I Am a Research-Aholic (And the Gear Myth Knew It)

First things first, I am a research-aholic. I can spend hour upon hour researching and absolutely love it. I want to learn everything I can about any subject that strikes my fancy. I have always been this way. The information I glean is wonderful, but that information without perspective can lead to storage problems. In my case, multiple large storage bins, shelves, and plastic drawer towers.

This story was only alluded to when I wrote Best Drawing Supplies for Beginners: Complete Guide Under $20, and later What Bob Ross Didn’t Say: Learn to Draw Before You Paint, I am sure this will be a story that many artists will identify with and hopefully if you read this beforehand, you won’t.

I do want to be clear: in my falling down an endless gear myth rabbit hole I never put my family in any financial bind. My purchases were done over time, not all at once.

In my previous post After the Art of Subtraction I wrote about some of my bad dates as I was searching for my own art style, my song. Looking through my artwork to find stuff to share caused me to really think about just how badly I fell for the gear myth, albeit some of it was my fault not the myth. I tend to be a completist.

It Started Innocently Enough

When I started my drawing journey I was careful and prudent about how I would spend my money. I really did start out with a sketch pad, a mechanical pencil I already owned, a couple of blending stumps, and an eraser, that’s it. It wasn’t until I had my “oh hell yea! I can draw!” moment that the gear myth started silently creeping into my mind.

It didn’t take long once I gained some confidence in drawing for me to realize graphite wasn’t going to work; the mess, the smudges all over my work. It was time to start researching alternatives to graphite. Little did I know at the time, this was the beginning of a very long path down a very deep rabbit hole of art supplies.

The first thing I tried was Sakura Pigma Micron Pens in 4 different nib sizes. I still used my mechanical pencils for my initial sketch and could deal with the eraser dust. Those pens, while uncomfortable in my hand, turned my drawings into something so different, so cool. I found line art, although at the time I had no clue that was what it was called.

As you can probably guess, I researched fineliners, technical pens, permanent ink, anything I could think of to find alternatives to the Pigma Micron pens. I ended up with four full sets from different manufacturers, plus extras.

This new style of drawing was so much fun for me, but I started wondering about color, thinking wouldn’t it be fantastic if I added it. Holy crap, this is the part of my art journey when the gear myth that had been so quiet started gaining its voice.

The Color Rabbit Hole: Where the Gear Myth Got Loud

As I said before I love doing research and I am a completist. These two traits combined with my then-undiagnosed aphantasia turned me into a research fiend. I didn’t know much of anything about how to add color to my art. I chose colored pencils as they seemed like an upgrade to the graphite I was used to using. Wow, that was one of the deepest rabbit holes I dove into.

Oil based vs wax based vs combination
Brands and quality tiers
Blending methods and tools
Paper types and weights
Tutorials and technique videos
Books and blog posts
Review sites and comparisons

In the end, I had multiple high-end sets, some mid-range sets, blending tools out the wazoo, and more paper than I could ever use. I learned a lot, but the time involved to create a piece and the final product just wasn’t quite right, something was missing. There were still some sour notes in my art song.

From Pencils to Markers: The Medium Hop Begins

Next my leap was a bit shorter. In my previous research I had discovered watercolor pencils. Odd part about them is there were very few good tutorials out there, but I figured why not. I purchased a set on Amazon that had great reviews and was a limited time deal, great price. I got the water brush pen set too, well several sets, of course.

It didn’t take long before I fell for another of the gear myth’s tricks: these are okay, but better quality ones will be better. So over time, another full set, pencil by pencil. I will say that this was one time the old adage “you get what you pay for” proved true. I enjoyed working with these, but still something was missing. I could still hear some sour notes in my song.

I eventually started seeing all this hubbub about alcohol markers. Hello new rabbit hole! There was no way I was going to spend the money for Copic, so research here I come. I bought one of the largest sets I could in a brand people raved about, calling them Copic dupes. They were kind of cool, but the headaches I got using them turned into big NO. Also, trying to find the “right” color combinations was proving difficult.

The watercolor pencils had not been too bad, so I started looking for watercolor markers. A few sets later and I found the colors garish, a bit too bright. So into one of my ever filling totes they went like much of what came before them. My poor art song still putting out cringe worthy notes.

If you have been reading through my blog posts you know I had dreams of being a landscape artist. None of the mediums I had tried up until this point made me one. Hence why I kept looking, kept trying, kept buying.

By this time any logic or reason had been blocked by that now screaming gear myth. I was convinced that I had just not found the right medium, the right tools. Odd thing is through all of this I was still using my fineliners, drawing botanicals. I could not see, or better yet refused to see, that my art style had already found me.

One of My Greatest Shames: The Watercolor Painting Phase

This brings us to one of my greatest shames, my foray into watercolor painting. I started with Canson watercolor paper, Winsor & Newton Cotman paints and some reasonably priced brushes. I tried to be good, but that gear myth monster had me in its clutches and I kept falling for its lies.

I talked about this gear myth rabbit hole before in my post What Bob Ross Didn’t Say. I was so focused on becoming the Bob Ross of watercolor that the gear myth monster was able to take complete control. Professional paints, better paper, higher quality brushes, then the paint formulations, the exact pigments, the pigment counts. One rabbit hole led straight into another, and the gear myth monster won.

When the Gear Myth Won: Creative Paralysis

By this time I had so many tools, I would get the urge to create, but had difficulty trying to figure out what to create with. I felt guilty if I used one medium over another. I felt like because I spent all that money I needed to use all of them. I was required to use all of the pencils, markers, paints, tools, and papers.

Art wasn’t fun anymore. The gear myth had effectively paralyzed me. I couldn’t use everything, didn’t want to. I felt pressured and completely stressed out so I made the choice to walk away sometime in late 2023. I chose to because drawing carried the stress, the burdens, the failures with color.

Hindsight, Aphantasia, and Finally Understanding Why

We have all heard the phrase “Hindsight is 20/20.” This is so true for me. Discovering in 2025 that I had aphantasia put much of what I went through on my artistic journey into focus. I realized why color never quite worked out. Why I got lost following tutorials.

I can’t picture how color will look or behave in my mind, so every time I tried I was doing it blind. After dozens of attempts, regardless of the medium, to get a color palette right, after trying to blend a perfect combination of colors for an ideal flower or landscape, I failed, I did exactly what the gear myth wanted me to do. I blamed the medium, or the quality of it, and moved to the next. I didn’t know it was me.

All of that time, wasted. All of that money, wasted. If I had known back in 2021 about my aphantasia and how it can limit me, where would I be now? This is one of those questions you can’t help but ask yourself. However, there is no answer.

I firmly believe that my wild artistic journey brought me to where I am right now. It provided me with an understanding of my own personal art style that works with my aphantasia, not against it.

Quilts, Clarity, and Finding My Way Back

I found something to quench my creative thirst in the form of quilting. So for over a year I designed and made quilts. This time I kicked the gear myth to the curb, only buying exactly what I needed for each quilt, no more, no less.

On a side note: when I did my free motion quilting, I hid flowers, hearts, leaves, names and words throughout the design. I used the needle like a pen. Prophetic, don’t you think? It turns out I was always going to be an artist who hides things in plain sight.

It was during my quilting phase I started re-homing many of my art supplies. Some donated, some given to kids that loved drawing and art. I still have part of my collection, but it does not stop me anymore.

No matter how many quilts I made, I still longingly looked at that shelf unit with all the storage bins. Don’t get me wrong, I love quilting, but I always knew in my heart what my true love was when it came to art.

In the summer of 2025, drawing wasn’t just calling out to me again, it was like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum in the corner. I guess it had been doing so all along, but I couldn’t hear it over the supplies. This time I picked up my pencils and fineliners and focused on what made time disappear: botanical line art.

I then got the harebrained idea to sell my artwork. Talk about a rabbit hole, but that is a story for another time.

The Gear Myth Is Everywhere

The gear myth doesn’t just affect artists. It is a part of every hobby, every pastime, and every activity in which people participate. The runner needs better quality shoes or the latest smart watch, the hiker needs high-end boots and the latest lightweight gear, and the athlete needs, well you know the drill.

Advertisers constantly try to convince us that quality equals price, that a new version of something is always better. Before you start upgrading, ask yourself simply why. If the answer sounds like it came from a product review, think on it a bit longer.

Remember: Quality and price do NOT go hand-in-hand.

The 8 Stages of the Gear Myth: Do You Recognize Yourself?

From my own experience with the gear myth I realized there were a series of stages that I went through. Here they are, so you can hopefully avoid my mistakes and have an easier time recognizing when it is the gear myth and not your artistic endeavors.

The gear myth doesn’t announce itself. It creeps in quietly, compounds slowly, and before you know it you’re surrounded by supplies and unable to create a thing. Here are the eight stages. See how many you recognize.

Stage 1: The Entry Point “I just need the basics to get started.” One set of pencils, one sketchbook. Innocent enough.

Stage 2: The Research Spiral One search leads to ten more. Reviews lead to comparisons, comparisons lead to tutorials, and tutorials lead to wanting exactly what the person on screen is using. Suddenly you need supplies you didn’t know existed an hour ago.

Stage 3: The Upgrade Justification “These cheap ones are holding me back.” It starts with the pencils, then the paper, then the brushes, then the palette. If the cheap version exists, surely the professional grade version is better. One by one, everything gets upgraded.

Stage 4: The Saving the Good Ones Trap The expensive supplies are too precious to risk on practice work, so you keep using the cheap ones. The good ones sit nice and pretty on the shelf, waiting for the day you feel ready. That day may never come.

Stage 5: The Completionist Trap You have 48 colors but the full set is 120. What if you need one of those missing colors someday? What if that perfect shade from the tutorial only comes in the full set? Better get all of them just in case.

Stage 6: The Medium Hop When the current medium isn’t working, surely the next one will. And the next one brings its own supplies, its own papers, its own tools. And of course, its own rabbit hole. See Stage 2.

Stage 7: The Paralysis You now have so many options that choosing feels impossible. So you choose nothing. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow keeps moving and you stop creating entirely.

Stage 8: The Guilt Loop You start feeling guilty for not using those amazing supplies you bought. The weight of that guilt strangles your creative spirit. Creating stops feeling like joy and starts feeling like obligation.

I would like to point out that these eight stages of the gear myth are not entirely wrong. They are all part of a journey one takes when trying to find their art style, create their song. The problem only comes from any stage done in excess. When a stage is used as an excuse and not necessarily for your growth with art.

I was right to experiment with so many different mediums, I learned so much from each one. Let’s be real though, I did not need numerous full sets of anything, a few specifically chosen items from any of the mediums would have answered the same question.

Common Questions About the Gear Myth

Is there such a thing as enough art supplies? Yes, and you probably already have it. Enough is when you can create the work you want to make without the supplies getting in the way. If you are spending more time researching and acquiring than actually creating, you crossed that line a while ago.

Aren’t I just wasting supplies when I am learning? Absolutely not. Supplies exist to be used, that is their entire purpose. The idea that you need to be good enough before you use the good stuff is one of the gear myth’s cruelest tricks. Every time you pick up a supply and create something, anything, you are building skill and that is never a waste. Every artist you admire probably felt at times like they were wasting supplies. They weren’t, and neither are you.

Is it too late if I’m already deep in the gear myth? Not even close. Recognizing the pattern is the hardest part and you just did that. Start by putting everything away except what you need for one project. Just one. Create that. Then decide what you actually need next.

How do I stop the research spiral? Set a time limit before you buy anything. If you are still researching the same product after two weeks, you don’t need it, you are enjoying the research. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you know the difference between learning and justifying.

Should I feel guilty about the money I already spent? No. It bought you an education about what does and doesn’t work for you. Every bad date taught you something. The money is gone either way, the question is whether you let the guilt keep costing you by stopping you from creating.

Do I need to rehome everything or can I keep what I have? Keep whatever brings you joy to look at, but most importantly use, and let go of whatever makes you feel guilty or overwhelmed. There is no rule that says you must use everything you own. I still have supplies I will likely never touch again and that is okay. They are no longer in charge of me.

Is color impossible if I have aphantasia? No, but it is different. Without the ability to visualize color in your mind, you cannot predict how combinations will look or behave before you apply them. This is why color felt like a constant failure for me regardless of the medium. It wasn’t the supplies. It was never the supplies. If you have aphantasia and struggle with color, you are not doing it wrong. You are working without a tool most artists don’t even know they have. Digital art levels that playing field considerably, because you can experiment, adjust, and undo in real time without committing to anything. Color becomes discovery rather than execution.

Finding Your Way Back

The gear myth is seductive because it feels like progress. Researching feels productive. Buying feels like investing in yourself. Organizing a beautiful collection of supplies feels like preparation. None of it is creating.

I intentionally left out brand names of the various mediums I purchased. I wanted this post to focus on the gear myth trap and not be some kind of advertisement. The one exception I will make is the Molotow Blackliner Pens. They are the ones I reach for when I am not at my drawing tablet, and that says everything.

If you are reading this surrounded by supplies you haven’t touched in months, know that the creative urge that made you buy all of it is still there. It didn’t go anywhere. It is just waiting for you to put down the research and pick up the pen.

You don’t need the right supplies. You need to start.

For a look at what is possible when you finally stop acquiring and start creating, visit the shop at Line & Blossom Design.

The Gear Myth Trap: How Art Supplies Went From Tools to Obstacles