#I hate drawing them from a design perspective but thats mainly a me problem

[concretesweetner]

Can Dustcrumbs art get out of my head please

[edenorisshitposting]

How do you get inspired? I'm asking you because you seem like an inspired artist

Inspiration is an illusion

Real answer, at no point in my day do I feel inspired, and yet here i am making art. The more you progress with your art the more you realise that feeling really inspired to create something specific is very rare, and it doesn’t necessarily lead to better artwork. In short the trick is to create without feeling “inspired”, but it’s not a very good answer so I’m going to elaborate ahead. This is super long, but I feel like you deserve a serious answer.

1. Step one: get a sketchbook

You’re going to want a place to generate ideas in. Get a sketchbook, it doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive (and for what I’m about to suggest I think it’s actually better to get a cheaper one), ditch the loose sheets flying around your room, keep them for finished illustrations (but we’re not there yet). Aside from keeping all your drawings organized together (thus preventing you from losing your drawings), a sketchbook is fun to flip through.

I’ve had these two for this purpose and was very pleased with both (yeah, they’ve got scribbles all over them. don’t worry about it) the good thing about them is that they’re relatively cheap, but the paper is still of a decent quality.  They have lots of pages,so you’re not as afraid to “waste” them.

2. Step two: Scribble in it, a TON

Keep doodling and scribbling all over it, keep throwing ideas at the paper to see what sticks, even if it’s a shitty idea. Don’t be afraid of “wasting paper”, that’s why you bought a cheaper sketchbook. It doesn’t need to look pretty, a sketchbook is for learning and brainstorming. Looking and my art blog (and most artists’ honestly) you see mostly finished illustrations, so it’s easy to think that I just come up with an idea and then finish it. But in reality what I upload is a fraction of what I draw. My sketchbook is FULL of sketches that nothing came out of. Fill an entire page with doodles of hamsters, or landscapes, or even instagram models. It doesn’t matter, keep drawing.

Here are some examples of pages I did not upload.

3. Step three: don’t worry about it

About six months ago I was looking to get into art school, and of course to pass the exams I needed to present a portfolio. At the time I’ve been drawing in sketchbooks nearly exclusively for over two years, so I had very few illustrations to show. So I had about a month to build a stronger portfolio, and naturally I decided to make more, and more “inspired” ones. Let me tell you I have never produced more artworks I hated than I did then. Not even a single one was included in my portfolio. And of course after I had already presented and the pressure to create good artwork was off I finally was able to create more things I liked (I did get in to art school, so no need to worry). Point of the story is that you’re a better artist when you don’t put yourself under the pressure of constantly being good, so don’t worry about it (specially if you’re not a professional).

4. Step four: keep throwing shit at the wall and eventually something will stick

Ideas are like an avalanche. They can just stand there for ages if you’re not doing anything with them until they eventually melt and disappear. But it also means that it takes just a small push to bring all of them down. What you initially thought was a bad idea might lead you to a different better idea, and that one might lead you to another idea, and it would lead you to two more. Keep the momentum going until sometime in the future when you find and idea you’d like to turn to a finished painting. I am not the best example (because I don’t draw as much as I should), but even then there are times when I can seat for days and not draw a single thing, and then all of a sudden one sketch leads me to burn through 5 pages of my sketchbook in an hour. It took me 7 sketchbook pages from initial concept to final design when I was coming up with Major Tom, all done on the same day. And I drew even more characters that day that I haven’t uploaded.

5. Not exactly a step five: don’t neglect your technique

That’s a piece of advice I wish teenage me hadn’t ignored. Your technical skills are the tools you use to create. The better you skill are the more ideas you can execute. that means drawing the boring shit, like hands, perspective, still life etc. I started out like a lot of artists, drawing mainly anime, avoiding drawing hands, or any perspective to speak of. My art today suffers because of it. I’m 22 and still struggle with drawing proper hands, my perspective is off at best. Learn from my mistakes, it’s ok to draw the fun stuff, but also draw the important boring stuff.(Disclaimer: this is a lesson I haven’t quite finished learning myself)

6. Step six: don’t limit yourself to one style

Beware the trap of “that’s my style”, beside limiting you in skill, committing to a style when you’re still young will limit you in what you can draw. Again, when I was younger I drew nearly exclusively anime. That meant I was very limited in what I could draw, and worse - I was getting sick of it. By the time I graduated highschool I couldn’t stand the idea of making another single anime drawing. i was going through a small art crisis, since all of a sudden I didn’t have a set style anymore. At that time I tried a bunch of different styles from realism, to american cartoon, and for a short time even french catoon. Today I draw in a fairly realistic style, leaning towards more or less cartoon depending on the specific subject. The best style is having no style. Your art will always have your touch to it, it’s something you can’t escape. Make the style work for you, not the other way. When in doubt look to Picasso. This guy exchanged styles like socks and he’s one of the greatest artists of our time, and even though his artworks are sometimes completely different from each other they are all still undoubtedly Picasso.

This answer ended up being super long because most artists online would reply to this question with something along the lines of “look for things that inspire you!” which I think is a cop out answer and it completely misses the point (sorry basically every youtube artist), it’s an important question that deserves better. You’re asking for advice to get inspired because things don’t inspire you, thats the whole problem. I also think this isn’t a very good advice in general, I feel really inspired maybe four times a year, and yet I created more than four artworks. Don’t sit around looking for inspiration because it won’t come. Draw without “inspiration”, you don’t need her anyway.