Finding Your Creative Side
There are tutorials for everything. Do you need fire? Particles that look like germs? Heart vectors to form the silhouette of Kate Beckinsale (and why wouldn’t you)? Google it, and you’re done. Everyone has a creative side- it’s up to you to find it.
There are so many tools to show you how but while that’s great, there’s nothing that shows you what. What style should I use for this piece? What kind of character is this short about? And what (last time, I promise) is wrong with having hearts in the shape of Kate Beckinsale?
To determine the what you need a story. To create a story you need to be inspired. Sure, you could learn every function and memorize every shortcut in the Adobe Creative Suite, but that won’t take the place of creativity and true inspiration. And though you might not wake up inspired every morning, here are some great ways to find your creative side.
BLOGS AND FEEDS
You probably already read a daily news blog out of concern or curiosity. Why should your creativity be any different? Find daily updated blogs that pique your creative interest and get in on that RSS action. Ideally they’ll point you to an artist or company whose work you’ll want to follow as well, or even work for/with. These are some of my favorites:
Swissmiss – A fascinating blog from a Swiss designer living in New York. You’ll not only get great graphic design nuggets, but architectural design and design theories as well.
Lesterbanks – While it’s mostly a site chock full of tutorials, it produces an incredible batch of links to animated shorts every week. Guaranteed to show an artist you’ll want to follow.
FFFFOUND – A total random heap of photography, hand drawn, painted, or print art. Clicking through similar artists on this page is an inspiration rabbit hole. Better time yourself though, or you’ll be here all day.
DAILY SKETCH
Many artists spend a good 20-30 minutes with a warm up sketch for the day. It sets the creative mood and is a great way to exercise your skills. Maybe you don’t have 20 minutes to spare at the top of the day, but you can drop it down to 5 or even 3 minutes and still jump-start your inspiration every day.
Skottie Young– A comic book artist with a very distinct style that absolutely nails the warm-up sketch.
Mr Hipp!– A more polished daily drawing, but definitely plays off the simple, one image approach.
LOOK ELSEWHERE
Ben Affleck (wait, stay with me) stated in an interview that one of the best pieces of advice he got as a director was not to just watch films, but to look at other art as well. Music, paintings, drawings. To seek out those other forms and let that help inspire the creative process as well. Here are a few of my favorite sources.
Planet-Pulp
Wordplay
geektyrant
There’s bound to be a tutorial somewhere that will have something to help you achieve your vision. But the hardest part is coming up with an idea, getting inspired and creating something new. Hopefully you’ve gained a few ideas on how to get there! And let me know if you have any other tips for getting inspired in the comments section.