when I see other artists who keep making art for years and years without any sort of public recognition and no one to compliment them on their progress. In my competitive mindset, I don't understand why they go on. I don't understand what drives them to keep sharing work without getting real recognition, when their work is sometimes ignored completely.
I have a question and before I start, I would like to point out that this subject could easily turn into something negative. My main goal is to just share my view and hopefully have other people share their views, without necessarily fighting about who's right. And certainly, I hope to avoid ad hominem insults like "Who are you to talk?" or "Do u even dither, brah?"Topic is "Winning at pixel art"... Where is the Charlie Sheen reference ? ;)
Every time I produce something that doesn't get good feedback, it really burns at me. Sometimes, the negative emotion is my primary source of motivation, as I hate the feeling of defeat when something doesn't get the recognition I feel it deserves. To put it mildly, I am very puzzled when I see other artists who keep making art for years and years without any sort of public recognition and no one to compliment them on their progress. In my competitive mindset, I don't understand why they go on. I don't understand what drives them to keep sharing work without getting real recognition, when their work is sometimes ignored completely.
Every time I produce something that doesn't get good feedback, it really burns at me. Sometimes, the negative emotion is my primary source of motivation, as I hate the feeling of defeat when something doesn't get the recognition I feel it deserves.I have fits of this. I generally stave it off by reminding myself of "The War of Art" -- specifically "How to be miserable.". Small quote:
The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be
dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection,
self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.
The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to
be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take
pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or
jet jockey.
Do any of you guys understand what I'm saying? Do you ever look at other people's art as competition and get annoyed if they get more recognition than you? Or is it as I fear - are you all much more mature, calm and confident than me?I'd suggest strongly that being more mature means a person is better at ignoring those feelings, rather than not having them. They notice them but assign them low priority.
Is your artistic mindset unsullied by childish competitiveness?Hell no. I want to be the best. But I want to be the best on my own terms, not others'. IOW I'm competing against myself, that's the mindset I cultivate. Other people's art doesn't .. get points, it's on a different scale?
I tend to be of the mindset that everyone else is wrong though :D Because I personally enjoy those works it manifests more as confusion than anger or frustration.-- if you don't appreciate my art, that means our psychologies differ sufficiently. Which is pretty much a confusing fact that I have to accept to deal with people. Cyangmou's sexuality analogy is relevant here -- I don't really understand the psychological state 'being not bisexual' in other than a clinical sense, but that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with my sexuality or others, just that we're different.
@Cyangmou: I suppose I need to reflect more on how much my art is aimed at others vs what I personally think is cool. But do you personally have the same view you're advocating? Do you give zero fucks about others, without counting your number of 'favourites' or admiring your trophies on Pixeljoint or DeviantArt or whatever other scenes you may frequent?
I see you working very hard at your craft, but is it only for your own satisfaction when you're working on non-commercial art?I am working in order to achieve my personal goals. Pro-work for indie developers always means that a few sacrifices to the ideals have to be made - I have to live with that as much as every developer has to live with it.
Sure, I do have the view I am advocating.Hah, I love that you make the distinction and start a discussion of semantics about 'zero fuck's vs 'less fucks', like we're discussing different schools of thought in ancient chinese philosophy. "I am CELS, Apprentice of the Zero Fucks Given".
I can't give zero fucks about others, but as I said you should give "less" fucks.
Giving less fucks simply results in yourself being happier and only if you are happy you can work on.
The best help I ever got on the topic you brought up came in form of a book by Ayn Rand, called "The Fountainhead". Maybe you should just read that one, at least I'd recommend it to you.Reading Ayn Rand is a bit of an uphill struggle for me. She seems to advocate the polar opposite of what I believe, and while it is important to read books that conflict with and challenge your views, it's a bit more effort. I read Anthem, which I really liked. I read half of Atlas Shrugged, which I found interesting, though a bit heavy handed. Ultimately I gave up on that book when the main character...
Black and white/winning losing thinking isn't sustainable and you can find so much pleasure in the process as well as the final product. Why trash 90% of the journey?This part really spoke to me, and is probably something that I need to consider. Pixel art is often a race to the finish line for me, as I'm just so eager to get to the final product. I need a bit more Zen, I think.
Great quote. As for competitiveness being shitty and anti-social behavior, it's a very tricky subject for me. Coming from sports, I think competitiveness is absolutely vital to certain activities. There's a great Confucius quote about competition. He says "Gentlemen do not compete. You may say that in archery they do so, but before climbing the stairs to the archery hall, they bow and defer to each other". I read this quote as saying "A good person does not try to compete with others in doing good deeds. In activities such as archery however, it is alright to be competitive, as long as you maintain the mindset of a good person and don't lose focus of what is important. (i.e. benevolence)"
Winning feels great.+1
But losing doesn't suck at all actually.
It's good for you.
I hop from writing to music to visual arts randomly, but the way I check whether I'm making a positive impact on the outside world is still the same: The private kindness of strangers.
All that said, I don't think there's any merit to try to advise anybody that they should try to be 'more like this' and not like how they are, as I didn't make any conscious choice to be wired this way.
@Probo: Oh, kudos isn't my main goal at all. Otherwise I would only be pixelling Super Mario clones, RPG items, and chibi / anime characters, or whatever else gets the most attention in the pixel art community. So I'm definitely trying to pixel the stuff I like and follow my own dreams. But I also have this competitive focus that comes along with it.
How about you? How do you approach pixel art, or art in general, in terms of competition and rewards?
@Helm: Do you mean that you look to influence and inspire people in a profound manner? In other words, are you talking about art that carries a certain depth and touches people more deeply than, say, a bunch of 16x16 pixel RPG icons? Or is private kindness just an arbitrary metric you've set for yourself, without any consideration in regards to whether the art is profound or banale? I don't mean to sound critical, I'm just not sure I understand you correctly.
* What Vagrant said *Selfishness? to me that just looks like you described motivation. :lol: