Reply To: Does anyone else feel constantly dissatisfied with their work?

[Jake Korosi]

I have no idea if it’s normal, but I can tell you you’re definitely not alone either way.  Like in the June thread, while many people were saying “good job” about the truck, all I could see when I looked at the renders was things that were missing, or things I did wrong.  

Don’t feel bad about the jealousy!  Maybe it’s a character flaw, and it’s not like me to get too personal about myself anyway; but I’ll confess: but I was little, almost everything I pushed myself to excel at was motivated to some degree by jealously.  I’d see some other kid my age who was good at something I was interested in (good as in “clearly better than me at it”), and the praise they’d get for their efforts, and I’d just quietly think to myself “I can do better than THAT”.  And then I worked at it until it was true, or until I lost interest.   There were a couple of times where it became true and then I lost interest anyway.

These days I’m much more even-keeled (I hope I am at least), but I still often rely on what I see others doing to motivate me to improve.  It’s not competitive anymore.

In a way it’s one of the things I like the most about the new classes; I think it’s a great idea to have a bunch of people all very close to the same skill level working at the same time and seeing each other’s work, so that as some get just -slightly- better at this or that skill than their peers, that slight difference shows the others what’s possible and encourages them rather than making them feel simply outclassed, like ArtStation sometimes can (holy smoke, ArtStation…seriously).