aaaaaaaaaah wrote: ↑Sun Oct 06, 2019 3:45 pm
As an illustrator and as someone who critiques/copy edits the occasional draft for aspiring authors, I see his mentality a lot. In people who get nowhere.
It is fulfilling to have people notice your artwork, whether it's drawn, acted, written, or filmed, but if you get stuck in the "I NEED to make this great before I show anyone" mentality, then you never show anyone and you can never improve. Your standards for your own work are insanely high. You see every mistake, every single slip up, and every moment where something could've been better. When other people see it, especially people who don't know as much about your chosen art form as you do, they only see the impressive parts. They look at it as a whole as see how it all fits together, and that's it.
Some people will look closer and see faults, but those people often know more about the craft so they can appreciate it as a flawed, but good, piece. Some people won't like what you make. I don't like the egos (including Mark's) but I can see when effort went in and appreciate that. My job is professional illustration; I've illustrated children's books alongside a few covers for adult and YA, as well as general media stuff, and guess what? Some people just don't like a certain art style. You can't get caught up in other people's opinions if they'll get in the way of creating what you feel a need to create. People's expectations are just their expectations -- they don't have to mean anything to you.
It's the same as (in his Mark/ego apology) when he said that "all creative people get like this sometime". They don't. People who put too much emphasis on other people do. What Jack's doing might be ambitious, but there's no ambition in putting it off constantly. He should put less pressure on himself, but how can he do it when he's still a people pleaser? He said it himself, he wants to do the egos justice for the fans too. Nothing will change if he can't separate himself from fictional characters that he/other people made up.
Your craft is not your baby. It might come from you and feel personal, but it is something you've created. It isn't alive, it won't get hurt if people don't like it, but like a baby, if you coddle it and never let it see the light, all you get is a messy, regressed thing that never got what it needed to get better. So what if Jack's ego videos aren't great straight away? He can improve. The worst thing an artist can be is stagnant. When I said that your own standards are high, if you're inexperienced then your standards are high without any way to become more realistic. You can look at a painting and think "I could never do that" but then, once you learn the techniques and different brushes, it all becomes a lot simpler. While you won't become Bob Ross overnight, you have the tools to get better. By keeping his ego project hidden, he can't get the tools to create something better. He'll stay inexperienced and he'll never be able to create something that meets realistic standards, because he doesn't know what a realistic standard is.
Also, I don't think we're on the cusp of a big change since the entire post reads as "you guys put too much pressure on me and it made me sad!! i just wanna do you guys justice." He's still being a victim, so it doesn't look like he's had that much of a mental epiphany. His mentality is one that a lot of artists start out with, but they end up nowhere because they're unable to get past the fear of getting something down on paper. I hope he's continuing therapy now that he's back in England. That's the only way I see that he could start moving past these problems. (sorry for the essay guys, turns out I have a lot to say about this and it might be a bit rant-ish because I'm currently dealing with someone like this irl)