I have motivation problems.

BIG motivation problems.

Whenever I decide I want to start a project, I get through the planning only to have major doubts and then I lose motivation, and interest soon follows suit. I have a big passion for pixel art, and I really want to learn how to do it, but all I can do is study and when the study turns to practice, I burn out quick and just give up.

I have tried small pieces, medium pieces, and sorta larger than medium pieces, and they all burn me out. I've tried tracing, drawing from imagination, and doing a side-by-side study of an image... yet nothing is really clicking.

This is one of the more finished (but still far from such) pieces that I have gotten to:


I just got to that point and bam, out of nowhere, lost interest. It really sucks. Help! D:


Edited by Coconutsales - 29 June 2015 at 7:36am

What you have is a good start. It looks nice.

What is the piece for? When I'm learning new things I really struggle to work through tutorials or copy other people's stuff - I need to have something of my own that I'm working towards. I also tend to get put off from the hard stuff - I'm working on a game at the moment and I'm fairly happy with the graphics I have made so far. The next step is either to start animating some of the characters, or actually start coding. Animation is really hard for me, so I'll probably start coding next but it's hard to get motivated because I know that it's going to look a little rubbish because there aren't any animations yet.

The best advice I can give is to set small goals. Set aside an amount of time to do a specific thing like "Right, my TV show doesn't start for 30 minutes, instead of watching this stupid game show, I'm going to sketch out the boat that I need for this little part of my piece" or whatever. Spend the 30 minutes you would have wasted not knowing any of the answers to a boring quiz and then reward yourself with watching your favourite show (or whatever).

Break the project down into little tiny steps, write them down and tick them off as you complete them. Your brain rewards you with some yummy serotonin every time you tick a box :)