Pony Artist Burnout

So, yeah, just heard about “Choices” being shut down. Sad shit, but I gotta ask, why do so many Pony artists let themselves get to this point? Seriously, if you’re experiencing fatigue, draw for another fandom for a bit.
 
Particularly tragic are people who let the burn out turn to loathing.
 
I dunno, maybe because my primary interest is fanfiction I don’t quite get it. When fanfic writers leave a fandom, it’s usually because they became assholes, or always were assholes, and someone popped their bubble. We don’t usually burn out The way artists do. I guess we are too attached to our characters, and we can disassociate them from the fandom better.

@Darth Sonic  
I suspect that animation is a little bit different. You spend hours and hours for just seconds of animation on-screen. That’s all you’re looking at while you’re animating. For Flash and CGI stuff, you have to spend a lot of time building your rigs (if you’re not using someone else’s) before you can even begin the animating part.
 
Writing and even drawing pony illustrations is a little different, IMHO. You can fart out a story or a drawing or two relatively fast, but an animation project is a little different.
 
One may not have felt like burning out when starting an animation project, but I can imagine that it’s pretty easy to never want to animate ponies again after staring at day after day after day for hours at a time, even if one is still a fan of the show.
 
 
Related…
 
Speaking as an artist who burned out on furry fandom, unless one has experienced burnout before, it’s exceptionally difficult to recognize the signs. Now, it’s easy to step back and do something else when I’m noticing things going awry.

@Darth Sonic  
@ArrJaySketch  
Animation, and also fame. I don’t mean that it gets to their head, but with a large audience comes a large expectation, and that puts a lot of pressure on people to complete things fast and good, even if that pressure is just imagined.

@The Smiling Pony  
There is that, absolutely!
 
Quietly musing on more reasons…
 
I’ve also seen situations where fans seem to do more complaining than complimenting. Good constructive criticism should have a balance of “what worked, what didn’t, how to fix it” instead of just focusing on the negative, or it can come off as complaining. Too much sustained complaining (or perception of complaining) from too many fans might lead someone to give up drawing for $Fandom, because no amount of time away eases feeling unappreciated.
 
I think most people get into a fandom because it feels fun. When it stops feeling fun it’s hard to know how to bring that feeling back. Like, people wander away into my fandoms and fall into those instead, and don’t really feel a particular need to pay attention to an old fandom that has long stopped feeling fun.

They probably realize being pony famous is overrated.

@Rod Hungwell  
Except what I said about writers, Horse famous ones or not. I had beaten you before this fight even begun.
 
@ArrJaySketch  
I should point out that the death of “Choices” was simply the catalyst, and I noticed this trend in general. Pony Artists seem to burn out far worse than most other fandoms.

@Darth Sonic  
It can be pretty unrewarding sometimes tbh. Like, on one hand most people on this site have been super great to me, but then like you get the people who make a point of taking you aside to be like “You’re just an artist. You don’t contribute anything to this site” or just blowing the hell up at you for asking for something, taunting you, etc etc. It doesn’t need to happen too often to add up, y’know?
 
To be totally honest, I seriously considered DNPing and moving to a different site each time each of those happened to me.

@Badumsquish  

 
Wait, did I do something?

@Darth Sonic  
He wasn’t referring to you specifically being a problem.

@Salamenace  
Yeah, kinda feel silly. Sorry.

@Darth Sonic  
No, of course not. I’m just kind of bad at saying stuff :/

@Badumsquish  
No, I was the silly one. Kinda was afraid I somehow became part of the problem.

@Darth Sonic  
Nah, I’d say so if you were :P I’m just kind of in a position where there’s nothing I can do about it so I just have to put up with it, y’know?

I’m cynical and critical about my work but so are many other artists, so I over look that as “the drama of liking to draw.” Despite this I am consistently productive. I get a pretty good hit of endorphin when I begin a project all the way up to the point where I am hitting the submit button. Then I start coming down off of it and I feel pretty bad. I start thinking about the hours I waste doing something that is overall pretty pointless in the grand scheme of things, or even inside this very fandom. But then in another 3 to 5 hours I have my sketch pad out and I’m drawing again. Either I am resilient or I unconsciously hate myself.
 
The only other symptom I can see myself having is the isolation. I draw for myself otherwise I’d have quit years ago. But sometimes it feels like I’m suffering sensory deprivation. This is going to make me sound like an attention seeking twat no matter how I phrase it, but long story short, I crave feedback, not just compliments, but conversations, critique, outside ideas do a lot to give me encouragement to continue drawing. But for a while now I keep going only because of my own self determination to not quit. If that makes any sense.

@Ranch  
Ever thought about starting an original IP webcomic?

I would say this was why I took a year long hiatus with Pony Puppet Theater in that time I kind of took a long hard look at myself wondering what made me love doing these strips plus art in general and why I continued doing them.I also came to terms with my job and realized that if I did make it in the cartoonist industry(doubtful) I would end up hating it too due to having to meet dead lines and having very little time to experiment with other styles and media.I would rather draw what I want to and have my current job supplement my art because I do not have the added stress of knowing if I don’t do these commissions(Reason I don’t like doing coms) I might starve or lose my car.

@MangaMeister
 
I feel the same only I work part time at the moment and art is purely for hobby. Don’t think I’m cut out for the pros, never have really, but I still love drawing and at this point in my life I’m really into pony. When I one day stop liking pony as much as I do then I’ll move on to something else.
 

 
@Darth Sonic  
Mmm honestly no. The idea has never come to me to do a webcomic.

@Ranch  
I actually came close to cancelling the strip all together numerous times.The only thing that saved it was Starlight becoming somewhat of a main character and Trixie becoming her foil.Literally the only thing that got me back into the fandom.

@MangaMeister
 
Heh. I guess you’re lucky!

@MangaMeister  
This is exactly what I’m talking about! Artist Burnout seems to effect your ability to enjoy other fandom material, and the show itself. The fact that you associate ending your strip with leaving the fandom? What prevents you from enjoying some fics and the show after you stop producing art.
 
Unless you just mean “stop being an active participant in the fandom.”

@Darth Sonic  
More than likely I would just stop creating content for the show and kind of take a 5-6 month break from the fandom.The same thing happened with Adventure Time,Steven Universe and etc.TL;DR  
Stop being an active participant in the fandom art wise.

@MangaMeister  
Would you still look at fandom content like art and fics, but just not engage in the comments? Or are we talking about a complete sabbatical?

@Darth Sonic  
Yeah pretty much just not engage.I mostly would be a silent watcher of the show and certain tumblr blogs I keep up with.

Seeing other fandom material is part of what keeps me active. Still some good ideas floating around.

The same reason I spend days straight offering bones to a digital alter on Runescape. The bar is too high.
 
Nobody is here to be less than.
 
I would be the first to bail on this fandom, but the show is so charming and fun I can’t miss an episode. I naturally stick my fetishes to cute things I like. I kinda make money doing it too.
 
Come to think of it getting burnt out on a drawing would do me a lot of favours, I tend to get flimsy with it halfway through.
 
PS: what is this thing that got shut down? I love grave digging drama, but so I don’t get banned maybe someone better just PM me.