Someone asked me a question with their homework submission, about how to deal with a lack of inspiration or motivation. I think my response might be relevant to others, so here it is:
Hmm.. Inspiration is... a bit of a farce, really. You hear about it a lot in relation to art, but it's just nonsense, all of it. Drawing is a skill like hammering a nail. You might not be great at it yet, but there is nothing stopping you from gettin' down and hammering away.
If you start to think about it in terms of this lofty concept that requires the perfect alignment of your soul and mind to spurt magic from your fingertips, then you might catch yourself thinking, "man I just don't have it in me to hammer that nail today." It's a normal thing, really - we've all been conditioned to feel that way about art. At the end of the day, what we're doing here is not art. We are not artists. We are artisans, and we are mastering a craft like any other.
Perhaps one day we'll use that craft to give voice to something loftier, a message that is truly inspired, but for now, all we're doing is hammering away. So when you feel uninspired or unmotivated, pick up your hammer and do it anyway.
Though I will admit - it's easier to do that when someone's paying you!
This is another one of those things that aren't sold through Amazon, so I don't get a commission on it - but it's just too good to leave out. PureRef is a fantastic piece of software that is both Windows and Mac compatible. It's used for collecting reference and compiling them into a moodboard. You can move them around freely, have them automatically arranged, zoom in/out and even scale/flip/rotate images as you please. If needed, you can also add little text notes.
When starting on a project, I'll often open it up and start dragging reference images off the internet onto the board. When I'm done, I'll save out a '.pur' file, which embeds all the images. They can get pretty big, but are way more convenient than hauling around folders full of separate images.
Did I mention you can get it for free? The developer allows you to pay whatever amount you want for it. They recommend $5, but they'll allow you to take it for nothing. Really though, with software this versatile and polished, you really should throw them a few bucks if you pick it up. It's more than worth it.
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