Hey Hydro - love your art! I wanted to ask you a question. You draw almost every day, right? How do you stay interested? Whenever I get in a long-term drawing groove, I inevitably lapse when I get bored with doing what feels like the same thing every day. How do you keep it fresh? Thanks! You're a big inspiration.
Thank you! I'm afraid this answer might not apply to everyone, but maybe someone can relate:
Keep the effort amount low, and make sure you're drawing something you like. If you feel you've been drawing the same thing, then your clear goal here is to explore other things you may like to draw but just never considered doing. Keeping the effort low will prevent potentially stepping outside your comfort zone from being too daunting.
In brief, you need to take baby steps.
I tried to do a sketch every day about 2 or 3 years ago, and gradually my technique refined on its own. My goal was to draw whatever could scratch an itch I'd have at the moment in order to stimulate my bored brain. A funny joke, a character idea, etc. It was crucial that the drawing should be simple, yet stimulating enough for me to want to do it. The goal was just promising to do any modicum of effort at all, and reward myself with something I liked.
However, by just committing to a modicum every day, doing super rough sketches started to take less effort. Which was good! But because there was less challenge it also began to stimulate me less, which would dercrease my motivation. So to stay stimulated and motivated, I kept pushing for anything slightly better, until that "better" became my new normal. "Better" could mean cleaner lines, more elabotate detail, more solid anatomy, more interesting pose work, funnier punchline, etc etc. And gradually sketches came out better, cleaner, all while only committing a fairly low amount of effort each day.
It's also worth mentioning that I'd set a deadline of some kind for myself, as simple as having a drawing done before I sleep. I haven't been diagonsed but I could bet a thousand that I have some form of adhd. Waiting until the middle of the night does something weird to my brain and makes it work properly. Setting and early deadline and then scrambling at the "last minute" to do it is a great way to effectively trick yourself into drawing consistently.
It's a battle, though. I have an idea, though I haven't committed to this myself yet:
Jot down characters and subject matters from fandoms, real life, whatever-- as long as you like it. Then, number them until you get 12 (or more, I'm not your dad). After that, make a list of things characters can be or do. Happy, walking, sad, telling a joke, reenacting a meme, anything that comes to mind. Jot these down, and number them until you get 12 (or more, I'm not your granny).
Then, on any day you're hesitant to draw, roll dice or use a random number picker to decide the character first, and then what the character will do second.
Congrats: you've just given yourself a drawing prompt. Do the prompt using the lowest amount of effort you're comfortable with committing to. An hour? 30 minutes? 10 minutes? 5? Any time necessary to fulfill the prompt.
Maybe after a month you can try a completely fresh set of characters and subjects to keep things from getting dull.
Drawing every day is a matter of coming up with something. Using a system like this can make you rely less on a sort of last minute panic like I often do to come up with something ""good enough"". Oh yeah advice no. 2, abolish the idea of "good enough to draw", it often only wears you down with hesitation. If your only output is a thicc Dr. Eggman talking about his mcnuggies, you've done more for yourself that day than if you drew nothing at all.
It also helps to do studies. Even one contour sketch and one 5 to 10 minute sketch of a face, every day, can keep the gears oiled.

















