This seems to be something that happens more and more lately, specially to younger artists. There's a young RUclips (and Discord) community that does this a lot, every single character they create is a new one with lots of background, super deep story, amazing powers and all, but in the end they do nothing at all with them. It's like having an IMDb page for a movie that will never release.
Here is some insight into how it might happen because I am one: it's because for me I keep on getting more and more ideas for characters that I wanna draw and make a story out of it, then I get a different idea that goes through the same thing, it's a endless loop until you break it
I think the issue for many is "world building" requires a lot of skills outside the realm of creativity. In my case I wanted to take my thousands of ideas and turn them into small animated shorts. I never could have imagined all the work that goes into creating a basic 3d animation that's only a minute long let alone 5 minutes like I wanted. It was daunting. I spent about 3 months learning the basics of 3d animation using the BLENDER software before succumbing to the psychological issue of "world building." I eventually fell back into my comfort zone of coming up with new ideas but rarely went back to learning the 3d animation because it seemed impossible for a solo creator. I finally gave up on the idea. After months of not doing anything, I decided to scale back my ambitions and focus on 2d instead of 3d animation. While 2d animation is still not an easy thing to do as a solo artist, I definitely believe it's manageable. I think I acquired enough knowledge to finally do some basic 2d animations right now using Grease Pencil in Blender. Once I'm done with the two tutorials I found on youtube, I'll attempt my first original 2d animation. My goal is by the end of March to have my first one completed. I have realistic expectations. I'm not trying to create something sophisticated like the LION KING for godsakes. Animations like that have teams of people. I'm just some solo dude in front of a computer. I'm going for the simple cartoonish style of CYANIDE AND HAPPINESS. I'm simply trying to get my story ideas out there. I'm not trying to create visual masterpieces :-)
Honestly had a "woah" moment with this video... I've been stuck in the trap for years and only now am I seeing my pile of rocks. I started a story just for fun in 8th grade. Since then, the world I built has had millennia worth of history the rise and fall of empires, even major geological events. I'm in college now and the main character of that story is still hammering down in his forge.
"I want your stories to be out in the world, and for you to be finding an audience who genuinely loves your work, not just passively 'likes' your posts. " This hits home man, thanks for the video and the time taken to make it. I think the difficult thing I'm hearing a lot of creators talk about is how to use social media correctly. I don't think dropping it entirely is the solution, since it's what's enabling us to reach people in the first place. At the same time, using it too much can easily lead to optimizing your work for the platform rather than for the project itself. It's a strange dance of using it and yet ignoring it, one that I have yet to learn.
"Reference diving" is a big problem that I didn't consider until now. When I was younger I use to create many original ideas. But nowadays I spend so much time on Pinterest or Instagram saving other people's ideas! I'll definitely change that bad habit. Thanks for the enlightening video!
It's definitely a really easy thing to fall into! I've talked a bit before about how no matter what, the stories, especially first stories, are almost always too ambitious. Takes a lot of discipline to reign it in and work on something feasible.
I may be out of left-field with my thinking, but a couple of years ago I had this idea where I'd always enjoyed the flavor text that went along with the images of Magic: The Gathering cards- they were these couple of sentences to a paragraph that gave you a sense of a greater narrative. I think there's a possibility of simultaneously doing world-building images and creating products. I've an interest in eventually doing beastiary books in the spirit of Brian Froud's fairy books and illustrated novellas. What I've been doing is at some point in the process of making a piece, I try to come up with a bit of narrative to go along with it that gives a window into the world I'm making and every time I put out a new piece, I put that snippet of text alongside the new image. I've seen this audience-building process work for a few people from around the 1 Fantastic Week community, Emily Hare with "Strange Hollow" and Iris Compiet with "Faeries of the Faultline", and the exact MtG analogy used by Justin Grey Valentine, so I don't think I'm too far off track with this idea. I think the only question that remains is whether what an artist is doing is unique or good enough for there to be an audience that's going to care.
I'm learning to work through these beginner mistakes quickly. Sometimes we hold onto this idea that our comic has to be perfect. However, we should view it as simply a learning process to tell the most clear and impactful story possible!
The trap, so true! That's why I have the Rabindranath quote above my drawing table-'I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung'. Thanks!
This honestly is a huge reason why I hated moving to Twitter after Tumblr imploded on itself. Tumblr had issues, but being on Twitter I can feel there is significantly more pressure to produce digestible content, and completed work isn't as valued. I also feel like the idea of "Always be drawing, every day" has been corrupted by this trend too. It's no longer a statement about improving, it's "If you don't constantly draw [and post content] you will be forgotten to obscurity." On a more positive note, I can see how the trap's been causing me grief, but I'm also able to see that I'm not fully in its clutches. Despite the struggles, i'm still releasing my webcomic bi-weekly, and it's hit one of the most intense points in the story so far.
I've actually found Instagram to be a much healthier alternative to Twitter. Its a lot more chill and easy to manage, whereas on Twitter I lived in constant fear of being canceled or harassed.
I'm definitely not fond of Instagram myself, but I will agree that Twitter sucks. Insta, I've had issues with people reuploading / taking credit for my work, and because it's gated it's hard to deal with. I really want a platform like Tumblr again.
Twitter is also the place for cheap fame, all people have to do is draw the same sexy girls over an over, be it pin-ups or NSFW, sexualize anything, a fruit, an emoticon, BAM! That's all people care about there as well as fan art, it's dumb.
@@xCoMiXx That's getting into a much more nuanced discussion. Fanart and NSFW don't have an easier time by virtue of being fanart/NSFW--it's just easier to get around because it knows exactly what it wants to do and make people feel. A lot of original art has trouble with that, and it's why there's not as many breakout pieces even among accomplished artists who are strictly doing original stuff. If you notice the original stuff that does get popular, the common themes with them is that they are *very* good at eliciting certain responses and getting the reaction they want out of the audience, and get them invested. Fanart doesn't have to spend as much time getting people invested because the fandom's done that to a degree already. People will draw what they want and shouldn't be shamed for that (unless it's like. Something questionably legal). But nobody's obligated to hits, engagement, and following. It always has and always will take work, whether it's NSFW or SFW. I've been at this for years. I do NSFW, and I do a SFW webcomic which is my pride and joy is an original (SFW) webcomic that I have been pushing for several years now, and it's seen a respectable amount of success.
This video is one of the most introspective and important truths that everyone needs to realize and how it applies to anything people are creating in life. It has clarified a lot and put things into the light for me. Thank you so much for this therapeutic information, Jake.
Thank you for this video. When I was 14 I started writing a story, it wasn't great but I was putting the words down. A couple of months into it I decided I should start world building, I created characters, creatures, places, history and lore. I'm still going back every couple of months and world building for this story, and a lot of it has helped to improve on the original part of the story I initially wrote at 14... But I haven't developed it any more than those first couple of pages. I don't even know if it's going to be a comic/graphic novel, a book, an illustrated book like James Gurney's Dinotopia or anything. I just turned 25, which means I've spent 11 years piling up stones - I know I have enough ideas to really get into the story, but I just keep world building, and I didn't even realise it was just me avoiding the hard part. After watching this, once I've finished my current projects and have time to go back to working on this world, I'm gonna sit down and write.
Do what Akira Toriyama did and just come up with the story and character designs as he finishes each chapter. And then promptly forget key characters several chapters in haha
Well said. 13:37 "...over reliance on indirect experiences..." This is me! So important to find a balance. Hard to do in this easy-access, binge-world. Also, "If you never make it, it'll never have the chance to be criticized." Wow, so true. That fear of criticism and disappointment often holds me back. Looking forward to more of your videos!
So true, I've stepped away from social media to focus more on myself and personal goals. I always felt the burn of needing to post to social media for likes and it was not productive in the sense that I wasnt producing anything long lasting or meaningful, as youve said!
I struggle so much with input overload and reference diving, I get so caught up on not drawing something right I look for how others have done it and real life reference but then I just don't stop and stay hours looking for every image, saving it to some random folder but not really using any as actual learning tools. Great video Jake, and amazing intro🙌🙌
@@poneyfeathersart1442 I feel you, it really gets to you because you feel you are doing the right thing which is improving your creative library but your not reading anything and the books just gather dust. Then when paired with art block you just double down on the reference diving and input overload and if you're really not careful (like me) it can creep into envy and toxic comparison which just makes you feel nasty. Luckily I'm out of the toxic comparison stage but i'm still reference diving but trying to get better/ limit myself to how much I absorb. Maybe instead of looking stuff up on the internet I use one of my many how to books instead of it just looking nice on a shelf.
Love the collecting stones analogy, and the “inhale too much without exhaling and you’ll just pass out” one. Great video, perfect balance between high-level ideas and actual examples (like browsing forever to collect reference imagery).
Welcome back Jake and thank you for this video. Creating something to just throw up on social media so that we can stay within the right algorithms is such a problem and I feel for every artist that is caught in this loop and wants out.
I'm right there with you. In the past year I've shifted away from fan art to focus on creating. It's much more full filling. Fan art brought my audience and now the ones who want to stick around for what I can create... awesome.
I discovered your work thanks to your fanart, but I loved it when I read RuinWorld. Specially because it was at the same time I just finished a short fantasy story and your comic was basically all I wanted to do but couldn't. Big inspiration there!
Fanart is good. It allows you to upload character drawings without the fear of them being stolen. If you go and upload your own character you spent years developing and it gets taken away by some studio with strong lawyers you'll just lose-lose. Fanart still requires skill, feeling the volume, the perspective, the proportions. And more, it teaches you to draw something exactly how it is. Drawing your own stuff you actually use your inner metrics that are applied subconsciously. So most of the time you don't even have to think about measuring your character. And then you draw someone everyone knows and see you lack the feeling of proportions. Say, you make eyes too big or too small, you make them less flexible or more pointy. Fanart is actually what most animators do: take a character invented by someone else and draw him\her as close to the author's style as possible. Otherwise the work will suck. And fanart is what you'll have to do to your own creations when you forget them. It's a shame to lose these metrics inside of you and find out you can't draw them anymore. Because it was all about something inside of you that's changed now. "Everything is poison and everything is medicine, depends on the dosage" (c)So, obviously, it's bad to rely on fanart as something popular to get you up but it's perfect for practice that ALSO gets you up. That's how I look at it.
@@RedGallardo You're talking to a guy who's built a career on fan art:) I'm not against it at all and I encourage others to do it but after focusing on it for years I'm at a point in my career that I want to now put more attention into my own ideas.
What you said about actually experiencing things and not only relying on other artists' creations, really spoke to me! I was designing a character for a comic and for almost FIVE MONTHS I could not come up with a good design! But one day, I actually looked up photos of real people, similiar to the character in my head and almost instantly drew the character's design the way I had pictured it! Experiencing real things, instead of an artist's filtered version is imperative in creating!
I'm working on a web comic project myself and this is exactly what I needed to hear. I've had this feeling of failure hovering over me because I'm trying to work on a story and don't have a lot of things to upload to social media. Thanks for the insights!
Sorry about the loss of your Mom. Thanks for this video, this is a very important message to artists and RUclips channel creators. I am guilty of getting sucked in to social media and letting it rule my art- FINALLY I am more concerned with learning process and the end result than I am of the video making.
Thank you for this video. I have been stuck in a pile of rocks for over half my life and you have put it into a light that made me realize I am in this trap. Thank you.
Just spent a solid hour and a half pacing about my room thinking about a cool character I want in a story I want in a story I may or may not write after several years and just happened to come to this video. I really needed this, thank you.
Thank you for the video. Helps put things in perspective and question a few things, so im glad i found it, as well as the rest of the playlist. Im sorry to hear about your mom.
The points explained here hit close to home. I have a lot of problems when doing some world-building with some friends since the longer we work on it, the greater obstacles we faced and the harder it becomes for us to tackle, and eventually, we failed to build the world we dreamed of. We broke up after there's no conclusion on what to do afterward. Since then, I've been aware of the world-building traps; when I decided to work on my own worldbuilding, I ditched most of the things that will lead to one of those pitfalls, leaving most of the things unexplained per se. I'm unsure if it's a good or bad practice, but this way I can focus on making things that matter and not just for the sake to fill the gaps left in the world-build. And yes, it becomes clear that I have become a consumer rather than a producer. I blamed social media for this problem, but then again, social media is also my way to tell people about my creations, so... it seems like a double-edged sword for me. The fan art thing, though, it's quite an irony and has caused an internal conflict in my mind; I could hop into bandwagons and get much fame and recognition this way, but this will end up in the lack of authenticity that I also desired for. Besides, fan arts contribute much less into the world-building, so I'd rather dismiss it unless I deem otherwise (e.g. for a tribute to the series I love so much). This is a great video and has refreshed my insight into what to do next for my long-term goals. Thank you very much for sharing your words and experience to us!
I relate to a lot of this even though I'm not a graphic novel artist. The rush that comes from planning a creative idea is much more enticing than the daily grind to make it actually happen.
I recomend watching the Movie "Whisper of the heart" from studio ghibli, I wont spoil it, but it delves deep into the issues of writing and creating in general.
This is a very important thing for people to hear. I personally am blessed with inability to really care for world building and only really wanting to tell fun stories with my fun guys. I'd say I don't really have world building, I only have "aestetic building". I want my fun sci-fi gun to look cool and go "pew", not for it to be practical and realistic. But I also know a lot of people who really love worldbuilding and spend wayyyy too much time worrying about the way plumbing works in elf village, and it's kind of painful to watch.
Thanks for being open and honest with us about your struggles and really turning the prism onto your (and our) practices. I have spent days/weeks on busy work, feeling like I'm really getting stuff done when it was just...collecting rocks (comments, downloads, clever tips i never executed on).
I had this problem for a long time, and then started a comic as a 24 hour comic and kept going at it with no pre-work, no thumbnails, character designs, or plot beats for almost 3 issues. It's a great way to break this habit, but then it gave me more problems because now I have a bunch of plot holes and inconsistently drawn panels! It definitely gave me a much greater appreciation for doing both the pre-planning stages, in addition to just free styling everything, and a much greater understanding for how to balance each for my own personal work habits. I recommend doing 24 hour comics day for anyone who has this "endless world building" problem
I feel this. I make music as well so I can relate. When I was younger I spent highschool focused on making a concept album. Put everything into it! When it was finished I obviously didn't get much attention for it despite the four years I invested in it after I felt creatively bankrupt. The way I combated this thinking was by taking the time out to absorb new media and work on smaller more doable projects until my process was tight enough to expand my work bigger. In 2019 got to making another full-length record and now I switched over to weekly releases for 2020 to avoid similar stagnation.
This is something I`ve been feeling latly and kind of denying it. like waiting for some perfect moment to be productive, and ''create my masterpiece'' which is all BS! your words resonated with me, so I picked up my sketchbook and drew some stuff after month not really doing much of anything.
Condolences to you and your mother, I'm glad to see you're doing better. Very eye opening video, I'm completely in the world building trap and I will focus on getting out of it.
Happy to see you back and this video was amazing! I am working on making my story and I get stuck in this constantly. This year is the year to really start creating it and not just collecting those rocks. And congrats on the move fellow Arizonian! And so sorry to hear about your mom. Sending love for that and thanks for doing what you do!
This entire video came and snatched my entire head, wig and all. This is EXACTLY where I am at in my creative art journey (specifically in working on starting a webcomic and LORDT do i feel this in my bones)
"REFERENCE DIVING"!! thank you for putting a name to it! that completely summarizes my current state and i've gotten to the point where i'll log off social media/etc. if i want to make any visible progress on my work.
Great video with a powerful message for artists and writers. I recommend reading the biography, Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. Leonardo created very little finished paintings - Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. Leonardo loved ideas and was constantly explore new ideas. He produced over 7,000 journal pages of his ideas and drawings. Using your language, he was building worlds but never finishing them.
But it was what he finished that allowed him the opportunity to keep creating. If he never finished anything he'd never get hired but as he said, "art is never finished, only abandoned."
This is great advice! I’ve been struggling for the past 5yrs with my project and every time I would open basemeshes in zbrush to port over to quick renders for paint over I realized I was just staring at my note and my sketches and all these rocks just absolutely intimidated because all I have is not just one but piles upon piles of sort rocks this really helped me get a better view of the creative anxiety I’ve been slowly developing for myself
Well like you pointed out, if RUclips only values the "insta-novelty" of sensational entertainment, rather than long-form truly creative work, then it becomes a business equation...is lots of your time worth very little gains? It us-to be that RUclips didn't have this bias and it was actually feasible to create long-form, very creative video's, and people would recognize you. But now? the RUclips Algo punishes you for not uploading every single day. So that's a big problem that forces creators to do smaller and smaller and smaller pieces of content that eventually don't amount to much. Now if RUclips didn't own the monopoly on independent content creation, it wouldn't be that big of a problem...but RUclips is the only platform that people are really using, that solely justifies it's continued use from independent content creators. This World building trap isn't just about you and your own short comings...it's about larger scale problems that have forced you into it....so in the end it's not only your fault.
I have missed your posts. I love 3 Point Perspective and get very excited when I see a new one, but these Jake videos make me feel like I'm in art church. Thanks Rev Jake.
this is one of the best videos I've watched on this topic! Thanks, really helps to hear these things summed up all in one place, spoken aloud by someone with so much more experience.
I think one of the only people who really managed to pull off the world building obsession was Tolkien. He spent most of his entire life figuring out the lore of Middle Earth and wrote The Hobbit and LOTR just as a means to explain to people what the world he was imagining was like. The Hobbit and LOTR weren't his "end goal" projects and I don't know if he ever managed to reach his "end goal". However, the stories that he did release were hugely successful and helped forge the fantasy genre. He knew that you had to release content as well as design the world itself. I really liked this video and I definitely agree with it. It is a very easy issue to slip into. I would say it's probably better to write out your story and then figure out the character designs and such later. Your story is your main selling point and the world is secondary to the story. It's easy to make an interesting and fun world but it is very hard to write an engaging and unique story.
I love worldbuilding and creating the issue synopsis for each book. I just have started to really do over the past almost two years. After decades of chasing perfection, I never had the world-building trap. I have over 50 worlds I have created in my mind. My issue is not the worldbuilding it is just focusing on one and putting all my energy into one. I have always been one to do multiple things at once instead of just focusing on just the one. I believe DRIVEN FOCUS is the issue for most artists we have.
i have always created art for me, even when i had no real story to tell. no real character to draw. some times id make some art for wolf's rain or ginga , but other than that i made art for fun. now i have begun building a world with a friend and illustrating characters, and i absolutely love it. ive alwasy been told about how active i am online, thats because i make art for myself meaning im eager to finish the piece and have more motivation to make it in one day.
I may be out of left-field with my thinking, but a couple of years ago I had this idea where I'd always enjoyed the flavor text that went along with the images of Magic: The Gathering cards- they were these couple of sentences to a paragraph that gave you a sense of a greater narrative. I think there's a possibility of simultaneously doing world-building images and creating products. I've an interest in eventually doing beastiary books in the spirit of Brian Froud's fairy books and illustrated novellas. What I've been doing is at some point in the process of making a piece, I try to come up with a bit of narrative to go along with it that gives a window into the world I'm making and every time I put out a new piece, I put that snippet of text alongside the new image. I've seen this audience-building process work for a few people from around the 1 Fantastic Week community, Emily Hare with "Strange Hollow" and Iris Compiet with "Faeries of the Faultline", and the exact MtG analogy used by Justin Grey Valentine, so I don't think I'm too far off track with this idea. I think the only question that remains is whether what an artist is doing is unique or good enough for there to be an audience that's going to care.
Dude this is completely amazing you hit it on the head exactly like everyone else is saying, like you said on the minimum viable story. It hit accord with me in a moment in my life when I am ready to receive the message. Thank you for telling my story back to me.
This video was really helpful, as someone who's spent years thinking, noting down, and collecting useless ideas for my story, i can fully relate to this lesson, and im sure many other artists can too. Although i'm not the type to browse art online and save them, nor post my own art, i do find myself constantly putting off my story, i spent so much time doing other things with the story except actually write it, and its up to the point where im doing things like writing what a character feels even though i haven't even written their story fully, and at one point i was planning on creating the look of the entire city (as you said you did), and i think it really does come from a core feeling of failing, or rather having a product be finished during the point in your art life when you are "bad" as an artist. I am however at a point where i have been actually writing the story, and this video does nothing less but motivate me more to working even harder! so thank you because this feeling of "world building" really felt like something i was struggling with, and to find out how common it is really does give me a sense of relief. Great video, and i hope more people can see this because i have no doubt that every artist has been at this stage at one point in their life.
You are reading my mail!!!!! This is an AMAZING and inspiring video for me!! I need more of this....PLEASE!! Thank you. Liked...subscribed...clicked bell!!
This is one of your best videos, Jake! This is so true, man. I got caught up in this trap when I started my book, but eventually I was able to hit the ground running and start cranking out pages.
What i did is that i have been working on my worldbuilding for years, at least almost a decade while i improve my skills, writing skills, drawing skills, programing skills, 3D modeling skills simply because i started from scratch and didnt had the skils that i wanted to do it And yes i know one one punch man is one of my favorite mangas of all time but i wanted to at least be decent at my drawing skills before trying more as a personal reason to push myself to improve, now that i have reached a level were i'm confortable at i have started to develop more about the story proper
okay wow this is really serendipitous because I'm stuck in the "filling my creative bank account" trap, and not so much creating. When I go to draw, I'm now disappointing myself because I go long periods of time without creating but ill look at other people's art and save it, but never making anything of my own. I got accepted into art school but now I'm afraid that I'm not creating enough, and my art won't be up to par with other students :/ but this was a great video, as always
This really speaks to me, I really want to create my own world with its own characters that are all connected but I just want to make things perfect like how you said, I'm just adding more things to the pile without creating anything. I think I'll set aside time to actually start writing out a story and then draw it when I'm finished unstead of not even starting, thanks for helping me realize this
Such a great video! This is exactly why I've been trying to put down my phone and just paint more. Still haven't gotten to that "building a cathedral" -part, but at least there's less noise distracting me. What a way with words you have, Jake Parker. Tis the good stuff.
That's assuming you view it as a trap. if it's what you like doing, and what you find comfortable, but the issue is that you can't sell it, then maybe you should be finding ways to make it marketable. It's not going to get you closer to a massive finished product, but there are artists that have been able to basically sell pieces of world building. Basically, an alternative to building the cathedral is to appreciate, polish and sell the stones. I hear diamonds are worth something, even rough.
EXCELLENT video! When I was in my 20's, I dreamed of making an animated series and drew countless ideas to save for the future. Since social media has become a real asset to artists, I feel like I am moving forward with writing and drawing backlogs of stories that will be up in April rather than waiting for an opportunity to showcase my work. Start small!
I too find myself adding rocks to a pile. While a lot of my character designs tend to be influenced by each other and possibly in the same fictional world together, I still am not taking the time to further build that world and create a product that I want to see for myself. Yet another great job on a video, Jake. Thank you!
I always have to resist creating stand-alone artworks just for the sake of having something to post. It’s hard to do sketchy studies that are too ugly to post. And it’s hard to draw comic pages that won’t be released for months. But it’s all worth it, because a year from now I’ll have a sketchbook full of improved anatomy and a finished graphic novel. Not just a bunch of pretty girl drawings. So, thank you Mr. Parker!
Glad to see you back! It's been a while! Thanks for talking about this. EXTREMELY pertinent topic to me, and I like how you asked questions that spark personal thought and exploration at the end of your point.
Although I don't draw as much as I write, I can 100% relate to this. I spent the last 2 years or so just creating the world, then changing it, then changing it again and again, until I will be happy with whatever part I'm working on right now. It is, however, rarely the case. I am more or less happy with the the races and themes of my world (like a clockwork city or a element-based elves), but then I have my magic system... And its such a headache.
Great video!!!!! I often kick myself because I barely post in social media and I see artists far more prolific than I am constantly uploading. But at the same time, when I think about what to upload I feel like it's either the Baby Yoda type flavor of the month, or something that will go unnoticed, so I end up doing nothing.
I love world building but I came to this conclusion too. I was using it too put off drawing my comic. The more you work on something the less grand it gets since you can't use every idea. It also becomes evident that there's things that you could improve on. But noone can be an expert at everything. After I figured out the style I want to use it was redundant to make more concept art. I promised myself if I need to do detailed sketches to figure something out later or get more references I can. Surprise, I haven't needed to.
I'm currently working on a big project that's about to be wrapped up. It's scary but it's going to have to go out there. I agree 100% with you on social media
You are so on point. IO have been building a world for 20 years and have so much detail it is silly. Everything from the nations of the world down to how different regions handle dating rituals. I have just now (with in the last year) found a way to get the actual story started. I started making a chapter outline detailing what each chapter contains then I just go in and expand on the outline until it is a chapter. Now I am making progress (when I stop playing games and building Gundams) toward something.
So true Jake!! Guilty. I have notebooks and sketchbooks piled up with hundreds of story fragments, notes and sketches. Each world has some weight to it, but my focus is used up in research. Its been frustrating lately. I want people to see the awesomeness in my head, but the post that hits instagram is a quick kind of art fart. Ha!! Something to please the algorythem. Life happens and it can be rough. Currently, im a mom of three young boys and helping my husband start a plumbing company. Hes been 12 years in the business and decided to take the master test. Im the secratary, bookkeeper, accountant..... Through all this, im still an artist. That need to create chewing on the back of my brain. Maybe Ill focus on 100 somethings. Then comes the decision... what sonething is worth 100 drawings? 😂 Love the new intro, office and content. Looking foreward to more videos. Thanks for the pep talk. Its good to know im not alone. ✌
Jake I'm so glad I found you. I don't want to say too much, but my dreams and aspirations are basically your aspirations. (I want to make a graphic novel/comic book. Somewhere in between.)
This one really hit home with me. Thanks for your transparency. I've felt myself SO tempted lately to jump out of my 'deep work' just to get a quick post done and try to harvest some likes/followers (which is its own struggle). If I were totally honest, I've fallen into this trap and your vid really is helping me focus on what matters. Redirect! Focus! Thanks again.
You came in the right moment. I finally have the impulse to start working on my proyects and DAMN this was just a signal from the sky to start the fuck up!
One of the other problems inherent to creating for/with the algorithm is that they're wildly imperfect. Speaking from personal experience, I have no idea who you are or why this is the first time I've seen you in my recommended videos - and it took me all of a minute to decide to subscribe to your channel. Seriously though, thank you for this. I'm mulling over these points in relation to why I do world-building, which is for my D&D game. In certain ways this lets me off the hook since the story itself is co-created by you and your table (and indeed writing the story out in advance, with no room for growth, is the hallmark of controlling GMs). At the same time, world-building traps abound in this context as well. I spend hours on map-making, knowing full well that my players would be just as happy if I sketched something out in pencil at the table, and my time could be better spent thinking about the underlying mechanisms of a city's social or economic systems so I'm not BSing when my players ask me if there are taxes. But when I sit down to do it, it seems so daunting - and I absolutely do feel the pressure of a nebulous world of possibility becoming something concrete and flawed. And I know GMs with the exact opposite problem: over-specifying the machinations of a city's systems and thus creating a thriving economic center that both looks like and sits in a blank void. There's a balance to be had somewhere; if anyone knows where, please @ me. You've given me a lot to think about. Sorry if you're actually someone super famous or important and I'm just an idiot for not knowing about you before (just going to tell myself you did the animation for ATLA, that sounds cool). But I'm paying attention now, and for what it's worth, it's the depth of your content that's keeping me with this channel. Looking forward to seeing more of your creations, both physical and intellectual.
Yay a new video! Thank you Jake! You're one of the best positive forces out there for us behind, I'm glad things are better for you this year, we wish you a great 2020!!!!!
Hello Jake, welcome back and many thanks for sharing your thoughts on this particular topic. I have fallen into this problem so many times that I could write a book about it -although I would never write it because I'd probably fall into the same self-inflicted trap. Actually, although I have managed to fight against it in some projects, I am still working on improving my creative balance. I am still prone to waste a lot of my time with the very appealing 'treat' of fantasizing about how my ideas will be rather than executing them. 'Nihil novum sub sole'; I was well aware of it before watching your video, but thanks anyway for speaking out similar truths to those that I tell myself each day. I'll try to channel your advice to fuel the 'executive' side of my creation process. Muchas gracias, Juanma.
I'll counter by saying not all "daily updates" on Instagram are bad. I draw for a hobby, and only really get a chance to practice during my lunch break. This time is enough for me to start and finish a sketch, and I'm ready to upload it. Without this, I'd practice less and get less feedback. Sure, I'm not world building, but neither am I waiting a novel, nor an I making a living from this. Great video though, love hearing from you!
It wasn't until I completely stopped using social media (viewing and posting) that I realized how much time I spent _pretending_ to be someone who makes things. Pretending is so much easier than doing. This lesson applies to more than being creative. Social media lets you pretend to be a lot of things you're not.
I think I needed to hear this. I just keep on creating more and more details and developing my characters but I KNOW I'm afraid to open my word processer... Thank you for sharing!!
This and your "Minimum Viable Story" video have inspired me. Thanks for that. I'm off to turn my rock pile into a house, I don't need a cathedral yet. Side note: You have excellent brush control, I enjoy watching you ink.
This seems to be something that happens more and more lately, specially to younger artists. There's a young RUclips (and Discord) community that does this a lot, every single character they create is a new one with lots of background, super deep story, amazing powers and all, but in the end they do nothing at all with them. It's like having an IMDb page for a movie that will never release.
That's a really good observation.
An IMDb for a movie that will never release, wow, that really put it into perspective.
Here is some insight into how it might happen because I am one: it's because for me I keep on getting more and more ideas for characters that I wanna draw and make a story out of it, then I get a different idea that goes through the same thing, it's a endless loop until you break it
@@zuniversemangacompany6516 Artstation maybe...
I think the issue for many is "world building" requires a lot of skills outside the realm of creativity. In my case I wanted to take my thousands of ideas and turn them into small animated shorts. I never could have imagined all the work that goes into creating a basic 3d animation that's only a minute long let alone 5 minutes like I wanted. It was daunting. I spent about 3 months learning the basics of 3d animation using the BLENDER software before succumbing to the psychological issue of "world building." I eventually fell back into my comfort zone of coming up with new ideas but rarely went back to learning the 3d animation because it seemed impossible for a solo creator. I finally gave up on the idea.
After months of not doing anything, I decided to scale back my ambitions and focus on 2d instead of 3d animation. While 2d animation is still not an easy thing to do as a solo artist, I definitely believe it's manageable. I think I acquired enough knowledge to finally do some basic 2d animations right now using Grease Pencil in Blender. Once I'm done with the two tutorials I found on youtube, I'll attempt my first original 2d animation. My goal is by the end of March to have my first one completed. I have realistic expectations. I'm not trying to create something sophisticated like the LION KING for godsakes. Animations like that have teams of people. I'm just some solo dude in front of a computer. I'm going for the simple cartoonish style of CYANIDE AND HAPPINESS. I'm simply trying to get my story ideas out there. I'm not trying to create visual masterpieces :-)
Honestly had a "woah" moment with this video... I've been stuck in the trap for years and only now am I seeing my pile of rocks. I started a story just for fun in 8th grade. Since then, the world I built has had millennia worth of history the rise and fall of empires, even major geological events. I'm in college now and the main character of that story is still hammering down in his forge.
"I want your stories to be out in the world, and for you to be finding an audience who genuinely loves your work, not just passively 'likes' your posts. "
This hits home man, thanks for the video and the time taken to make it.
I think the difficult thing I'm hearing a lot of creators talk about is how to use social media correctly. I don't think dropping it entirely is the solution, since it's what's enabling us to reach people in the first place. At the same time, using it too much can easily lead to optimizing your work for the platform rather than for the project itself. It's a strange dance of using it and yet ignoring it, one that I have yet to learn.
Almost as troublesome as the "Spend too much time watching art videos on RUclips" trap
Lol exactly what I was thinking while watching this... What am I watching this and not drawing?
🙋 Me.
That's me 😆
“productive” avoidance squad in the houuuuse. 😂🎉
"Reference diving" is a big problem that I didn't consider until now. When I was younger I use to create many original ideas. But nowadays I spend so much time on Pinterest or Instagram saving other people's ideas! I'll definitely change that bad habit. Thanks for the enlightening video!
It's definitely a really easy thing to fall into! I've talked a bit before about how no matter what, the stories, especially first stories, are almost always too ambitious. Takes a lot of discipline to reign it in and work on something feasible.
I may be out of left-field with my thinking, but a couple of years ago I had this idea where I'd always enjoyed the flavor text that went along with the images of Magic: The Gathering cards- they were these couple of sentences to a paragraph that gave you a sense of a greater narrative. I think there's a possibility of simultaneously doing world-building images and creating products. I've an interest in eventually doing beastiary books in the spirit of Brian Froud's fairy books and illustrated novellas. What I've been doing is at some point in the process of making a piece, I try to come up with a bit of narrative to go along with it that gives a window into the world I'm making and every time I put out a new piece, I put that snippet of text alongside the new image. I've seen this audience-building process work for a few people from around the 1 Fantastic Week community, Emily Hare with "Strange Hollow" and Iris Compiet with "Faeries of the Faultline", and the exact MtG analogy used by Justin Grey Valentine, so I don't think I'm too far off track with this idea. I think the only question that remains is whether what an artist is doing is unique or good enough for there to be an audience that's going to care.
BROOKS LOVE UR VIDS MAN YOURE HELPING ME MAKE W CARTOON CONCEPTS
I'm learning to work through these beginner mistakes quickly. Sometimes we hold onto this idea that our comic has to be perfect. However, we should view it as simply a learning process to tell the most clear and impactful story possible!
Nice 👍
Brookes Eggleston - Character Design Forge so true!!!
The trap, so true! That's why I have the Rabindranath quote above my drawing table-'I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung'. Thanks!
Great quote!
Tony Sansevero great quote!
This honestly is a huge reason why I hated moving to Twitter after Tumblr imploded on itself. Tumblr had issues, but being on Twitter I can feel there is significantly more pressure to produce digestible content, and completed work isn't as valued.
I also feel like the idea of "Always be drawing, every day" has been corrupted by this trend too. It's no longer a statement about improving, it's "If you don't constantly draw [and post content] you will be forgotten to obscurity."
On a more positive note, I can see how the trap's been causing me grief, but I'm also able to see that I'm not fully in its clutches. Despite the struggles, i'm still releasing my webcomic bi-weekly, and it's hit one of the most intense points in the story so far.
I've actually found Instagram to be a much healthier alternative to Twitter. Its a lot more chill and easy to manage, whereas on Twitter I lived in constant fear of being canceled or harassed.
I'm definitely not fond of Instagram myself, but I will agree that Twitter sucks. Insta, I've had issues with people reuploading / taking credit for my work, and because it's gated it's hard to deal with.
I really want a platform like Tumblr again.
@@Zedrinboti remember hearing about a website called Newtumbl. It's supposed to be a new webstie that's basically Tumblr before it crashed down
Twitter is also the place for cheap fame, all people have to do is draw the same sexy girls over an over, be it pin-ups or NSFW, sexualize anything, a fruit, an emoticon, BAM! That's all people care about there as well as fan art, it's dumb.
@@xCoMiXx That's getting into a much more nuanced discussion. Fanart and
NSFW don't have an easier time by virtue of being fanart/NSFW--it's just easier to get around because it knows exactly what it wants to do and make people feel.
A lot of original art has trouble with that, and it's why there's not as many breakout pieces even among accomplished artists who are strictly doing original stuff.
If you notice the original stuff that does get popular, the common themes with them is that they are *very* good at eliciting certain responses and getting the reaction they want out of the audience, and get them invested. Fanart doesn't have to spend as much time getting people invested because the fandom's done that to a degree already.
People will draw what they want and shouldn't be shamed for that (unless it's like. Something questionably legal). But nobody's obligated to hits, engagement, and following. It always has and always will take work, whether it's NSFW or SFW.
I've been at this for years. I do NSFW, and I do a SFW webcomic which is my pride and joy is an original (SFW) webcomic that I have been pushing for several years now, and it's seen a respectable amount of success.
This video is one of the most introspective and important truths that everyone needs to realize and how it applies to anything people are creating in life. It has clarified a lot and put things into the light for me. Thank you so much for this therapeutic information, Jake.
Thank you for this video. When I was 14 I started writing a story, it wasn't great but I was putting the words down. A couple of months into it I decided I should start world building, I created characters, creatures, places, history and lore. I'm still going back every couple of months and world building for this story, and a lot of it has helped to improve on the original part of the story I initially wrote at 14... But I haven't developed it any more than those first couple of pages. I don't even know if it's going to be a comic/graphic novel, a book, an illustrated book like James Gurney's Dinotopia or anything. I just turned 25, which means I've spent 11 years piling up stones - I know I have enough ideas to really get into the story, but I just keep world building, and I didn't even realise it was just me avoiding the hard part. After watching this, once I've finished my current projects and have time to go back to working on this world, I'm gonna sit down and write.
You know it’s going to be a good day when it starts with a NEW JAKE PARKER VIDEO 🙌🏼
Yeaaaaaaah!!
Do what Akira Toriyama did and just come up with the story and character designs as he finishes each chapter. And then promptly forget key characters several chapters in haha
That's harder to do than you think XD
Ya that's funny
Well said. 13:37 "...over reliance on indirect experiences..." This is me! So important to find a balance. Hard to do in this easy-access, binge-world.
Also, "If you never make it, it'll never have the chance to be criticized." Wow, so true. That fear of criticism and disappointment often holds me back.
Looking forward to more of your videos!
So true, I've stepped away from social media to focus more on myself and personal goals. I always felt the burn of needing to post to social media for likes and it was not productive in the sense that I wasnt producing anything long lasting or meaningful, as youve said!
I struggle so much with input overload and reference diving, I get so caught up on not drawing something right I look for how others have done it and real life reference but then I just don't stop and stay hours looking for every image, saving it to some random folder but not really using any as actual learning tools.
Great video Jake, and amazing intro🙌🙌
Yes, saving refrence then I never look at it again. Or I get wrapped up in trying to make it look realistic when it has more impact in my own style.
@@poneyfeathersart1442 I feel you, it really gets to you because you feel you are doing the right thing which is improving your creative library but your not reading anything and the books just gather dust. Then when paired with art block you just double down on the reference diving and input overload and if you're really not careful (like me) it can creep into envy and toxic comparison which just makes you feel nasty. Luckily I'm out of the toxic comparison stage but i'm still reference diving but trying to get better/ limit myself to how much I absorb. Maybe instead of looking stuff up on the internet I use one of my many how to books instead of it just looking nice on a shelf.
Love the collecting stones analogy, and the “inhale too much without exhaling and you’ll just pass out” one. Great video, perfect balance between high-level ideas and actual examples (like browsing forever to collect reference imagery).
I dont think it works too well, because what if the world(building) it self is the "cathedral"?
Welcome back Jake and thank you for this video. Creating something to just throw up on social media so that we can stay within the right algorithms is such a problem and I feel for every artist that is caught in this loop and wants out.
I'm right there with you. In the past year I've shifted away from fan art to focus on creating. It's much more full filling. Fan art brought my audience and now the ones who want to stick around for what I can create... awesome.
Love your work Derek. RuinWorld rocks!
I discovered your work thanks to your fanart, but I loved it when I read RuinWorld. Specially because it was at the same time I just finished a short fantasy story and your comic was basically all I wanted to do but couldn't. Big inspiration there!
@@dibujantedemierda That's great to hear. If I can inspire someone to go and create something that's all I've ever wanted.
Fanart is good. It allows you to upload character drawings without the fear of them being stolen. If you go and upload your own character you spent years developing and it gets taken away by some studio with strong lawyers you'll just lose-lose. Fanart still requires skill, feeling the volume, the perspective, the proportions. And more, it teaches you to draw something exactly how it is. Drawing your own stuff you actually use your inner metrics that are applied subconsciously. So most of the time you don't even have to think about measuring your character. And then you draw someone everyone knows and see you lack the feeling of proportions. Say, you make eyes too big or too small, you make them less flexible or more pointy. Fanart is actually what most animators do: take a character invented by someone else and draw him\her as close to the author's style as possible. Otherwise the work will suck. And fanart is what you'll have to do to your own creations when you forget them. It's a shame to lose these metrics inside of you and find out you can't draw them anymore. Because it was all about something inside of you that's changed now.
"Everything is poison and everything is medicine, depends on the dosage" (c)So, obviously, it's bad to rely on fanart as something popular to get you up but it's perfect for practice that ALSO gets you up. That's how I look at it.
@@RedGallardo You're talking to a guy who's built a career on fan art:) I'm not against it at all and I encourage others to do it but after focusing on it for years I'm at a point in my career that I want to now put more attention into my own ideas.
What you said about actually experiencing things and not only relying on other artists' creations, really spoke to me! I was designing a character for a comic and for almost FIVE MONTHS I could not come up with a good design! But one day, I actually looked up photos of real people, similiar to the character in my head and almost instantly drew the character's design the way I had pictured it! Experiencing real things, instead of an artist's filtered version is imperative in creating!
I'm working on a web comic project myself and this is exactly what I needed to hear. I've had this feeling of failure hovering over me because I'm trying to work on a story and don't have a lot of things to upload to social media. Thanks for the insights!
Sorry about the loss of your Mom. Thanks for this video, this is a very important message to artists and RUclips channel creators. I am guilty of getting sucked in to social media and letting it rule my art- FINALLY I am more concerned with learning process and the end result than I am of the video making.
Thank you for this video.
I have been stuck in a pile of rocks for over half my life and you have put it into a light that made me realize I am in this trap.
Thank you.
Just spent a solid hour and a half pacing about my room thinking about a cool character I want in a story I want in a story I may or may not write after several years and just happened to come to this video. I really needed this, thank you.
Thank you for the video. Helps put things in perspective and question a few things, so im glad i found it, as well as the rest of the playlist. Im sorry to hear about your mom.
The points explained here hit close to home.
I have a lot of problems when doing some world-building with some friends since the longer we work on it, the greater obstacles we faced and the harder it becomes for us to tackle, and eventually, we failed to build the world we dreamed of. We broke up after there's no conclusion on what to do afterward.
Since then, I've been aware of the world-building traps; when I decided to work on my own worldbuilding, I ditched most of the things that will lead to one of those pitfalls, leaving most of the things unexplained per se. I'm unsure if it's a good or bad practice, but this way I can focus on making things that matter and not just for the sake to fill the gaps left in the world-build.
And yes, it becomes clear that I have become a consumer rather than a producer. I blamed social media for this problem, but then again, social media is also my way to tell people about my creations, so... it seems like a double-edged sword for me.
The fan art thing, though, it's quite an irony and has caused an internal conflict in my mind; I could hop into bandwagons and get much fame and recognition this way, but this will end up in the lack of authenticity that I also desired for. Besides, fan arts contribute much less into the world-building, so I'd rather dismiss it unless I deem otherwise (e.g. for a tribute to the series I love so much).
This is a great video and has refreshed my insight into what to do next for my long-term goals. Thank you very much for sharing your words and experience to us!
I relate to a lot of this even though I'm not a graphic novel artist. The rush that comes from planning a creative idea is much more enticing than the daily grind to make it actually happen.
Thank you for this video and your ones on writing. I don’t even work in art any more, but this is a real kick in the pants for me.
I recomend watching the Movie "Whisper of the heart" from studio ghibli, I wont spoil it, but it delves deep into the issues of writing and creating in general.
dragonnight cz sounds interesting--where can I watch that?
Speaking to me. I have to watch this again to process all the issue I have. Needed this.👍
This is a very important thing for people to hear.
I personally am blessed with inability to really care for world building and only really wanting to tell fun stories with my fun guys. I'd say I don't really have world building, I only have "aestetic building". I want my fun sci-fi gun to look cool and go "pew", not for it to be practical and realistic.
But I also know a lot of people who really love worldbuilding and spend wayyyy too much time worrying about the way plumbing works in elf village, and it's kind of painful to watch.
Thanks for being open and honest with us about your struggles and really turning the prism onto your (and our) practices. I have spent days/weeks on busy work, feeling like I'm really getting stuff done when it was just...collecting rocks (comments, downloads, clever tips i never executed on).
I had this problem for a long time, and then started a comic as a 24 hour comic and kept going at it with no pre-work, no thumbnails, character designs, or plot beats for almost 3 issues. It's a great way to break this habit, but then it gave me more problems because now I have a bunch of plot holes and inconsistently drawn panels!
It definitely gave me a much greater appreciation for doing both the pre-planning stages, in addition to just free styling everything, and a much greater understanding for how to balance each for my own personal work habits.
I recommend doing 24 hour comics day for anyone who has this "endless world building" problem
I feel this. I make music as well so I can relate. When I was younger I spent highschool focused on making a concept album. Put everything into it! When it was finished I obviously didn't get much attention for it despite the four years I invested in it after I felt creatively bankrupt. The way I combated this thinking was by taking the time out to absorb new media and work on smaller more doable projects until my process was tight enough to expand my work bigger. In 2019 got to making another full-length record and now I switched over to weekly releases for 2020 to avoid similar stagnation.
Glad you're feeling better, Jake.
This is something I`ve been feeling latly and kind of denying it.
like waiting for some perfect moment to be productive, and ''create my masterpiece'' which is all BS!
your words resonated with me, so I picked up my sketchbook and drew some stuff after month not really doing much of anything.
Condolences to you and your mother, I'm glad to see you're doing better. Very eye opening video, I'm completely in the world building trap and I will focus on getting out of it.
Happy to see you back and this video was amazing! I am working on making my story and I get stuck in this constantly. This year is the year to really start creating it and not just collecting those rocks. And congrats on the move fellow Arizonian! And so sorry to hear about your mom. Sending love for that and thanks for doing what you do!
This entire video came and snatched my entire head, wig and all. This is EXACTLY where I am at in my creative art journey (specifically in working on starting a webcomic and LORDT do i feel this in my bones)
"REFERENCE DIVING"!! thank you for putting a name to it! that completely summarizes my current state and i've gotten to the point where i'll log off social media/etc. if i want to make any visible progress on my work.
Great to have you back! Love the idea of avoiding the rock pile and making something finished and with value.
Great video with a powerful message for artists and writers. I recommend reading the biography, Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. Leonardo created very little finished paintings - Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. Leonardo loved ideas and was constantly explore new ideas. He produced over 7,000 journal pages of his ideas and drawings. Using your language, he was building worlds but never finishing them.
But it was what he finished that allowed him the opportunity to keep creating. If he never finished anything he'd never get hired but as he said, "art is never finished, only abandoned."
This is great advice! I’ve been struggling for the past 5yrs with my project and every time I would open basemeshes in zbrush to port over to quick renders for paint over I realized I was just staring at my note and my sketches and all these rocks just absolutely intimidated because all I have is not just one but piles upon piles of sort rocks this really helped me get a better view of the creative anxiety I’ve been slowly developing for myself
Well like you pointed out, if RUclips only values the "insta-novelty" of sensational entertainment, rather than long-form truly creative work, then it becomes a business equation...is lots of your time worth very little gains?
It us-to be that RUclips didn't have this bias and it was actually feasible to create long-form, very creative video's, and people would recognize you. But now? the RUclips Algo punishes you for not uploading every single day. So that's a big problem that forces creators to do smaller and smaller and smaller pieces of content that eventually don't amount to much.
Now if RUclips didn't own the monopoly on independent content creation, it wouldn't be that big of a problem...but RUclips is the only platform that people are really using, that solely justifies it's continued use from independent content creators.
This World building trap isn't just about you and your own short comings...it's about larger scale problems that have forced you into it....so in the end it's not only your fault.
Nightmare Court Pictures great point!
I have missed your posts. I love 3 Point Perspective and get very excited when I see a new one, but these Jake videos make me feel like I'm in art church. Thanks Rev Jake.
That video really touch me really close, I really thank you
this is one of the best videos I've watched on this topic! Thanks, really helps to hear these things summed up all in one place, spoken aloud by someone with so much more experience.
I think one of the only people who really managed to pull off the world building obsession was Tolkien. He spent most of his entire life figuring out the lore of Middle Earth and wrote The Hobbit and LOTR just as a means to explain to people what the world he was imagining was like. The Hobbit and LOTR weren't his "end goal" projects and I don't know if he ever managed to reach his "end goal". However, the stories that he did release were hugely successful and helped forge the fantasy genre. He knew that you had to release content as well as design the world itself.
I really liked this video and I definitely agree with it. It is a very easy issue to slip into. I would say it's probably better to write out your story and then figure out the character designs and such later. Your story is your main selling point and the world is secondary to the story. It's easy to make an interesting and fun world but it is very hard to write an engaging and unique story.
I love worldbuilding and creating the issue synopsis for each book. I just have started to really do over the past almost two years. After decades of chasing perfection, I never had the world-building trap. I have over 50 worlds I have created in my mind. My issue is not the worldbuilding it is just focusing on one and putting all my energy into one. I have always been one to do multiple things at once instead of just focusing on just the one.
I believe DRIVEN FOCUS is the issue for most artists we have.
i have always created art for me, even when i had no real story to tell. no real character to draw. some times id make some art for wolf's rain or ginga , but other than that i made art for fun. now i have begun building a world with a friend and illustrating characters, and i absolutely love it. ive alwasy been told about how active i am online, thats because i make art for myself meaning im eager to finish the piece and have more motivation to make it in one day.
sorry about your loss, Jake. I wish you and your family well
I may be out of left-field with my thinking, but a couple of years ago I had this idea where I'd always enjoyed the flavor text that went along with the images of Magic: The Gathering cards- they were these couple of sentences to a paragraph that gave you a sense of a greater narrative. I think there's a possibility of simultaneously doing world-building images and creating products. I've an interest in eventually doing beastiary books in the spirit of Brian Froud's fairy books and illustrated novellas. What I've been doing is at some point in the process of making a piece, I try to come up with a bit of narrative to go along with it that gives a window into the world I'm making and every time I put out a new piece, I put that snippet of text alongside the new image. I've seen this audience-building process work for a few people from around the 1 Fantastic Week community, Emily Hare with "Strange Hollow" and Iris Compiet with "Faeries of the Faultline", and the exact MtG analogy used by Justin Grey Valentine, so I don't think I'm too far off track with this idea. I think the only question that remains is whether what an artist is doing is unique or good enough for there to be an audience that's going to care.
Dude this is completely amazing you hit it on the head exactly like everyone else is saying, like you said on the minimum viable story. It hit accord with me in a moment in my life when I am ready to receive the message. Thank you for telling my story back to me.
Really great post here. I can't say enough how much this opened up my eyes to this enormous rockpile.
Love your work too.
This video was really helpful, as someone who's spent years thinking, noting down, and collecting useless ideas for my story, i can fully relate to this lesson, and im sure many other artists can too. Although i'm not the type to browse art online and save them, nor post my own art, i do find myself constantly putting off my story, i spent so much time doing other things with the story except actually write it, and its up to the point where im doing things like writing what a character feels even though i haven't even written their story fully, and at one point i was planning on creating the look of the entire city (as you said you did), and i think it really does come from a core feeling of failing, or rather having a product be finished during the point in your art life when you are "bad" as an artist. I am however at a point where i have been actually writing the story, and this video does nothing less but motivate me more to working even harder! so thank you because this feeling of "world building" really felt like something i was struggling with, and to find out how common it is really does give me a sense of relief.
Great video, and i hope more people can see this because i have no doubt that every artist has been at this stage at one point in their life.
You are reading my mail!!!!! This is an AMAZING and inspiring video for me!! I need more of this....PLEASE!! Thank you. Liked...subscribed...clicked bell!!
This is one of your best videos, Jake! This is so true, man. I got caught up in this trap when I started my book, but eventually I was able to hit the ground running and start cranking out pages.
Finally a video time to learn now
What i did is that i have been working on my worldbuilding for years, at least almost a decade while i improve my skills, writing skills, drawing skills, programing skills, 3D modeling skills simply because i started from scratch and didnt had the skils that i wanted to do it
And yes i know one one punch man is one of my favorite mangas of all time but i wanted to at least be decent at my drawing skills before trying more as a personal reason to push myself to improve, now that i have reached a level were i'm confortable at i have started to develop more about the story proper
okay wow this is really serendipitous because I'm stuck in the "filling my creative bank account" trap, and not so much creating. When I go to draw, I'm now disappointing myself because I go long periods of time without creating but ill look at other people's art and save it, but never making anything of my own. I got accepted into art school but now I'm afraid that I'm not creating enough, and my art won't be up to par with other students :/ but this was a great video, as always
This really speaks to me, I really want to create my own world with its own characters that are all connected but I just want to make things perfect like how you said, I'm just adding more things to the pile without creating anything. I think I'll set aside time to actually start writing out a story and then draw it when I'm finished unstead of not even starting, thanks for helping me realize this
Such a great video! This is exactly why I've been trying to put down my phone and just paint more. Still haven't gotten to that "building a cathedral" -part, but at least there's less noise distracting me. What a way with words you have, Jake Parker. Tis the good stuff.
Artist commentary is always loved! Looking forward to Drawings V, and thanks for making this video.
Thanks for speaking about this topic. I really needed to hear this
This was beautiful man. I think im stuck in world-building for like 10 years. Thx for clarifying to me.
That's assuming you view it as a trap. if it's what you like doing, and what you find comfortable, but the issue is that you can't sell it, then maybe you should be finding ways to make it marketable. It's not going to get you closer to a massive finished product, but there are artists that have been able to basically sell pieces of world building.
Basically, an alternative to building the cathedral is to appreciate, polish and sell the stones. I hear diamonds are worth something, even rough.
Really good point.
EXCELLENT video! When I was in my 20's, I dreamed of making an animated series and drew countless ideas to save for the future. Since social media has become a real asset to artists, I feel like I am moving forward with writing and drawing backlogs of stories that will be up in April rather than waiting for an opportunity to showcase my work. Start small!
I too find myself adding rocks to a pile. While a lot of my character designs tend to be influenced by each other and possibly in the same fictional world together, I still am not taking the time to further build that world and create a product that I want to see for myself. Yet another great job on a video, Jake. Thank you!
I think I need to listen to this video, particularly the cathedral analysis, on a weekly basis.
I keep coming back to this! Thank you so much for this, Jake!! You keep being the reason that I'm finishing my first 20+ page story...
I'm glad to see you making videos again, Jake. I hope to see more of your videos throughout 2020.
Thanks for doing this. I needed to hear this. It was an eye opener. Thank you kindly.
I always have to resist creating stand-alone artworks just for the sake of having something to post. It’s hard to do sketchy studies that are too ugly to post. And it’s hard to draw comic pages that won’t be released for months. But it’s all worth it, because a year from now I’ll have a sketchbook full of improved anatomy and a finished graphic novel. Not just a bunch of pretty girl drawings. So, thank you Mr. Parker!
Glad to see you back! It's been a while! Thanks for talking about this. EXTREMELY pertinent topic to me, and I like how you asked questions that spark personal thought and exploration at the end of your point.
Awesome inking! I'm working on my inking still! Having the weekly inktober prompts really help!
Sorry to hear about your Mom. Condolences to you and yours.
I'm only like 5 minutes in and I feel called out XD
Same here, on every single point he mentioned, it's like he is sitting in my brain XD
I feel very called out. But I'm actually kind of grateful
Parasol Mushroom Art it really called out to me too!
I'm sorry to hear about your mom. I greatly appreciate the wisdom of this video 👍 thanks Jake
Although I don't draw as much as I write, I can 100% relate to this. I spent the last 2 years or so just creating the world, then changing it, then changing it again and again, until I will be happy with whatever part I'm working on right now. It is, however, rarely the case.
I am more or less happy with the the races and themes of my world (like a clockwork city or a element-based elves), but then I have my magic system... And its such a headache.
Great, GREAT advice!
My condolences to your loss.
Great video!!!!! I often kick myself because I barely post in social media and I see artists far more prolific than I am constantly uploading. But at the same time, when I think about what to upload I feel like it's either the Baby Yoda type flavor of the month, or something that will go unnoticed, so I end up doing nothing.
I love world building but I came to this conclusion too. I was using it too put off drawing my comic. The more you work on something the less grand it gets since you can't use every idea. It also becomes evident that there's things that you could improve on. But noone can be an expert at everything. After I figured out the style I want to use it was redundant to make more concept art. I promised myself if I need to do detailed sketches to figure something out later or get more references I can. Surprise, I haven't needed to.
I'm currently working on a big project that's about to be wrapped up. It's scary but it's going to have to go out there. I agree 100% with you on social media
You are so on point. IO have been building a world for 20 years and have so much detail it is silly. Everything from the nations of the world down to how different regions handle dating rituals. I have just now (with in the last year) found a way to get the actual story started. I started making a chapter outline detailing what each chapter contains then I just go in and expand on the outline until it is a chapter. Now I am making progress (when I stop playing games and building Gundams) toward something.
Thank you!!! and . . here's to a much better year. 💙
So true Jake!! Guilty. I have notebooks and sketchbooks piled up with hundreds of story fragments, notes and sketches. Each world has some weight to it, but my focus is used up in research. Its been frustrating lately. I want people to see the awesomeness in my head, but the post that hits instagram is a quick kind of art fart. Ha!! Something to please the algorythem.
Life happens and it can be rough. Currently, im a mom of three young boys and helping my husband start a plumbing company. Hes been 12 years in the business and decided to take the master test. Im the secratary, bookkeeper, accountant.....
Through all this, im still an artist. That need to create chewing on the back of my brain. Maybe Ill focus on 100 somethings. Then comes the decision... what sonething is worth 100 drawings? 😂
Love the new intro, office and content. Looking foreward to more videos. Thanks for the pep talk. Its good to know im not alone. ✌
Jake I'm so glad I found you. I don't want to say too much, but my dreams and aspirations are basically your aspirations. (I want to make a graphic novel/comic book. Somewhere in between.)
This one really hit home with me. Thanks for your transparency. I've felt myself SO tempted lately to jump out of my 'deep work' just to get a quick post done and try to harvest some likes/followers (which is its own struggle). If I were totally honest, I've fallen into this trap and your vid really is helping me focus on what matters. Redirect! Focus! Thanks again.
You came in the right moment. I finally have the impulse to start working on my proyects and DAMN this was just a signal from the sky to start the fuck up!
One of the other problems inherent to creating for/with the algorithm is that they're wildly imperfect. Speaking from personal experience, I have no idea who you are or why this is the first time I've seen you in my recommended videos - and it took me all of a minute to decide to subscribe to your channel.
Seriously though, thank you for this. I'm mulling over these points in relation to why I do world-building, which is for my D&D game. In certain ways this lets me off the hook since the story itself is co-created by you and your table (and indeed writing the story out in advance, with no room for growth, is the hallmark of controlling GMs). At the same time, world-building traps abound in this context as well. I spend hours on map-making, knowing full well that my players would be just as happy if I sketched something out in pencil at the table, and my time could be better spent thinking about the underlying mechanisms of a city's social or economic systems so I'm not BSing when my players ask me if there are taxes. But when I sit down to do it, it seems so daunting - and I absolutely do feel the pressure of a nebulous world of possibility becoming something concrete and flawed. And I know GMs with the exact opposite problem: over-specifying the machinations of a city's systems and thus creating a thriving economic center that both looks like and sits in a blank void. There's a balance to be had somewhere; if anyone knows where, please @ me.
You've given me a lot to think about. Sorry if you're actually someone super famous or important and I'm just an idiot for not knowing about you before (just going to tell myself you did the animation for ATLA, that sounds cool). But I'm paying attention now, and for what it's worth, it's the depth of your content that's keeping me with this channel.
Looking forward to seeing more of your creations, both physical and intellectual.
this is very important advice. I consume way too much and don't put enough out.
You should see the size of my visual library. It is staggering.
Yay a new video! Thank you Jake! You're one of the best positive forces out there for us behind, I'm glad things are better for you this year, we wish you a great 2020!!!!!
Omg. Jake your latest intro is pure awesomeness. Its sooooooo goood.
Hello Jake, welcome back and many thanks for sharing your thoughts on this particular topic. I have fallen into this problem so many times that I could write a book about it -although I would never write it because I'd probably fall into the same self-inflicted trap.
Actually, although I have managed to fight against it in some projects, I am still working on improving my creative balance. I am still prone to waste a lot of my time with the very appealing 'treat' of fantasizing about how my ideas will be rather than executing them. 'Nihil novum sub sole'; I was well aware of it before watching your video, but thanks anyway for speaking out similar truths to those that I tell myself each day. I'll try to channel your advice to fuel the 'executive' side of my creation process.
Muchas gracias,
Juanma.
Amazing lesson! Thank you very much! I really needed someone to tell me to stop piling rocks! :)
I'll counter by saying not all "daily updates" on Instagram are bad. I draw for a hobby, and only really get a chance to practice during my lunch break. This time is enough for me to start and finish a sketch, and I'm ready to upload it. Without this, I'd practice less and get less feedback. Sure, I'm not world building, but neither am I waiting a novel, nor an I making a living from this. Great video though, love hearing from you!
That's fair.
It wasn't until I completely stopped using social media (viewing and posting) that I realized how much time I spent _pretending_ to be someone who makes things. Pretending is so much easier than doing. This lesson applies to more than being creative. Social media lets you pretend to be a lot of things you're not.
Welcome back Jake glad to see your videos again!
I think I needed to hear this. I just keep on creating more and more details and developing my characters but I KNOW I'm afraid to open my word processer... Thank you for sharing!!
Really nice parable with the stones.
This and your "Minimum Viable Story" video have inspired me. Thanks for that. I'm off to turn my rock pile into a house, I don't need a cathedral yet. Side note: You have excellent brush control, I enjoy watching you ink.