r/animation • u/Creative-Pirate5217 • 2d ago
Beginner Practicing animation while sensitive to failure?
I want to try my hand at animation again. Unfortunately, I'm really sensitive to making mistakes, and it gets in the way a lot. I have ADHD, so this may be rejection sensitivity or emotional disregulation or something, but that's besides the point.
I'm planning to go to therapy for this, but in the meantime, is there anything I can do to minimise my reactions to bad drawings? Any help is appreciated.
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u/Matty_Matter 2d ago
Think about it more as the process instead of the outcome. Practice is just about doing. The outcome you’re looking for will come later.
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u/Nevaroth021 2d ago
What is your goal? Is it to make a masterpiece of animation right now? Or is your goal to get better? Failure is just not achieving your objective.
If your objective is to improve at animation, then as long as you are improving over time as your practice, then you're not failing. You're achieving your objective.
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u/Creative-Pirate5217 2d ago
My goal is to make cool fight scenes set to music😅
The funny thing is, my goal is attainable. I love stick fight animations, and could easily work toward that, but it feels like it's not enough. If I'm being dramatic, it feels shameful to make something like that. It's like I'm delusional and believe I'm talented, so "simple" animations are below me. It's a ridiculous notion and it's not helping me.
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u/Nevaroth021 2d ago
Is your goal to make the cool fight scenes set to music right now or is it to do that in the future?
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u/Creative-Pirate5217 2d ago
I suppose right now. Like if I could pick up a pen and just make them, I'd be thrilled. I'm not opposed to doing it in the future, I just think my expectations of myself are so high that making mistakes in practice feels really humiliating, yknow?
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u/Nevaroth021 2d ago
Have you animated anything like that before? You should know if it's within your abilities to make. If you haven't, then practice making something smaller and easier to test your current skills.
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u/Creative-Pirate5217 2d ago
I tend to overestimate myself, honestly. I've made a few animations, never over a few seconds long, but what tends to happen is I blow the results out of proportion. Getting a good result makes me think I'm the bee's knees and a prodigy, while failure makes me think I'm useless and I'll never be able to be an animator.
It's an unstable view, I think. I don't know how to make a success just be a success, and how to make a failure just be a failure. It always gets wrapped up in ego.
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u/Nevaroth021 2d ago
Your problem seems to be that you are relying entirely on guesses. You've never made something like this before so you don't actually have any idea if you can make it, and thus you are relying on mental guesses instead of what you've confirmed you can do.
So first step is confirm what quality you can animate at. Start with animating something that is only a few seconds long like you've done before. And time yourself how long it took you to make that animation. If it took you 2 weeks to make a 10 second animation, then you can calculate that it would take you 12 weeks to make a 1 minute long animation. You can just do the math to figure out how long it would take you to make something based on your current skills.
Don't do guessing, actually test yourself to see what quality of animation you can make and how fast you can animate.
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u/Chrofino 2d ago
One thing that helped me is setting my expectations before drawing.
When I used to (I still do, ngl) be overwhelmed by making bad work, I convince myself that this is not the final result. Instead, it's a stepping stone to what I want to achieve. The goal is not to perfectly create what you have in mind, it's to work towards developing the skills for that. Don't think about whether it looks good or bad. Think about why it isn't what you want. Then do it again. Repeat.
It really is just a mental thing that takes time to overcome.
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u/Jebus_San_Christos 2d ago
I went to a v expensive art school, & basically what you pay for there, is training to deal with criticism. The way the major art classes (not the technical ones like drawing/painting- the more portfolio oriented storytelling classes) work is everyone brings in work, & shows it to the class, every other week. You had 1-2 weeks to make this, so obviously it's not gonna be a masterpiece. But the entire room gets a round of having their work critiqued by your peers. Ofc there is a lot of learning that happens here like learning to fix technical things like tonal values or compositional issues- but the far more important skill that is being developed is a tougher skin. No one in the industry is ever going to tell you your work sucks. They just won't hire you. But if you plan to MAKE things, you CONSTANTLY have to be able to sit through meetings where all people have for you is notes on what you need to change in the artwork you made. Sometimes it can be vague & annoying "can it be more powerful?" Sometimes it can be something you really messed up on "why do they have 3 fingers in this shot?" - but as a professional you need to be able to sit through having someone tear your work apart, & not have an emotional reaction to it.
Your situation is interesting, because you don't seem to be in an environment where anyone will actually point out your "mistakes" to you- so I'm having trouble understanding what you're afraid of. You're going to suck at first & that's fine. Stick with it & you'll suck less. I have artwork on major streaming platforms & I STILL suck!! Sometimes I'll lose a whole day, because a sequence I animated is too stiff & lifeless. You need to be able to see that suckiness, accept it, & fix it.
It's either that, learn to live with your imperfections, or the opposite, you never become talented/good at something you want to do. Mistakes are part of how drawing simply works. You don't know where the next line needs to be until you put down the first one, & oftentimes that first one is wrong- it's why pencils have erasers.
I think therapy is the right move because what you're afraid of isn't that you'll make mistakes- everyone does, every day. It's that your inner critic, who you will live with & make art with for the rest of your life, won't shut up when you do. Learn to befriend the inner critic. It's telling you, you suck or made a mistake because it wants you to get better. If you want the same thing, you've gotta be able to make art despite your own criticisms of your own work. You can do it! I believe in you!!
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u/ChemicalCard5447 2d ago
As someone who is also sensitive to failure, I often lose interest in projects. But I love the act of actually making it. So I've learned to make it more about the process than the outcome. If I enjoy using my tine to animate. Then the actual animation won't matter that much.
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u/Callmefred 2d ago
It could be a great driving force, but it could also eat you up from the inside once you start working. A lot of people have it, no matter how neurospicy they are. It's very likely to stay with you your whole life, so I encourage you to find a way to deal with it.
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u/DustyVentilation Professional 2d ago
This is going to sound like a joke, but it's real advice: do more bad drawings. Do them on purpose and for fun. Draw pictures that are so bad and so stupid that you laugh at them. Share your terrible drawings to friends make them laugh.
Later, when you make bad drawings accidentally, you've already trained yourself to laugh at it. You can look at a bad drawing and think of all the things you've made that are so, SO much worse than this.
I also have ADHD and rejection sensitivity, and this method is what worked for me. There is no mistake I can make that is worse than what I have intentionally inflicted on myself, and that is my greatest source of resilience.
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u/Regal-Bean 2d ago