Artist Imposter Syndrome but MORE: Stories!

Hey there! We’re going to talk about imposter syndrome again today. Before you turn away at how long this video is, there’s a lot of different things in here and a lot of good questions and stories that I think that everyone can really get some value out of. Even if you only put it on in the background to listen to, I think it’s really worth giving it a shot. Hey, you can even do your drawing for the day while it’s on! If this isn’t your thing and you want to wait till next week’s video, hey, that’s cool too, but give it a try.

This video is actually a bit more unscripted than pretty much everything else that I do in that I actually just sort of turn on my mic and go. This is a video of responses to a survey I opened a few weeks back about experiences with imposter syndrome. I did some light editing so I’m not rambling too much here, but you’re getting sort of a raw thought dump because I think that when people step up and ask vulnerable questions that they deserve a full answer.

And so that’s what I’m doing. Don’t expect what I have to say to immediately solve things, but try to remember a little bit as you continue your learning. Hope this will be useful; let’s get started!

A.B. The Dragon writes, I have experienced imposter syndrome occasionally. One time I opened for commissions and despite people always complimenting my art and saying they’d love to commission me, I got no customers. I eventually closed after a few months and it sucked, not gonna lie. I plan to try again in the future.

Well, first of all, yeah, that does suck. I’m sorry. It sucks that you open up for commissions and you got all that energy leading up to it, but then no one really bites and you’re just like, well, shoot. You’re kind of feeling a little embarrassed, right?

But props for planning to try again in the future. I absolutely think you should.

One of the hard realities of human behavior here is nothing to do with you as an artist. It’s the fact that like maybe 5% of people that say they will do something will actually do it when it involves a transaction. People sort of need pressing into doing a lot of things and it’s not really the kind of thing that you can press people into when it involves money, right? You can press your friends into going out to get dinner and hanging out and all that stuff, but you can’t really pressure random people and go, hey, give me money because they’re not really gonna like that, right?

So you sort of have to put that carrot out there and say, hey, I’m doing commissions and see who bites. And unfortunately, just not a lot of people do. This happens with big artists too. There’s certainly some artists out there that really have a lot going on, right? But they still have to put their name out there and really advertise themselves and show their past commissions and maybe even like go to galleries or dealer’s dens or that kind of stuff if it’s at like a furcon or whatever, and really advertise themselves. And maybe after that, they’ll get like a few commissions. It sucks.

If anything, I hope from this that you can learn that you’re not an imposter for not getting commissions. This happens to so many people when they open for the first or second, even third time, it happens. The unfortunate truth is you have to keep your expectations really low and just kind of see where things go. A little bit of it is also where you’re posting and needing to advertise. It gets kind of complicated there, but like, I’ll be honest, I think Twitter’s not a great place for artists that are small and seeking commissions, regardless of your skill level. I see artists that are fantastic and they open for commissions and can’t find anyone because places like Twitter just have so much going on and it’s hard for them to get started there. So trying to find the right venue to advertise that can help a little bit too, but it’s going to be hard. You got to start small and it’ll take a while, but I hope you do.

Rickie writes, I’ve been at it almost 11 years. My journey hasn’t been completely fun because I’ve been growing as a person at the same time, so it’s not always easy to accept a compliment. I still don’t think I deserve them and feel like I need to do better, but I don’t want that to discourage me as tough as art is.

Honestly, I mean, that’s a good mindset to have. Remember that as you grow and get better at art, you’re going to keep setting your sights higher and you’ll feel like your art quality hasn’t been getting better even though it has. Hopefully you can start to recognize that for what it is. It does help to actually go look at older art and then you’ll really start to see the difference and go, oh shoot, I have actually gotten better, which can then help you accept compliments.

Part of the other thing of accepting compliments is just forcing yourself to do it. If someone says something nice, just make yourself say thank you. Even if you don’t feel like you deserve it, say it anyway. After a while, just getting into that practice of being accepting, sort of a fake it till you make it kind of thing, you’ll actually sort of get to a point where you really do feel it and you do accept compliments and you’ll feel like you fit in a lot more there. It seems kind of odd to play tricks on yourself like that because you know that you’re doing it, but it honestly does kind of work. So give it a shot.

Deayieldsign, apologies if I pronounced that wrong, writes, imposter syndrome has kept me from doing anything drawing related for three plus years. I usually like to use artist works for references, especially those who I really admire. I never traced anyone’s artwork, but sometimes I feel like I might as well have because I use their art to reference something. So the secret here is what you are doing is called studying. You’re looking at something and you’re reproducing it. That’s still better than doing tracing. It’s way better. That’s actually how you learn to draw. That’s actually what everyone does to learn to draw. There is nothing shameful about it. That’s how you learn.

If you were to go to art school, you’re going to spend your time just doing tons and tons and tons of studies, learning how to study from real life, from photos, from other art, masterworks, that sort of thing. And it’s just the same if you’re doing this online. I have a whole video on tracing versus referencing versus studying and imagination and all that stuff. I’ll make sure that’s linked here, but truly you’ll fit right in by studying things. That’s how you draw. That’s how you learn. And it really does take a long time to learn to draw. So don’t get too hung up on the fact that you haven’t drawn for a while. It’s okay. You can pick it right back up.

Scott writes, Hi there. So I started to draw like six months ago and posted on Twitter, but I don’t feel like I’m getting that recognition and I barely get like two likes on my art. That makes me feel like I’m not that good or that nobody will look at my art. I know it takes time, but it just feels wrong.

Oh yeah, I feel you. So when I started out on Twitter, guess two, three years ago, I was in a similar spot. Twitter wasn’t in a great spot before the whole takeover and everything. And honestly, I think it’s an even worse spot now. I kind of try to avoid Twitter myself, honestly. I still have a pretty small Twitter account in comparison to many artists out there. I know a YouTube account is a decent size at this point, but like Twitter, no, not that big. And I share art on there. And similarly, sometimes I share things and it just kind of falls flat. And there’s not really a reason that I can tell for that, right? Like it’s sort of the same art that I would typically post, but this one, no, maybe it’s the wrong time. Maybe just the right kind of people didn’t see it. I don’t know.

The secret is you find places that aren’t Twitter. Find places that aren’t such a huge audience that you’re trying to yell through the noise when everyone’s clamoring for that same level of attention. Find places where there’s other artists that like the same kind of things that you do. Share your art among these communities. I know it feels a little weird to do that at first because you’re like, oh, well, then I’m kind of limiting myself, right? I’m going to a smaller place. What the heck? No, you can always move around. You can always come back to Twitter later when you feel a little more confident about it. But Twitter’s just not a great place for artists starting out full stop.

My personal experience is that I really love to post on Mastodon in the Fediverse. I know a lot of people don’t really like Mastodon that much or find it kind of confusing, but I find it fantastic. Anytime I share something on there versus any of the other places that I’m on, I get just so much more activity and fun comments from people and folks sharing things around. And I share things around too. It’s just such a more friendly place. And with Mastodon, you can really pick your home server, your home community that you find, but you still get to interact with everyone else that’s on Mastodon. And it just kind of feels like a cozier place. And it will really encourage you to draw more when you find other people that are in that same kind of situation. The other thing is you can kind of find art communities of the same skill level, like look up, learn to draw type communities, see if there’s like forums, Discord servers, that type of thing. Show your stuff there. You will definitely find other people that are also in that same space.

And they might also have their own strategies for trying to figure out where they’re going to share their art, right? There’s other people doing the same kind of stuff. There are plenty of artists who are in the same spot that you are right now. I guarantee it.

Anonymous writes, it’s mostly a combination of perfectionism and imposter syndrome in my case. You desire to have this good art style and anatomy. You want to find the happy medium in everything, but there’s never an actual one. And until you get it perfectly, you don’t deserve any praise. You fake being good.

Yeah, I kind of get this. There’s so much stuff to learn about art, right? Especially anatomy. So many things to learn. You got to learn all the muscles and the shapes and then you kind of have to blend that together with making good motion, cool poses, perspective, right? There’s just a lot. And when you’re learning to draw, you just don’t have the capacity to do it all at once. That’s it. You kind of have to accept that you’re going to draw some parts of your art badly. Like you might get really good at gesture or something, but you might be really bad at anatomy. I feel like that’s where I am right now, honestly. But the things that you are good at do tend to shine through. And every time that you’re drawing something new, you’re learning a little bit more.

You can usually notice it too. I feel like whenever I’m drawing something in a new pose, drawing something from behind and I’m looking at the back of the elbow or something, I’m like, Oh, you know what? I never noticed there’s a bump there that kind of goes out and goes back in. I should look up what that is. Or maybe I’ll just draw it as I see it. Little things like that. You get better just a little bit. And sort of like the other responses I’ve had here, everyone has to do this and everyone makes mistakes here.

There’s artists that I see today that I think are just fantastic artists. And occasionally you can spot just little mistakes there, but it’s fine. The rest of their work really shines through. They do it with confidence and they do it really well. And I think it looks really nice and, and everyone has that sort of quality as they progress. There’s things they’re good at. There’s things they’re not good at. But you’ll get better. You’ll always get better. Art is something where you’re never really going to achieve perfection and there’s always the next thing to learn, right? You can keep improving. And I think that’s one of the things that’s really cool about it.

I know it’s difficult, but you will get there. You do have to do it. You do have to practice and kind of like what you’re saying, you fake being good. You do fake it a little bit, but eventually the faking being good turns into, well, really building up that confidence and a sense of belonging. And you will always feel like there are defects in your art. I was reading some posts this morning about folks that are really unsatisfied with their art quality and they think that people don’t like it. And I go look at their art and I’m just like, wow, that art they made is incredible. What the heck? I don’t get it.

Which I know is sort of frustrating for me to say, cause I’m just going to be like, well, buckle up. It’s always going to be like this, but not necessarily. If you learn that everyone sort of ends up with this sort of mindset where they’re unsatisfied with their art. Well, honestly, that makes me feel like a little bit less of an imposter, just, just knowing that other people have those same struggles. Hopefully it helps with you too.

FeeF says, been trying to get into art for a long time now. And I think I’ve been suffering from this since the start and just didn’t know it had a name. I’ve always had the feeling that I have no idea what I’m doing while all my art friends do and punishing myself for bad art has almost become routine now.

Well, Hey, I hope the revelation of imposter syndrome has kind of helped categorize this for you. And hopefully you’re starting to come to terms with bad art and how it’s not something that you should be ashamed of. And it’s not even something that you have to just accept. It’s something that you should almost look forward to and that you should do every day. It’s part of your warmups. It’s part of your learning. You’re going to make a lot of bad art and you’re going to make like 95% bad art. That’s just how it goes. Occasionally you’ll accidentally make something good. You’ll be like, Oh wow. Oh, okay. Cool. I get it. I get it. And you can kind of learn from that, but it’s going to take a while.

And even when you are several years into your art practice, you’re still going to be doing a lot of bad art. You’re going to feel like some days you’ve forgotten how to draw, some days your warmups just look really, really bad and you’ll get a little better at this as you go. But it’s always going to be like that. So make that better, get comfy with it, make that better and laugh at it. Keep drawing. Even if you want to draw the same thing twice in a row or three times in a row or many times in a row, you’ll draw it a couple of times. You’ll go, oh, oh gosh, it’s bad. Let’s start again. Maybe that one’s bad too. Draw it again. Oh, that one’s okay. But I could fix this part and just keep drawing it. And it’s not always going to improve every time you draw it, but you’re going to find the parts that you like and the parts that you recognize is good. And you’re going to be like, Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got to work up to it every day.

For real though, gosh, I wish more people could see those secret sketchbooks of some of those really, really skilled artists because there’s truly some warmups in there and you know that they’re warmups, they’re messy. And we’re not entitled to see everyone’s sketchbook, right? But I do feel really lucky for being able to see some of those. And you’re just going to kind of have to trust me that that happens. It’s there. Everyone’s doing those warmups. Everyone’s making bad art on pretty much every day. Everyone has those days where suddenly they feel like they can’t draw anymore. And they’re just like, what happened? But keep at it. You got this.

Koosha Karimi writes, since late 2020, I’ve been doing 3d artwork on source filmmaker due to its outdated nature and low barrier of entry. I feel that SFM content is generally stigmatized with the mirror community, which can lead to very unpleasant feelings of worthlessness towards my work, especially during burnout phases.

Yeah, I think I know what you mean here. This is something that people also get for drawing stuff like anime a lot. Anime is really popular, right? People like anime. People want to draw more anime. Why not? And there’s a lot of certain styles with that, but you’ll have folks that really scoff at anime and go, oh, that’s not real art. But you know what? Who needs them? Of course it’s art. Honestly, look, I draw furries, right? And people are like, oh, that doesn’t count as art. That’s furries. Internet punching bag, right? Now we don’t need those people. Of course it’s art.

Same thing here. Source filmmaker. Honestly, I think it’s kind of difficult to do. Maybe you’ve gotten used to it and it feels easier for you now. And that’s great. Sure. It’s accessible. And so is drawing with pencil and paper, right? There’s stuff to learn with every kind of tool and skill shines through no matter what kind of tool you’re using, what kind of medium you’re using. When you get good at a tool, people can tell. And I think if you’re making cool stuff with SFM, that’s awesome. Anyone that thinks that’s not real art, I don’t know where they’re coming from. I would imagine most of the people that say that’s not real art aren’t artists. They’re not making things themselves.

Unfortunately, you will occasionally run into people that are sort of popular artists and they’re going to scoff at the things that they don’t like. And some people are just assholes and that’s, well, they’re not people worth keeping in your life, honestly. If they can’t value your work just because it’s not the thing that they like, don’t keep them around. If it’s social media, block them, unfriend them, whatever. Don’t put any value on the things that they say if they can’t value your work.

V writes, when I was with my ex, I used to draw a lot, but when we broke up, I wouldn’t draw anything for years. I met someone new and we are married now and she has been pushing me to draw again as she’s an artist and loves my older work. I started again and it feels off, as if I’ve never drawn before.

First, I’m happy you’ve found a new special someone and that they care about you and your art. That’s fantastic. If it’s been a few years, then it can take a while to really find your skill again, but I promise you it’s still there. Burnout happens with people and whether this is burnout or not, everyone at some point has that break where they have to recover their skill and find it again. You will learn more quickly than you did starting from scratch. Art is a muscle to exercise both mentally and physically and if you don’t exercise that for a while, it’ll feel tougher to pick it back up. But you’ll start to remember things as you learn and you’ll automatically avoid certain mistakes while learning that you would have made previously.

The thing here again is just practice and focusing and trying not to get distraught by the fact that you remember that you had some skill and can’t quite figure it out. Treat it as a fresh learning experience and you’ll find that you can catch back up to where you were before you know it. If you’re able to and want to try to find an art course online on Proko or New Masters Academy or something, a place where you can learn along with some focus material, you’ll realize that you can skip a lot of things as you get started because you actually do know a bit and can draw those things. You’ll find the things that you are a bit rusty on and can practice. And because they give you specific things to draw and work on, it’s detached from the more personal art that you want to make and a bit easier to follow through with in my opinion.

Another thing that might help is to find things that you’ve never drawn before and see if there’s a new way you can learn. You can practice that first and come back to what you used to draw once you’ve found your general skill again. It’s still there, I promise you.

no0t2 writes, imposter syndrome has been my best friend for a decent amount of time. It’s calmer now but I feel that’s because I haven’t been drawing as much lately due to personal reasons. A lot of the time I feel like I’m not that much of a true artist due to me just drawing fan art.

So this is similar to when we were talking about Source Filmmaker earlier. Anyone that thinks fan art isn’t art, like, ditch them. It’s easy for me to just say, who cares? Ignore them, right? Harder to actually ignore them though. But it’s something where you’re still making art and yeah, it’s based off of a franchise or it’s based off of like a character that you really like. Why not? You know what? Other people are drawing art and it’s based off of a person that they drew or it’s based off of a plant or a landscape or a pet, right? They’re not making original plants, right? I mean maybe some people are, I don’t know, but like everything sort of has a basis in reality, right? Everything does.

Fan art has a basis and just a specific portion of it. Other art, right? And yeah, unfortunately there’s just a lot of assholes out there and some of them are other artists and that really sucks. It can be super demoralizing if there’s a big name artist and they’re just an asshole and they’re rude about fan art or anything. I know of some artists like this myself. I have blocked people because I just don’t want to hear their opinions online because I think they’re worthless opinions if they can’t value the fact that there are other art fields that they’re just not interested in. Try to ignore those folks honestly. It’s hard to do that but try to ignore them. Find more people that do love to draw the same thing that you do. Share your art within those circles. By all means, share with broader communities as well but if you find that you’re not comfortable because people are just being assholes about it, block them. You don’t need them.

2chaotic (hi buddy!) writes, my imposter syndrome takes the form of seeing people around me while knowing just enough to understand what is needed to do a task or learn a skill and feel immediately so far behind my peers. My practice never feels like an improvement and I get very frustrated spinning my wheels.

So I do have to say the annoying thing here and that is you do have to practice and you have to keep doing it. It takes time and that’s that’s difficult right when there’s all these things around you showing you all the art that you feel like you could be doing but you can’t yet because you have to practice. That’s the basis here and it’s hard to stop comparing yourself because you want to look at other art right? You want to get inspiration. You want to see what your friends are doing, what other artists that you look up to are doing. It’s so easy to look at them and go oh my gosh I’m never gonna get there and it’s hard.

It takes time. If you really continue your practice once you start to notice improvement in your own skill you’ll stop caring so much about how your skill compares to others. It’ll still happen every so often but it gets to be less and less of an issue and at a certain point you’ve improved enough in your own art and can compare your art to what you’ve drawn earlier and go oh oh my gosh I’ve improved. Honestly it was like a year for me to kind of get comfortable with my own art progress not even just with my art but my progress. It wasn’t even really me getting that much better at it just kind of coming to terms with the fact that there are a lot of great artists out there and I’m nowhere near their skill level but I am where I am and I start to notice my own improvement. Some instances it’s like I manage to draw a little critter and I’m like oh my gosh I haven’t done that before. Sure other people have drawn this same kind of critter all crazy and awesome and rendered but this one’s mine and it’s my improvement my milestone.

If you look back at your art over a short amount of time you might not really notice the improvement and if it’s been a while and you still feel like you haven’t improved remember that your skill at seeing art often can outpace your skill at drawing but it’s just your ability to see good art improving really quickly. Honestly I think that skill to see good art outpaces your skill at making art more often that’s actually kind of useful because it keeps you setting your sights higher even though it’s a pretty frustrating feeling. It goes in and out. I know it sucks to just say you got to put in the practice but it’s what you got to do. Over time the pain of it fades and gets replaced by excitement for your progress.

PCFoxy writes I tend to practice 3D modeling and animation and story making and a bit of drawing which is one form of art and basically I don’t feel like sharing it with anyone aside from people who are truly my friends which makes me feel like an imposter that I don’t want to be gouged by others or start drama.

Hey this is perfectly valid. There’s a little bit of I think confirmation bias that you’re only seeing stuff about artists that do post their work right? But there’s plenty of artists out there that only make things for their friends or share it within small circles. I know I mentioned it a couple times in this video already but try to find a small art community of people making the similar things that you like or maybe just a small local art community even. Find folks in that sort of area share with them and you’ll probably make even more friends along the way right? But you know if you want you can just share with your friends too that’s totally okay. You’re valid as an artist. You’re valid as an artist for wanting to do that.

I know plenty of artists today that used to share their stuff online got really stressed out by it and they don’t do it anymore. They just share it with their friends. Some of them have burned out a little bit and don’t really do art at all at the moment but usually most folks come back to it right? But it’s just always there. But you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to share it. You can share with your friends and keep private. What’s most important is that it makes you happy.

I know there’s this perceived social pressure to get a big following and everything because that’s what everyone seems to do right? But that’s all that you see online. Try as much as you can to disconnect yourself from that. Focusing on followers and popularity and everything is one of the things that will most quickly destroy your motivation as an artist. I see it happen in so many people and it’s hard to watch. It really is. If you’re able to find a place where it doesn’t have numbers and if that’s small circles of friends I think you’re in a better spot than most.

LuckyBanjo writes, I have a severe streak of bad art and I can’t help myself. All my friends do amazing sketches and things but when I try doing something different I feel like I’m copying it and I feel bad about it.

Similar to a couple earlier answers here, you’re making art and you have to make the bad art. You can’t just make only the good art. You’re going to make bad art and what you want to look for is the improvement in your art as you keep doing it over and over. But you have to do the bad art. And when you feel like your art is stuck and you’ve gotten worse at your art, remember again it’s how your skill at seeing is moving faster. And part of it could also be that you need to warm up for the day. This happens to a lot of artists. It’s such an easy thing for all of us to get tripped up on, drawing something and going oh my god why is it so bad?

And it’s often because we haven’t warmed up for the day. Not always. Early on you’re still going to need a lot of practice and studying to get there. And if you feel like you’re copying art, again as long as you’re not tracing something, you’re doing something called a study, which we talked about a little bit earlier in the video as well. So there’s a few different things here to think about. Just know that you’re not alone. Everyone has this moment.

And that’s similar for all the answers that are in this video. I’m not going to claim to be the most correct person about this stuff. There’s chances that some of the things I suggest here aren’t going to work for you for any of the replies I’ve made in this video. But I hope that everyone finds something useful to think about. I don’t think anyone here is going to hear what I’ve got to say and immediately go oh yeah that solves it. It’s going to take time. But I hope by saying this out loud that you’ll remember a little bit of it over time and can get to a point where none of you feel like an imposter so much. You’re all artists no matter where you are in your journey. It’s a journey everyone has taken. Whoo! Well I’ve certainly babbled a lot today haven’t I? Thanks for listening if you’ve made it this far. I hope you have fun drawing today, if you didn’t already begin during the video. Take care!