Art Motivation/Advice Thread

I know almost nothing about drawing and animation. But I have seen many artists who do the same style and I guess feel in a rut pick up a different form of art and then go back to drawing with it changed. There was a Touhou artist I used to follow who did a lot of regular 2d art of Mokou about 1 image a day, then they started doing fewer and fewer. Eventually got into 3d art and modelled some Mokou. Years later I had seen their new art and it was much different. They had more detail and it wasn't the same face, same hair, etc it was something new. But still the same character.
So I'd say try something like that. Change your tool, your process, your colors, something whatever and stick with it for a while then return to what you were doing before and see if you have a new perspective.

On a side note if you've done any actually animations it would be cool to see them.
Double side note, you can't be negative at 19, the world is a oyster still.

Gabaghoul I'd mostly echo what Fantasy has said. I do think though that you already have some good style with the doodles you posted. I think the focus should be on smaller works and completing things.
I did used to do a lot of drawing but I was never particularly good. I think the biggest trap I fell into was redoing the same thing so many times and not calling anything good enough for that piece.

If you need any practise, you can always draw stuff for the site
I think for 19 your doodles look good as it is, just keep doing it. Maybe have some easy access to other prior things you've done, in year order and go through it on occasion.

Just do it over and over again. For years I felt shame over two things. My lackluster second language skills, and my inibility to improve at any hobby. I still consider myself lackluster in most things, but I did get better at what I never stopped doing. Sure I didn't learn the piano, but I did teach myself how to code mods for the game I like. Sure I never got good at drawing maps, but I did teach myself to tell stories with them and improve my use of other languages. If what you are doing right now can have any positive effect for you, keep at it. If I wasn't such a self critical and harsh person with myself, mabye I would have been way better by now, but it least I didn't drop every single interest just cause I wasn't good enough.

Gabaghoul
Indeed I've been in this situation. I've tried to learn to draw. I've managed to draw every day for a month and then I've just dropped it.
It is pain. It is suffering. There's no other words for it. Maybe I'm too old for picking up new stuff, but as I am complete zero at drawing, it is pure torture seeing what I can do and realising however away it is from what I want to do.
Thinking that I have to suffer that for years, I just couldn't take it and dropped it three months ago. I'm thinking about trying again, and I wonder if all the skills I've picked during that single month 12 weeks ago and I have to start with pure zero again.
Really can't help you here. None of the moticational video I've saw helped me either - it only made me angier. It looks like either you have the willpower to suffer through this stuff or you don't. I don't. I can only hope you have what it takes to force yourself into it.

Gabaghoul
Gym's good! Out of curiosity, do you have a fitness/strength target in mind, or is your goal there to maintain your general health?
I'm not sure how you can deal with not knowing what to draw, but here's some possible threads you might want to consider:

1. Practise copying some art you like
2. Select a theme to constrain yourself and then draw X number of things within that theme. Eg, humans in life, architecture, things in the night, anything from a show you like, animals.
3. When you think of something that looks good, set yourself a time limit of maybe 40 minutes. But after that time limit, stop, consider what you've made, decide then and there whether you want to continue for another 40 minutes or to stop (whether for the day or completely).
4. As others have mentioned above, try some radically different styles.
5. Take it slow. Very slow. When I was younger, I tried to do NaNoWriMo, which was a challenge to do a 50k word novel in a month. I succeeded, but I was burnt out for about two years. It sucked and felt like I was never going to be able to write again. I didn't write a shred of fiction for those two years. But eventually I got better. Some things are necessarily functions of time.

19 can feel like you should already be mastering stuff, but you do still have a good amount of time. One of my friends only picked up drawing at 28, and he's gotten pretty good at it since.

Gabaghoul
No worries, I lost all the progress on my introduction post because the server rolled back shortly after I posted it heh. And it took me a couple days to get back to this because wow life has been a huge pain in the ass.

Good to hear that you're feeling better after your anemia! Happy for you mate, and it's especially nice because you seized your health with your own effort.

Gabaghoul I need to look back on my drawings from last year and ask how I cranked them out like that so fast because I genuinely forgot how I did it.
God yes, that was me when I was in puberty. I was so prolific and churned out so much material. Of course, most of it was not good, but the volume itself was quite something.

Don't hesitate to share your stuff whenever~ This is after all a forum for your hobbies (tm).

(FYI I couldn't be bothered to read the whole thread so I apologise in advance if there's anything that's already been discussed or brought up in here)

Do something other than your regular endless routines. Lifting weights at the gym over and over again will for example not sprout something new in you, (at least it doesn't for me when im at the gym). Find some creative work you like, get invested in something that is equally as creative as drawing. Id say watch cartoons, series or anime that you like; maybe read something you like aswell. Theres always stuff like acid and LSD too.
Thats my two cents on the matter.

What sites/courses would you recommend for a drawing newfag? I prefer video courses but sites r fine too.

Gabaghoul
These are great, man. You have a really good sense of motion and depth. I've felt like amongst younger artists a lot of people lack dynamic movement or positioning in your art but the fact you can break out of derivative habits like that speaks well to your artistic ability.

On that note, I'm currently a student in Character Animation (although I work in technical, not hand drawn, which I'm assuming is what you aspire to do) and I do fully understand your struggle. In the years before I'd decided to pursue career artistry I was in a major dry spell in terms of my relationship with art. I think the whole wakeup call for me was seeing the emergence of indie IPs being acquired by larger studios and/or my peers self publish to moderate success. The whole thing that really keeps me inspired is the desire for innovation and experimentation in contemporary techniques, especially under harder limitations. I think you'll find that challenging yourself will help you realize where you truly struggle and give you a much stronger drive to work into specific aspects of your work. I'd start with graphing out absurd angles/compositions as a means of really trying your own knowledge and skill; you'll likely find you know where you need to be.