Curry Zawa Kaoru’s Creative Counseling - “I think I suck at drawing.” Stop comparing yourself to others; what matters most is how much people like your art.

Perhaps both you and A are actually god-tier illustrators, while I’m just a poor mortal caught in the middle, shouldering a misplaced sense of responsibility to bring your cosmic tussle to an end. All in all, this whole affair is nothing but a landmine waiting to go off.

Moreover, this isn’t just about comparing drawing skills but an incredibly telling case of the kinds of insecurities people deal with, and the good and bad of judging and being judged by others.

For starters, there are two ways insecurities can arise, either by noticing them yourself or someone else pointing them out. Suddenly realizing one day that you might have larger than average areolae is one thing, but hearing someone go, “Did you see the size of that guy’s dinner plates? Whew!” will probably cut you much deeper.

Psychologically speaking, the more your self-image differs from others’ perceptions of you, the more complicated life becomes.

Even if you were secure enough in your identity to counter with a sick burn such as, “Oh yeah? Better than having dinner plates that can’t even fit a couple of Skittles,” there’s always the risk of being deemed “delulu with an inflated ego” and getting shunned or ridiculed by others.

If you’d been unfazed by B’s words and replied, “You’d better replace those nerdy frames if you can’t even tell the difference between A’s and my drawings, Milhouse,” B would no doubt have cut ties with you, leaving you to live the rest of your life alone with the frustrating realization that society just doesn't appreciate your genius.

Still, this case isn’t that bad, considering your self-esteem remains perfectly intact.

When encountering a situation like this, most people become devastated by the difference between how they see themselves versus how others see them, and allow the latter to severely cloud their judgment. Despite having perfectly respectable areolae, they start to think things like, “Now that they mention it, my areolae are pretty big—in fact, they’re practically the size of landing pads,” and become overwhelmed with shame for ever having stepped foot outside the house. (Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with having small or large areolae. As a wise person once said, “All areolas are good areolas.”—probably some random Japanese T-shirt.) This is most likely where you’re at right now.

Just like how people who’ve been ridiculed for their body size by strangers can end up experiencing serious body dysmorphia, once you’re stuck in this mindset, your actual drawing skills no longer matter.

Even if you were the reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci and B truly had no artistic sense whatsoever, you’ll most likely continue to believe that everything you draw is objectively trash until you can rid yourself of these negative assumptions.

As for how to deal with these insecurities that stem from other people’s judgment, it’s said that most of the time, things get easier with age.

When you’re young, it’s easy to believe that the reason you’re depressed and everyone makes fun of you is because you’re fat. Once you get older, however, you’ll start to see how ridiculous your assumption was and realize that, actually, there were a bazillion other reasons contributing to your unpopularity and tendency to be the butt of the joke.

Now that I’m in my forties, I’m well aware of my limitations and care less about my lack of drawing skills. Although I can’t completely shrug off the feeling that my books might have sold more had I been better at drawing, I’m sure that by the time I hit my sixties, I’ll become enlightened to the fact that even if I had been a great illustrator, I probably wouldn’t have been popular anyway. (Please let that be the case.)

Moreover, when you’re past the midway point in your life, caring too much about strangers’ opinions starts to feel silly. You’ll eventually begin thinking, “No matter how much I suck and how outdated my art might be, I’m gonna keep drawing smut featuring doms with shoulders that’ll put Piccolo to shame.”

That said, I know that saying, “Just wait 20 years, you'll see!” isn’t exactly the most helpful advice, so here’s what I think you should do instead.

The only way to boost your motivation ASAP is to experience small but constant wins.

While my drawing skills are pretty subpar, my handwriting is absolutely atrocious. In elementary school, I once forgot to write my name on my answer sheet before handing it in, resulting in several of my classmates exclaiming, “That can’t be a girl’s handwriting. Everything about it screams dude with catastrophic grades and a personality to match.” Being the timid creature that I am, I was unable to come forth and prove them wrong and instead hung my head in shame. I was also screamed at by my former boss at the first company I worked at after graduating because of how messily I wrote numbers. Frankly, it’s a miracle I’m still able to write after all the Grade-A, dentist-visit equivalent traumatic experiences I’ve endured.

I’ve even tried practicing Japanese pen calligraphy before, but rather than get better, my handwriting actually got worse.

Since becoming a mangaka, though, a small percentage of my readers seem to actually enjoy my nauseatingly bad handwriting, regarding it as a charm of mine instead. As a result, although my writing is as messy as ever, I’ve begun to think that perhaps it isn’t such a bad trait after all and have accepted it as something that’s potentially entertaining.

This validation helped get rid of some of the shame I always felt whenever someone pointed out how bad my writing was and has even given me a bit of confidence to bristle at people who throw my insecurities in my face. To my editor: if you’re reading this, know that if you keep overcorrecting my Vs and Us, I might just stab you one day. (This is obviously a joke—please don’t take it too seriously.)

While it’s true that quality art is essential to any doujinshi, that’s not the be-all and end-all. Plenty of works fail to gain recognition even if they have the most gorgeous art you’ve ever laid your eyes on, and the opposite is true as well.

What matters most is whether your readers love your work or not.

Hence, this fear of not being able to draw or produce any work is the worst possible situation you could be in. Without releasing any new works, you’ll most likely lose fans, which will be another reason for you to believe that you suck at drawing.

There’s no need to overthink things and change your art style or try to draw better than usual. If you can bring yourself to publish a new doujinshi and participate in this upcoming event, you’ll experience the success of having fans who love your work and want to pay for it, even if it may not be very good. By experiencing more and more small wins like this, you’ll be able to stop getting hung up on how good or bad your art might be and learn to affirm its beauty.

However, what makes your message so problematic isn’t the fact that B thought your drawing wasn’t good but the fact that you were shocked to be mistaken for A, who you regard as a poor illustrator.

Now, I’m not here to reprimand you for all the times you thought A’s drawings sucked or tell you to get an attitude adjustment.

When it comes to manga and illustrations, it’s almost impossible to ignore the quality of their artwork, so it’s only natural to want to judge the artist for it.

Asking people to disregard the quality of your art despite making it public is as impossible as asking the audience of a beauty pageant to judge the contestants based on their personality alone. As such, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that you personally found A’s work rather mediocre.

The problem, I believe, is that not only do you think A is bad at drawing, but you've come to believe that they’re objectively worse at drawing than you, which has resulted in you having a subconscious superiority complex towards them. Learning that the two of you may actually be on the same level is probably why you felt so stunned to the point where you found yourself unable to draw.

A common phrase that many often resort to in an attempt to cheer up an insecure person is, “Most people care way less about the things you're insecure about than you do.” That said, since you’d been unquestionably looking down on A, you might be more inclined to think that B regards you and A as equals, with strangers C to Z (correctly) judging A to be less capable than you.

If A were to go more viral than you, you might even be overcome with a horrible sense of jealousy—why them, when they’re so much worse than me?

Let it be known that if you’re not careful, a superiority complex can easily turn into an inferiority complex that’s twice as intense.

When you study other people’s work in the future, it’s fine to have opinions such as, “This is great,” “This is awful,” or “Why is this so jerkable despite the art being anatomically incorrect?” However, you really need to stop comparing and ranking yourself in relation to them unless you want to keep feeling like a hot, steaming pile of dung.

The popular column Curry Zawa Kaoru’s Creative Counseling has been made into a book titled Otaku no Tanoshii Seisaku Ron (The Delightful Art of Otaku Creation, Bungeishunju).

In addition to fan-favorite episodes such as “Coping with fanwork taking a little too many liberties”, “When you can’t get feedback in an underdeveloped genre”, “Is 40 too old for doujin events?” and “Understanding the troubles and contradictions of killing off your favorite characters”, the book also includes brand new topics and advice!