounts which I had for years and this would kinda happen again early this year I think because once again I was stressing myself out and putting on waaaayy too much pressure upon myself and usually after I kinda screw myself over my drawings would come out pretty sloppy when I chose to do them but I’d slowly get back to yknow my senses after like a week but nowadays I’m doing a little better but honestly I’d rather not look at my old stuff anyways it’s better off in a vault never to see the light of day

Until now, never. I'm very attached, and while I've been in some situations where I've questioned art (because of certain things), I've never gone so far as to let go of something I hold dear, like art itself. Maybe I've lost a project that took me hours, or massive things like my 11-season comic, but after a time of pain, I always return to it with the thought of being better than I once was. So, the end of my art is the reason why I keep drawing. I won't stop. The end of my art will come when God decides that my end has come, and if possible, He will keep my legacy in someone else's hands.

And now that I remember it: I had a recent incident in which I lost the 27-page spread with more than 300 panels of my comic. Just two days later I redid everything because I had already experienced that situation and I decided to move forward with these types of losses. They are a lesson for me, something to avoid and continue with my journey.

I always have that feeling! Sometimes, but yeah, specially lately.

I think the most exasperated I ever felt was during university, ironically, at art school. Nearly every course revolved around briefs that felt more suited to children’s television, which was never the audience I wanted to create for. We were expected to draw constantly, but what really wore me down was being forced to justify every detail with research and symbolic reasoning. Sometimes, a green tree in a garden is just that, a green tree in a garden. That pressure to intellectualise every stroke drained the spontaneity and joy out of creating.

I remember one lecturer telling me I had the potential to produce some of the greatest work in the school they've ever had, but that my briefs lacked consistency in quality. And they were right, in a way. I didn’t care about them. The characters and stories we developed were disposable, designed to last a few weeks at most and for a grade. There was no time to get attached to the plot, or to even get excited for it because in the back of my mind it was always 'I need to get this idea down before the deadline'. We were expected to churn out strong ideas on a constant cycle, but I need time, months, even to build a concept I can actually invest in emotionally and artistically.

In the end, it really did sap the joy out of art for me. I never managed to break into the art industry after graduation and didn't even go to my graduation because of how fed up I was.

I'm slowly reconnecting with the artistic process, free from the pressure of deadlines or grades. And honestly, that’s when I make my best work, when I’m not being rushed, and when the only expectations I’m meeting are my own.

One of the biggest things I was taught in university was to never fall in love with your work and always be ready to toss it in the trash. Fortunately with image hosting sites and such, I've never had to worry too much about losing my working files, but there was a time a few months ago where an unfortunate event occurred that nearly caused my face to implode.

It was when I was working on this...

An incredibly large project that I had been spending all month on with many sleepless nights. During this time there were very frequent thunderstorms and I was about 80-90% done with the project when all of a sudden the power went out and it corrupted the working file. Fortunately, I learned real quick where Clip Studio puts backup files and managed to recover a lightly older version of the file, but god damn did I nearly have a heart-attack. It wasn't enough to get me to never want to draw again, but it did cause me to go into adrenaline induced hysterics for a couple days.

My lowest point was over 10 years ago, before I went to trade school. It took way too long for me to realize that I did not properly prepare myself for industry work while I was in college. I had no idea what to do, and I was in denial that my dogshit portfolio wasn't the reason I was getting zero offers. I moved to Boston right around the time the game industry there began to implode, so my prospects were shot from the get go. I was working an extremely shitty job just to pay rent, I was exhausted every day, depressed as fuck, and as much as I wanted art to be my lifeline, I didn't enjoy doing it anymore. I'd just stare at the unsellable shit I made and let the hopelessness consume me.

But I turned it around, so eyyy.

I feel you. Something similar happended to me a while back and it destroyed me. I had a folder where I had all of my old drawings, animations EVERYTHING and one day I wanted to delete one file but I guess I somehow selected the whole folder where everything was and shif deleted it. That ruined me. I managed to recover some stuff but man that made me mad but thats not the thing that brought me to quitting.

The moment where I thought it was over was around 2018-2019 I think. I was at the point where I started to improve but I was still new at art and I wasn't seeing any progres. This made me feel like I was at my limit and couldnt move foreward anymore. I took out an A3 piece of paper and decided to force myself to draw something. I had so many ideas but I just couldn't let it out on the paper. I just let all my anger out on the page scribbling over the whole thing. After I finished I even said to myself that I'm done and that I'm just not cut out for art.

I still keep that page in my binder as a reminder of that day. And hey. I'm glad I didn't quit :)

(You can see a few crude attempts at drawing something before disaster.)

Wow, Skoops lore. Now I really understand why you do what you do. Because you don't want the young artists here to go through the same brutal reality check that you did.

Good God, I can imagine how that felt. I've panicked over tech like that before.

I can really understand that. In music school, it took me a long time to figure out how to make my composition assignments feel meaningful to me, instead of just something I could churn out for a deadline. So I hear you.

Good on you! Keep going! And I think this is the lesson that this thread is trying to teach. I got back up even after losing a ton of my art, and I want to show everyone that life goes on even after the unthinkable happens.

Well, if someone's gotta get a brutal reality check, I'd rather they have it early and from someone that, at this point, isn't completely clueless, and has a plan to get them on the right track. I'd very much like my past to not become anyone's future.

“pheeew”

Honestly, there are a few moments I can list that cost me to not do art for a long time, but I feel like one of them in particular was when I had a falling out with a friend I had because I had feelings for them but they were already taken by someone else and they ended up blocking me because I said something that I shouldn’t have said before

And I desperately tried to get them back to make friends with them again until I decided to just move on we reluctantly, but I was just depressed at that time like I didn’t wanna do much or do anything, but just to watch TV and play video games

Heck, It didn’t even help that I was in that god-awful vocational school they just treat me like a fucking kid and acted all condescending with me with how being an adult works so I decided to just not go there all the time because I didn’t want to be bothered with being forced on in my room 24 seven

But as much as I hate it, I ended up feeling better when I went back as I ended up having a lot of people support me and I started to grow as a person, but what really got me out there and motivated again was when I said to use TikTok for the first time and that also led me to go back to Instagram to post more art there even after my graduation from that school despite the fact that I got little to no fanfare from anyone, especially on discord

but my main point is I ended up going back out of that rut I was in and started to work on myself when 2022 came and I decided to put my full focus on art and making videos after I first made that TikTok from all those years ago and even after I also had a falling out with another friend I had I still ended up going there eventually, but this time my father decided to just take me to my uncles for the day so he can help me out with my comic issue zero which I’m still trying to work on even to this day and I ended up feeling better and more motivated than I did before

fuck, I was even using tutorials and copying from a lot of the comic books and Manga I bought I mean, even though some you might think that my art is bad or still at a beginner level or just flat out, don’t care about it. I’ve still want to make my artwork and stories because I mean, where else is my imagination gonna go at this point and also I can always make more unique stories then some of the stuff I’ve seen around this platform and issue zero might not be my greatest work help is probably even my worst and I know damn well that it ain’t gonna be just as popular as most of the other indie creations out there, but you know what I don’t care. I still wanna make my artwork because I wanna have fun with it and I wanna make something that I like, and if anyone else also likes it, then I’m glad they do and I will take their support along the way, and they don’t, then you know that that’s fine. They can watch the other stuff that gets made around here instead for all I care because as long as I have friends and some family members that actually like my art, I’m perfectly OK with the art I have for now and besides, I can always learn and improve on them if I see fit, so if people wanna see me as a beginner artist that’s fine, but only know that I may have lackluster art, but deep down I have story ideas that I think are great and I will never have it any other way

Frustratingly, I go through this sort of feeling in cycles as part of the adventure that is bipolar disorder lol, though my empty periods have gotten shorter and less severe over time while my artistic periods have gotten longer and more stable.

My longest hiatus was more or less my entire teenage years where I basically forgot I even liked drawing, but there wasn't any one specific cause, that was just a hellish time which I barely survived at all and I am still recovering from it a decade later. The more recent off periods are all similar but not as severe, it's always some external source of stress which leaves me with no energy left for creative pursuits. In the moment it always feels like I will never be able to draw again, because emotional permanence is not my strong suit lol, but I do come back every time.

Typically what kicks me out of each burnout is an obsession becoming too strong to ignore, whether it's a character design or a worldbuilding idea or whatever, at which point the "I have to draw this or I will die" energy overpowers the "I will never draw again" misery. If it's a good week, I can build off that momentum to get a bit more shit done, but even if not it usually resets my artistic stress level because at least I accomplished something.

As of right now I think I might actually have broken the cycle, I've been drawing stuff even in a low mood since around november of last year (around the time I started uploading to Newgrounds), but I often say optimistic crap like that right before my world collapses again lol. Even if not though, it's definitely been improving over time, partly from my environment getting safer and partly because the better I know my problems the better I can manipulate myself past them.

Kinda related to the feeling of being able to experiment after a loss, I used to find that my art seemed to magically improve after every off period. I'd draw some pictures all at a roughly similar skill level, then burn out, then next year the new stuff would be like night and day even though I hadn't been practicing in my time away from art, it's very weird and I think had something to do with basically getting a fresh start each time. That doesn't really happen anymore, but in a good way because I see myself improving in real time now without needing to wait, I must have learned how to practice during one of those gaps lol.

(Note that these are just the times I can remember off the top of my head or by looking at gaps in my sketchbook posts on Tumblr)

1. August 2022: The reception to me pushing my luck asking too many ridiculous questions in the BBS on my old NG account
2. February 2023: A family member convincing me that there's no reason to draw if I don't enjoy it
3. February 2024: The discovery that someone who drew the same concept as one of my drawings but 100x better (granted, neither of us owned the rights to the idea) was merely 15 years old at the time
4. November 2024: Some argument I had on Reddit; don't remember the specifics

I've started feeling like this when I started my current job. My output was pretty decent during my final year of college considering I had a crazy number of assignments and deadlines. But ever since I started working, I've been very erratic when it comes to art.

I'd be pumped up for an idea, but I'm too tired to actually draw it. Or i'd get tons of ideas for a comic, but I can't bring myself to actually sit down and work on it, then I'd feel guilty the next day. Or the opposite where I'd get tons of new ideas to improve the start of the story...and then feeling the need to restart again and again. Then I'd start thinking "It's been 4 months and I barely drew anything" Its like a viscious cycle. I started to get imposter syndrome and question if I should keep going with art at all.

I didn't realise that I was super burnt out, largely because of the stress from my job dragging down other aspects of my life. Looking back at my old art, I realised I had a lot of fun just messing around with different mediums, experimenting, and doodling whatever. But now, I've been applying unreasonable standards to myself and it was dragging me down mentally.

I think I'm still in a bit of a werid funk, but I'm getting over it slowly. Going to art galleries and playing around with a new medium (in my case pixel art) has really helped.

my post history says it all

Uh, quite a few times in my life, unfortunately. The most extreme example being when I had a major mental health crisis that, let's say, I barely just survived. I went into a pit of despair over my life for two whole years after that, and sometimes I still think of that period as a major waste of my life, but, in retrospect, I probably did need the rest.

Anyway! I did slowly recover with meds, therapy, some support from friends and a lot of working on personal development, so I'm happy to say I did rediscover my art again. Things are still not perfect (I recently underwent more despair over AI art and the social media grind), but now I know my art and I can bounce back from anything... eventually... until my time truly comes. :)

2020-2021 timeframe. Before I started making music I always wanted to be an animator and comic artist, however I didnt have the support for it like I did with music at the time so i just stopped for 3 or so years because it wasnt getting me anywhere. That time passes by, Ive met new people, got more homies helped me start out like @sivkyne and @overthepines. I draw more as a side quest than a main but Its still pretty fun to do since I dont constantly have a hard and rough approach towards it like i did back then.

I have moments were I feel like my world (in an art sense btw, not literally) was crumbling in front of me, like I can never get better, but one of the things that keep me going is that I've put my blood sweat and tears (last two literally) in my art for YEARS! and there's no way in Hell I'll stop now! As Henry said in Bendy And The Ink Machine "Press on"!

The initial stages of pandemics made me enter in a survival mode of not getting infected and most of all not letting my parents to be infected so everything that my mind perceived as non-survival was shut down and for almost an entire year I didn't draw anything. Thanks to a dear friend of mine, who helped me to gradually grab a pen/pencil etc. with small drawings, sketches, wips etc., I managed to come back to drawing. It wasn't easy to fight off this survival instinct that dictated me "survival is everything, if something is not survival-related, it's not important now".

Sounds a little similar to my story 5-6 years ago but the difference being that covid hit, the industry was already imploding and I was trying to recover from years of alcohol and drug abuse after feeling like I fell behind and not properly getting into art classes at a younger age.

Shot down a lot of contacts in my network as a result of not properly maintaining a good reputation as a result of my poor choices, but now after staying in the fight continuing to draw with digital and pixel art and finding myself in an art group becayse of the work ethic I got the dream is starting to come to fruition even if I'm still working a day job.

And thats putting what I went through lightly

Well, for me it was around the time I graduated high school. I had ambitions to do something with my doods, but didn’t quite know what to do yet. And when reality swept in and gave me responsibilities, I just didn’t have the time to draw much. At some point, I wanted to study up on fundamentals. But when I tried to restart everything, the passion wasn’t there much anymore. And given how the art industry changed over the next decade, things went from sour to hopeless.

Wasn’t until I hit my lowest point mentally that I picked up the pencil again. Somehow, drawing my feelings helped me cope with my brain breaking down. And after some time to recover, I feel relieved to draw again. Even if my skills aren’t up to par with my friends, I didn’t really care about being the best. All I wanna do now is draw what makes me feel happy, and help artists in financial need. That’s all I really need.

Thetageist, thank you for these forum threads, they make me feel good reading them.

I think when i got more interested in music / noise as a late teenager i really set down the dreams of ever making money as an artist and it slowly faded as i joined the work force and became crippled by that. Trying to set up a bunch of quickly made redbubble products in my early twenties made me face that my capabilities, patience, and ability to actually make something finished and produce had withered so much that my art was often more childish than ever before made me feel even more like; ok, its fully over and i’m never coming back to this like how much i wanted it as a kid and teenager when i was into animating. I think that pushed me to want to be able to make money off of cheap gimmicks somehow and i think in this world thats a healthy desire that if i had figured out, would have helped spark my creativity again. In the last ten years i’ve had phases of not drawing at all and spending a lot more time drawing but I think in the world that we live in I’ll never be able to focus on it or dedicate as much time to it as i did as a teenager. I think I would be really happy to find a way to make music and stop worrying about how i could make music fit into my life better because its so saturated and the economy and freelance positions around it seem so much more complicated and experimental due to modern recording being so much newer than illustration is, but idk. I think a big part of all of this having a feeling that my window has passed and i’ll never accomplish any big dreams is that i have always come up a little short with most things, i might be able ti look glamorous with my hobbies in a group of friends or at a house party but when it comes to trying to exist in any industry or be phenomenal or special, i’ve never been as developed as diehard people who have been able to make careers with their work and i think most people end up having to accept this so its probably healthy to more fully come to terms with it

I was working on a school project that required me to create a painted piece that depicted the city I lived in. Very realistic very detailed yknow. Now I take my time with art (you can tell by the fact I post art once every other other month lol), so I was kinda nervous going into this piece but I thought I could pull it off within the time frame. Well....... I still haven't completed the piece to this day and it took a chunk out of my grade for that class. I felt fucked after that deadline passed, like SUPER fucked. My mind was like "Ah shit, well looks like you aren't cut out for the art world dicklips". Istg I felt horrible starting any art project after that for like a solid few months, because I felt like the sun would explode before I'd complete the piece. Thankfully that feeling has gone down and I got my grade back up to an A and passed so yea I think I'm ready for the art world again heh

Not really something i felt was over for me but it was a low point with a friend i had.

Way back when in 2021 I was still fairly new to drawing. I had very little experience, every drawing attempt I did; never fully coming to fruition up until I met with a friend who more or less ended up becoming an advisor I relied on when it came to helping me with drawing, specifically with anatomy. He was good with what he did but when it came to checking my work.

I felt like Ben from Season 5 of hell's kitchen, the smallest errors on anatomy resulted in painful criticisms; big obvious ones I prepared for the absolute worse on what he was about to say and that while it hurt me; it kept me going. It was my drive to be better than the previous work I did. There was a lot i brushed off from what he said but the one thing that's still etched in my brain were "I don't think you have any idea what your doing".

There were a lot of times i doubted myself from sending the stuff i made, other times where I was having second thoughts trying out a more complex pose because I felt that I wasn't on the ceiling of skill to nail it but despite all that I slowly improved, i thought to myself i was seeing great progress.

But unfortunately it was as if it was never enough for him. As when i tried out other means to protect my work when the whole AI thing was exploding, he made a remark on how I didn't really need to protect it because it was all terrible to begin with. I mean I'd love it if that was the case but he had essentially told me that my years of progress was all down the drain.

At that point my fuse broke and years worth of pent up anger exploded on to him. Enough was enough and I had to call him out of his high horse and pull him down to the ground. Fortunately though its all water under the bridge now and that whole event shaped a lot of things for me and him for the better.

Honestly, this half-a-year long creative block that I attained due to trauma associated with my last relationship. But ya boy finally broke out of it. :)