Hedgeblog

The ramblings of illustrator and game developer Hedgefield

Day: October 21, 2013

  • Imposters

    Today I want to talk a little more about something I touched on a few weeks ago, and I’m seeing it more and more now when I’m talking to people about their creativity. We can call it Imposter Syndrome.

    That is an actual clinical term, describing people who are ‘unable to internalize their accomplishments, despite external evidence of their competence.’ They remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. That sounds strange, but it is more common than you think.

    The first time I noticed it was when it was a running gag among cartoonists. We joked it was part of the job, and we didn’t really see it as a bad thing. It seemed like something everyone has to go through from time to time, this crippling fear about your work and career (especially if it is also your source of income). The idea was most clearly expressed by Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub in their daily podcast from way back in 2007 when they talked about being scared of the ‘Failure Police‘ – listen to the clip here.

    I always took solace in the idea, this shared burden that united us. But it wasn’t so much at the forefront of my thoughts until I heard Alec Baldwin’s interview with David Letterman on WYNC’s Here’s The Thing podcast earlier this year. Listen to the clip here, and tell me what you think that sounds like to you.

    Here are two very succesful people, famous, wealthy, loved, with a revered body of work, and they are just as scared of the Failure Police! It was like a lightning bolt to my brain. Clearly everbody creative struggles with this in some way or form. And you don’t have to look far to find more examples. In Indie Game The Movie we saw the creators of some of the best indie games of the recent years profess to feeling horribly insecure about whether or not their game was any good. For the dutch readers, HollandDoc did a great documentary related to this years ago called Alles Wat We Wilden. And last week Donald ‘Childish “Troy” Gambino’ Glover instagrammed a series of notes in which he said the following things:

    I’m afraid that this was all an accident.
    I’m afraid I’m here for nothing.

    I’m afraid my show will fail.
    I’m afraid people hate who I really am. I’m afraid I hate who I really am.
    I feel like I’m letting everyone down.
    I’m scared I’ll never reach my potential.
    I’m scared that sounds pretentious.

    I got really lost. But I can’t be lonely, cause we’re all here.

    Wa are all there.

    I don’t think it’s a bad thing per sé. It’s not a great thing, to feel like that as a human being, but I think eventually it helps you get better at what you do.

    And if you, right there, are someone who enjoyed the creative work of someone else, think about taking a minute or two to send them an email saying that. It means more than you think.

  • Week 13

    This is a weekly recap of the goings-on in my professional life – to keep track of what I’m doing and to give you a peek at what it’s like being an independant creative.

    On Monday I set up a new Off-stage page for publishing as I do each week. This one I had already drawn a few weeks ago so I was done quickly. Which freed up the rest of my afternoon to have coffee with Charlotte van Grunsven, an up-and-coming game designer with whom it turns out I share a lot of views on design and inspiration.

    On tuesdaymorning I met up with blogger and new media specialist Anke Hans, who like me recently dove into the exciting and terrifying world of working for yourself. We shared tips and ideas and had a good laugh about the fact that neither of us is really making any money yet.
    Afterwards I started work on a project with Game Oven, and it was fun to hang out in their office and be part of a team, although I did miss my home office after a few days. Being in the Dutch Game Garden building also gave me an opportunity to catch up with my old internship collegues at Monkeybizniz, which may yield some new business in the near future aswell. All in all I think this was the first week I felt good and confident about my decision to go at it as an indie.

    Wednesdaynight me and Adriaan went to our usual wednesday evening event De Mus, a night of music, literature, film, thought-provoking art and fun at a tiny theatre in downtown Amsterdam. Our friend Joost van Dongen was there that night showing off his Cello Fortress project (uhmazing), which he works on next to his full-time job. Respect. We had a great night, and I hope more people come to check out this phenomenon in the future (although it’s doubtful if they’ll fit in the theatre!)

    The rest of the week I sketched some more Off-stage pages, played The Stanley Parable, Did some painting in the new Photoshop contender Mischief (which you can see below), resurrected my legendary character in DayZ, and over the weekend hung out with friends and saw Gravity (so good).