"Fear plagues every creative person to some degree..."
I recently encountered an interesting article on Lynda.com, a database used for technical tutorials, written by Dermot O' Conner that talked about animators and their fear to be creative. This fear makes you scared to finish a project or even start one. Conner underwent this fear. He calls it a "demon," or an "insecurity complex." It leaves animators mentally phased. Work is hardly ever finished or shown. This leads to the animator never experiencing their own potential. Conner explains that when he was working as an assistant for a head animator, he would start to draw, but after the first line he would rip up the paper and start over because feared of failure. After two years he developed an insane mental block. One that took time and a little inspiration to over come. The article states, "you must be self aware about how you approach you work, and do so in a healthy manner." I cannot stress enough how true this is. I often find myself in the same situation. The mind is an extremely powerful tool and has a large influence in events that happen in our daily lives. Being a rather young and inexperienced animator I have not found my niche in animation. I really have no idea what I'm good at in this field. As a result, I sometimes start work scared of failure, or even frustrated at the fact that I don't know what I'm good at. I get stressed and upset because of my inability to master certain concepts, such as modeling. I find myself sometimes dreading work or unmotivated to continue my projects because of fear of future failure. With this recent project, I have encountered a numerous amount of problems that have led me to fall behind, including the corruption of my project not once, but twice... This fear has really taken away my ability to animate to my full potential, and this article has helped me realize this.
Conner talks about the method that helped him overcome this fear. Disney animator Shamus Culhane encountered the same fear when he was working on Snow White. Culhane's "cure" was to work fast, without worrying about the details. He got the idea on paper, and technically polished it later. His method involved changing his way of thinking. Instead of, "I am unhappy with my work it is terrible I'm going to start over," he goes to, "Alright, I have this idea, I'm going to see how I can make it come to life and improve my skills in this process. Failure is not an option." Problems are going to arise every once in awhile. It is inevitable. The way one thinks through these problems is how one learns and strengthens their skills. During these last two weeks of being plagued with technical errors, I have learned more about Maya and my technically skills improved. Conner says to "just do it." No matter how inexperienced you are, try it, and see what you can learn. This is exactly what I need do to in order to improve. I need to stop worrying about failure or my inexperience. I need to try and learn. I need to learn from mistakes and error. I need to over come this fear of being creative. I need to believe in myself. I need to BE myself. Design what I want to design. It is that simple. Free your mind from the creative demons that lie in the depths of your subconscious. That is how one is successful. O'Conner's article helped me realize this. If you haven't already, give it a read.
http://www.lynda.com/articles/an-animator-conquers-his-fear
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