Deciding what i wanna perfect

Jonas Zavacky

Hi SVS community ! I am really struggling with this and I think it really takes me plenty of time. I dont know what i want to perfect. Whole my life i draw mainly characters, but in past couple of months i am discovering what people do and there is so much i like and want to be perfect in... like enviroment design, character concept artist, make animation, draw comic..I know i cant perfect everything, but I dont want to commit to characters when there can be something I will enjoy hella more in the end..

Is there somebody who struggle with this too? Or did and finally decide? It is just about decision and commitment? What do you think it could help me? Or is there on SVS some course where they are talking about this topic? Thanks ^^

Hey Jonas! I was in a similar position before. The first things that helped me was realizing that the idea of perfection is an unhelpful framework because you're going to spend your whole life improving. You don't ever arrive at perfection, so you have to be in love with the process. You can certainly devote more time and attention to particular areas and improve in those things at a faster rate, but that's not the same thing as perfection.

As for deciding where to focus, it's a matter of opportunity cost. We're finite beings both in our time and our energy. Know that you can't do it all, and start scraping away at the things you like the idea of but don't actually find yourself investing time into. It's easy to get excited about new things because you get that beginners boost where you learn a lot of things and everything seems to happen relatively quickly. Then you hit the wall and everything beyond that point is mileage and practice, mileage and practice. It's a heck of a lot easier to imagine the what ifs of life than it is to sit down and work. That kind of dreaming has its own opportunity cost though. It can be helpful for awhile and can make us consider the possibilities of what we could do or become, but ultimately we have to choose and commit. That's the only way we can ever hope to move from amateur to competent artist.

As for how to do that. My advice is to not tackle it all at once. Scrape away at the excess, like a sculptor would. Decide what you can ultimately live without. Be realistic about your time and energy. Know that these are likely to lessen as you get older. You may end up having to scrape away things that are conflicting to you or relegate them to hobby status. That's okay. It's fine to dabble.

Know also though that we tend to love what we invest in. The things you ultimately choose to dive deeper on are likely the very same things that you'll come to prefer.

Jonas Zavacky

Thanks for this! yeah i meant more like where to focus - i choose bad word.

Well.. i think you really helped me.. bcs i really like to draw characters, faces, emotions... i draw this since i remember and i dont really invest much time into something else then this I may like the environments etc, but i dont really spend time to draw it..

@jonas-zavacky It seems like the same advice applies doesn't it? Decide where you're going with you art and what you need to get there. If it involves environments, learn that and do that. If it involves something else, do those things. But it all comes down to first deciding what you actually want to do.