Do you have any tips on fighting art block, I haven’t drawn anything in a while and want to but don’t know what to draw
I have a few that I use yeah! First rule of thumb, The first two or three things you draw while trying to get out of artblock are most likely not going to become finished pieces, this is OKAY and ENCOURAGED, Think of it as warm-ups to ease yourself back into it! Artblock tends to happen because we set too many expectations upon ourselves or find a way to subconsciously wall ourselves off from drawing from anxiety, which also tends to block out all the ideas
Number one way, do some little warm-up exercises!
The first thing I always recommend to anyone is to draw some blobs! No really hear me out, pick an animal —personally I usually go for snakes or cats— and, if you’re on traditional do some contour lines and make some blob shapes, if you’re on digital set your brush size really high and make some blobs that look VAGUELY like your animal, than without doing any erasing, add some little details or eyes to make it look more like it’s animal, you can add to the shape— other colors, tails, ears etc— but the main rule of thumb here is NO ERASING, Filling up a sheet with them and making it simple helps you ease back into it and warms up your drawing muscles
Another one I recommend is grabbing a reference and just vaguely sketching it out, you’ll see this one repeated no matter who you ask about art block, some will say do gesture drawing, some will say do contour practice, honestly it’s whatever fits your bill. Practice some hands, doodle some random faces, grab an object and draw it in a stylized way, this doesn’t only help you practice but it can also give you some ideas for future projects, or to just turn the sketch into your favorite character lol
This one includes a little bit of mental prep but honestly? Save. Every. Sketch. Even if you make/look at it during artblock and say ‘wow I hate this’ you SAVE IT, your concepts are still good, your brain is just telling you that you can’t make it work, and yeah some of the sketches aren’t gonna be anywhere near pretty but that’s the POINT! You don’t have to work on one picture the entire time you can bounce between multiple depending on where you feel you’re most comfortable each day, and you don’t have to use every sketch as your basis but your concepts are what make your art yours, getting rid of it and only having the things that you’ve finished will give you unrealistic expectations to keep OUTSHINING them every time and set up more of a wall for yourself in the long run
This one’s a bit more specific but, character design! This is the one I use the most besides the blobs, make a creature! Grab a generator and fuse some animals together, make a fake pokemon outta it or make a new hybrid altogether, don’t worry about how realistic it is the important part of this one is the thought process, you don’t have to use it in the future you just need to make it for now, it definitely helps get your gears turning while still keeping it generally non-stressful. Grab a random mood board and make a character design out of it, take a theme (steampunk, robot, alien, clockmaker, etc) and apply it to something mundane, like coins,or pens, or book covers! Or, of course, fashion! Purposefully make the most deviantart neon edgy OC possible! Turn your main brain off and just have as much fun with it as you can, you don’t have to post it you don’t even have to show it to anyone else
A lot of artblock is about shifting your gears or changing perspectives of what you create to feel good about it again, like I said before a huge part of artblock is feeling like your art isn’t ‘good enough’ or feeling like you’ve run dry on ideas, or just pure unfiltered stress. The biggest thing you can do is to start small again, draw like a kid, don’t let your thoughts about anatomy or critiques stop you, and you’ll find yourself starting to warm back up to your own creations. At the end of the day if it’s just causing you a lot of stress trying to break through art block the best thing for you might be to actually step back and give yourself a break, and come back later.
The best part of art is you can literally do whatever you want, draw something cursed, redraw a meme, draw Frosty the snowman saying ‘fuck’, play with colors, draw something cute as scary as you can or vice versa, draw a mushroom, make up a new kind of animal or plant, draw yourself as if you were in your favorite media’s, the best way to go is to let go of all the ‘cringe culture’ mentality and just go as apeshit as possible