Areas of Interest. Does anyone else find they do this?

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Another question. Sorry, I've just found this forum and I'm actually rather excited that I am able to talk to others who may have similar issues.

Does anyone else find the need that they need to fully understand something before they can begin to do it? And do you feel you need the best resources possible to be able to commit? I'll use one of many examples.

A few weeks ago I was interested in drawing Manga. I watched a video of some guy doing it and I though it was awesome, and that I wanted to try it. So before even putting pen to paper, I had to read up on Manga, where it originated, how it came about. I then felt I had to fit into the community so I bought some Manga DVDs to get a feel for it. I ordered a number of books and comics, loads of high quality stationary and good paper.

Now for me, I can't even put pen to paper until I've understood the theory, and the history. I can put pen to paper, but I feel I don't have the knowledge to do it.

This is the same for a lot of things. I spent over £1000 on electronics components, books, equipment. This was some years ago when I became interested in making electronic stuff. I've never actually used it. It's still in boxes. I spent a month learning, and then found something else that interested me.

Another time I was interested in motorcross, and went the whole 9 yards on that. Again with mountain biking and learning to do tricks on bikes after watching videos of some cool BMX'ers. Another time with creative writing when I wanted to write books like Robert Rankin.

But it's safe to say in a way that music and computer programming are two areas that I'm actually pro-active in. I followed the same processes with these two areas of interest where I spent a lot, read a lot, learnt a lot. But these two interest areas really stuck, and I do them daily and have done for years. The whole thing with the need to learn before I commit actually paid of in these areas, and the music interest led me down a path of learning piano, music theory and playing Jazz Fusion.

But I just wanted to know if anyone else does this? And are you easily switched by areas of interest when you see something and you're like "Ooooh that's cool I like that".

I am opposite, everything i have i done i have just picked up and got on with it, jumped in the deep end with ambitions much greater than my talent and had to teach myself and improvise. When i was in a band i tough myself bass without the aid of a teacher or internet tutorials, same when i made music on my computer when i had no other musicians to play with. Same goes with art, be it my drawing or using photoshop, i sit with a pencil and a pad and get on with it, experiment and learn from my mistakes. Now i am not saying i am good at what i do, i am certainly not bad, maybe just below average but that does not matter to me, i do it for my own enjoyment. Maybe if i was doing it for other people or for paid commissioned work i would respect tradition and heritage, skills learnt and passed down through the generations and do things the conventional way, but i just like doing my own thing. Selfish i know but clearly, i don't care.

Yes! For example, my latest interest is drawing, and I find it necessary to get the right paper, the best supplies, all shades, hardnesses, or point sizes of colored pencils, graphite pencils, and pens, research the type of drawing I'm going to start next, and so on, before I can get going. Of course, I have learned it's a waste of money to buy cheap art supplies because they are cheap for a reason and make it harder to have a successful first attempt at something, so I end up buying the nice ones anyway. I read Drawing magazine and art websites. You're into manga so you should check JetPens. They have some manga supplies but also all manner of cool Japanese pens, pencils, erasers, and such.

I have a storage locker full of books devoted to my last special interest, which I do want to get back into. A traumatic experience separated me from it emotionally, but I think I'm over it now.

In summary, Yes!! Good luck on your manga!

I do that to a degree but I will start something and then find out every detail I can about it. Sometimes I never start because I can't understand enough to fell like I can get started.

Yeah, I think I'm kinda like this. Some of my past interests have been guitar, miniature painting, custom vinyl toys, and so on. It seems like with with each of these I have to have the best supplies and resources before I can dive in. I spent hundreds on the right guitar and amp, paid a premium for high quality paints and brushes, etc. Problem usually is that by the time I've bought all I feel I need, my interests have shifted elsewhere. My guitar is in its case under about an inch of dust in my attic and I have paints that sit tucked away in a closet that I've never used. I have a staggering amount of unfinished projects that I want to get to someday, but it usually never happens.

I do identify with this, and with Arcnarenth. I tend to get into an area, read about it, find podcasts/lectures/videos about it, order pretty obscure books about it, think about it a lot, relating everything I can back to it and, by the time I might be able to make a start, my interest has shifted.

Where I think I'm lucky is that my interests are kind of on rotation, so I keep coming back to them over time. It doesn't feel like starting over each time, and each time I'm able to get a little more into it, so hopefully there will be an accretion of information and understanding and I may, slowly, be learning about this stuff.

I am like this. A lot of employers do not like this.