Emperors New Clothes - Shane Gline

"Emperors New Clothes"
The problem of too much concentration on making your drawings pretty, flashy or cool, or getting caught up in surface styles early on. You will get a bunch of attention from people who don't know better, and this can keep you from growing.
Attention and admiration from others should be our reward in life for working harder than the other person. If success comes too easily, and for the wrong reasons, it can really hold you back from developing.
For example- people who grow up wealthy or physically beautiful often have everything handed to them with little effort, and as a result tend to not develop the best personalities. They didn't need to develop character, strength, or knowledge to receive the attention that others have to work hard for.I believe that everything good in life only comes as a result of struggle, pain, or at the very least getting outside of your comfort zone. If you skip that difficult but necessary step, and get the reward without the work, you are cheating yourself and others and creating much greater difficulties down the line. There really are no shortcuts.
I learned how to make my drawings cute and slick early on. My drawings had a natural appeal, and I was inking with a brush, using zip-a-tone, doing fancy tricks and effects with white-out while I was still a teen. I was swiping from Frazetta, Wood, Stevens, etc. and I would take my samples to comic conventions to show the pros and then stand back and bask in all the praise. I fooled myself into believing that I could really draw.
When I began to work in animation, it became painfully clear how weak my foundation was. I really had no idea how to draw. I had learned to draw by looking at drawings. I had copied tricks, gimmicks, had memorized a handful of symbols for eyes, hands, poses, etc., but there was little real drawing in me. I would get hired on the basis of my slick portfolio, but when it came down to it I couldn't produce the work. John K. refers to it as "sketchbook virtuosos"- artists who show off these incredible sketchbooks and portfolios but who have no ability to draw on demand, or to customize their work for a specific job.If there is any one thing that I feel has held me back in both my career and life, it's this: I got the reward before I put in the work.
When you've already learned how to make your work superficially pretty, and people expect that from you, it becomes much more difficult to do all those messy, clumsy, fumbling drawings that will eventually give you that solid foundation. It's taken me the last ten years to get the substance of my drawing up to level of the surface and I still have a long, long way to go.
My advice: Don't cheat and don't lie to yourself. Do you deserve the praise you are getting or do you know better?

-Shane Gline