I'm in a middle of character design. The thing which has been with me all along has become crucial now when I am part of little team making things for real, not just for desk drawer.

I have shuffled through lots and lots references and I kinda now what usually helps with this kind of things. Practise. But you know the situtation when studying for the test? You have learned everything and when test is over, all is forgotten. I have similar feeling with this. Although I would look dozens of references and inspirative pics, still when it comes to design my own thing, I just can't do nothing but character with "random shirt" and "random shorts". Funny is, that I love details. But my work aren't imaginitive. This is one of my work, little of it is still in wip-category but you see what i mean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know reality helps sometimes, but times when you'd need to invent something new.....that seems too difficult to my brains. Of course, lacking of this important artist feature affects to other things than in art, too.

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Monday is a state of mind.

you maybe looking in the wrong places to inspire you. try going to an art gallery and looking at the artists technique rather than the subject matter. Also it maybe time to try a new theme. conceptart.org have creature (character and environment) of the week where you are given a theme example the last creature of the week theme was "biped insect". Perhaps you should try something like that.

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Once consumed by the fire, Now I control it!

Assuming she's human, that woman's legs are way to big for her. She seems to double in size once you get below the waist.

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nete i am the same, seriously lacking imagination, when i look at some peoples work i wonder how the hell they they think up such great ideas, it's very frustrating & depressing & no matter where i look for inspiration, i still can't find it.

The problem is, that's what an artist needs 

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I don't know if this will help or not but a lot of times if I'm lacking in imagination and say I know what the general theme I need to draw is I'll do an image search on google. Say if I need to draw an insect humanoid I'll do image search for bugs or insects and copy any of the images that catch my eye. I'll put them all on my desk top in a folder and open up photoshop. I have a large selectin of human reference so I'll open a pose I like and start adding any of the photos I've downloaded and just start transforming them into the figure until I get something cool. Then I'll drop all the color out of the image and use it as a reference for my character. (Not tracing it but just to use as a reference) You can come up with some pretty cool stuff this way. I started playin with it after recent issue of IFX where I saw an artist using photos to  put his image together.

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I smell dead people.

Thank you all for the replies! :)

phoenicom:
You might be so right with that. Now when you mentioned that, it has been ages since I last time visited museum... what a shame :/ I also sometimes find it little helpful when I have theme ready. But still usually my works fall when I have started it with great enthusiaism and then can't figure out how to move on. And pic is abandoned.

banjaxedmdt:
Haha, yea you're right :) If I ever am gonna finish that, I am sure to fix her legs :)

kazky:
You too? :/ That's so frustrating. And you know, sometimes I got really good idea and I start to do it straight away and manage to go halfway (which means like basics done) but then that happy feeling goes away and the work remains unfinished. I jsut realized this recently: I always thought that I lack of inspiraton but actually I do get inspired very often, so much usually that my stomach tickles. But when I have to invent something new to the pic... it fades and drawing isn't fun anymore :/ only frustrating.

Evil Robot:
That was unusual suggestion! I might try that one! Sometimes I think do I have too little general knowledge? :S

 

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Monday is a state of mind.

When I feel this way I like to take a mental journey back to when I was first inspired to start painting/drawing/creating -- things like rewatching an old film, or looking through a favourite artist's gallery, rereading a book or listening to music which really inspired you.

Normally I feel like this when I feel like I'm stagnating :( Look at your contemporaries - see what they're making! Or read some tutorials with new techniques!

 I think I read somewhere by an artist I watch on the net, that it helps to have more than one painting going on at once - that way you can switch between them when your motivation starts to dry up.

 Your piece at the beginning of this post looks really great I thought. It just needs a fresh look at it - I get the feeling maybe you were getting frustrated, and focusing on small parts close up, rather than looking at the picture as a whole and zooming out for a short while.

 I hope you rediscover whatever it is you need, and maybe you can share with us whatever you find! Good luck :D

And here i was thinking i was the only person in the world suffering on this topic.It's nice to actually find a post like this one and good replies....my thanks are inorder to all the great suggestions....but i wanted to ask what if you don't feel creative/imaginative after doing all the tips given.....does one give up and start making altered "copies" of other peoples creative product or give up for good?

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"Imagination is everything"- Einstein

draw from life? it don't have to be fantasy art all the time just never give up.

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Once consumed by the fire, Now I control it!