Bit of a ramble post, I’ve just been feeling a lack of motivation to draw recently and I thought writing it out might help as well as to figure out what I'm gonna do going forward.

My enthusiasm for drawing has really fallen off recently, mainly around October. I knew Inktober was going to be hard for me to finish, I had planned on wrapping it up by the end of November but I dropped off on that quickly and I’ve struggled to really have the motivation to continue. With Inktober or any other kind of drawing really, my job is definitely a factor, I’ve been very busy with work and that’s left me very drained in the evening. Though I don’t think that’s the only reason, there has been some negative feelings I’ve had on my drawings as well, I don’t know if my skills are really improving, don’t know if I’ve really got a style I can call my own and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get the projects I want to complete actually done. I never thought I’d get to a professional level, I’m not entirely sure what level of artistic skill I can reach that would make me feel satisfied. Just recently I’ve felt more and more I'm on the outside looking in rather than a proper member of the artistic community and seeing so many talented artists on this site does make me feel a bit like a kid at the adults table. There’s so many great pieces of art being posted I feel somewhat inept.

I know it's not ideal to compare myself to strangers, I never went to art school and art my job, there will always be people who've had better education, have more knowledge, skill and time than I do towards making better art. At the end of the day I can only make what I am capable of making. If I'm not happy with my output the solution is too work on myself so I can make things I can be proud of making, not looking at others' work and comparing the gap between me and them.

I guess questions I should try to answer is, what do I want out of my creative endeavours, and how do I get there. 

The creative area’s I’m interested in are drawing, writing and comics, drawings the most I’ve done, writing not so much, and I’ve only tried my hand at two short comics, one drawn by myself and one I commissioned another artist to do. I have a few other comic project ideas I’d want to have made if I can, either drawn by me, or commissioned by someone else. 

Getting my drawing skills up is my main priority, again I don’t know what level of drawing ability I’d be satisfied with, I hope to know when, or if I get there, writing I find a harder thing to qualify. I think the best way to figure it out is to get on with some writing and then I can review from there how to improve or where I want to be with it. 

Where do I go from here? Getting back to drawing would be a good start, I'm thinking about redoing the art course that got me into drawing, completing that again from start to finish to maybe re-learn some of the basics. Maybe pick up a new cores for more advanced techniques or to help develop a style, and in the short term I might give myself some simple projects to get my hand back in. 

I may re-visit Inktober 24, certainly would not be the first time I've left it off and picked it up again much later, though I'll see where things take me, might want to work on simpler, one off illustrations first, maybe try doing things in other mediums.

I would like to try writing again as well, though what I am most interested in is writing for comics. I have done some short stories. I find writing projects harder to stick with than drawing, there’s still one from 2021 I never finished due to losing faith in it, so finishing that would be a good start. 

Once that’s done I’ll move on to the scripts for the comic idea’s I have and then look into getting them illustrated, either by myself or through another artist. 

Will have to see where 2025 takes me, but to summarise what I’m aiming for next year and how to get there. 

Improve art skills, maybe try developing my own style.

• Re-do the drawing course I initially completed to learn the basics of drawing. 
• Get back into drawing, painting etc. some fairly easy short term projects to start with. 
• Maybe do fresh online course to learn more advanced art techniques and see if I can develop my own style / take my art to the next level. 

Do more writing

• Finish story “home” last left off in 2021. 
• Work on scripts for comic projects

Comics 

• With finished scripts work on getting them illustrated, ether by me or by another artist. 

This may not be the plan I stick too but one thing I know is I don’t want to quit, or go so long without doing anything that I then find it harder to get back into. I sometimes find the motivation to draw difficult but I feel worse if I do nothing at all.

I hope 2025 is a good creative year for everyone, whatever your personal creative journey looks like.