I’ve realized that I’ve got two goals which are arguably antithetical to one another. :p
Goal One, which has been in the forefront of my mind, is that I want to do my silly little web comic, which even I recognize I was good enough to DO before I started this 100 Hours project, even if I didn’t feel I was good ENOUGH by my own standards. But I’ve now drawn enough again that I feel like, ok, I probably CAN do it.
Unfortunately, what I’ve realized is I also have Goal Two, which is that I want to actually be GOOD. By my own standards. Which means, at the least…
Well, I want to say, it means not looking at somebody else’s art and wanting to throw myself in a pit, but since I’ve been a professional writer for 20 years and know I’m actively good at my job and still have at least half a dozen writer friends whose work makes me want to throw myself in a pit, that’s an unachievable metric.
What it definitely means is a far stronger grasp on the human form than I’ve got. Possibly a lot of other General Things, too, but let’s stick to one existential breakdown at a time.
I don’t, at the moment, mind putting in the work. I’m almost impatient to, in an agonizingly frustrated way, possibly because I’ve improved just enough during this project to begin to think I might be right in my long-held suspicion that I could perhaps be quite good if I really practiced.
But there are a limited number of hours in the day and I don’t think I can/will do the focused practice, like I’ve been doing, if I start doing a web comic. It’ll be one or the other, which is PERFECTLY REASONABLE, just not emotionally satisfying. And yes, doing the comic will help me improve, but it wouldn’t be the same kind of… It would be more trial and error than studying under tutelage so I perhaps didn’t have to spend as much time with the trial and error part.
On the third hand, I gave myself 6 months to do this 100 hours thing and I’ve done it in 3.5, so I could easily do at least one anatomy class before I reach the end of the year, which would put me no less ‘behind’ any web comic plans than I am right now and would presumably help me in that long term goal.
But on what I hope is the final hand, I also don’t want to let perfect be the enemy of done. Gah.