Hauby Lauby - It's a Learning Process

One of these days I'm gonna have to get myself a standard blog greeting.  Something along the lines of what Brent does perhaps.  But for the time being, some light plagiarism:

Greetings, Unicrons of all ages and welcome to another installment of the Hauby Lauby! Oh god it's Brent.

See, Unicron.  Geddit?

I had a thought that I wanted to encapsulate in my introductory post, but I didn't quite have the evidence I needed to make the point I had in mind.  Thankfully, Hefe took my bait stepped up and bared his soul just a teeny bit.

I'm very self-conscious of my painting abilities (or lack thereof) so I will be looking forward to reading your articles.

Not to worry, Hefe (and everyone else), most everyone's been on that ride before (some of you still are!).  It's a spindly contraption constructed by the drugged-out carnies that hide in your subconscious until the ol' self esteem needs a good carny raping. Or when it's time to hoot at girls that are waaaay out of your league.  It's not a very fun ride, but thankfully you don't have to ride it indefinitely.  Though hooting at girls is another matter entirely.
I wish I had some magic trick that would make all the self doubt disappear in a flash.  Unholy Krondor knows that I could use the help myself.  Unfortunately, you kinda just have to suck it up. It's part of a learning process and its a process you have to participate in to improve.

Whether you're still stuck at the "can I get by with craft paint?" stage or you've managed to grasp some of the sorcery that the Crystal Brush use - you're not going to be automatically good at everything you try.  You have to expect that you'll fail on some level along the way.  Even the savants over at Massive Voodoo run into self doubt and agonize over their own work.  It doesn't just go away once you get 'good'. Nor should it, self doubt can be a very useful motivator if used correctly.

Obviously, being able to have a great deal of fun and enjoying the process as a journey is pretty great, but we don't all start out there.  Just keep in your mind that learning to paint and getting better at it involves the exact same process as learning how to play whatever game your dudesmen go to.  Were you immediately good at that aspect of the hobby from the get go?

Acknowledging that there is a learning process is key.  You need to practice, you need to push yourself and you need to keep an open mind. And you'll need to realize that you'll probably not be as good as you want initially.  So yeah, you're likely in unfamiliar territory and you're essentially painting for public display.  So is everyone else.  People, by and large, get that any kind of artistic skill is hard to cultivate.  Very few are gonna call you out on it.  And if they do, screw 'em.  Do you really want to even game with those kinds of people in the first place?

So, relax, practice and remind yourself that you're learning.