There are always times when our artist’s heads are just empty or just way too filled with stuff. It feels like there is nothing more to give to the world or anything to draw. Now, I’ve gathered some of the fastest and easiest things to draw digitally. Ideas that you can start with right this moment. Let’s jump to the ideas to get your creative flow going on.
Key Takeaways
- When you want to draw something easy and fast, draw something familiar.
- If you want to expand your artistic skills, choose a drawing idea that makes you leave your comfort zone.
- Mash multiple drawing ideas together to create something unique and original.
Table of Contents
Draw This Again Challenge
The main thing here is to draw something you have drawn previously. It could be that you are not too happy with some old artwork, but you like the concept, or you want to draw it again just to see how much you have improvedover the years.
No matter the reason, it is always fun to see how you can improve an old drawing. You have the idea already in place, so the only thing you have to do is to draw it again.
Even better, if you have changed your art style in recent years, redrawing something old will surely result in something completely different.
If possible, try to expand the original idea or simplify the idea and take another direction with the artwork.
Draw this again challenge enables you to see how you haveprogressed artistically but also lets you see how differently you create your drawings currently.
The biggest takeaway is that you get yourcreativity back fast and easily as you have an idea and a concept in place already. All you need to do is pick a drawing from years back and re-imagine that with your current art style and skills.
Draw Fan Art
Most often, we idolize something or someone. Whatever it is that you are a fan of, try to think if there is something that you would like to draw regarding the tv-show, movie, video game, or anything.
It could be a character, creature, environment, art style, etc. Try to focus on the thing that you appreciate the most and would like to make your own interpretation of it.
I tend to get inspired a lot when watching different anime series or movies. I usually get inspired by facial expressions, the use of colors, clothing, etc.
Fan art enables us to draw something we love but do it in our own style. It also frees us from the creative pressure. You are not creating anything new in the sense of something the world hasn’t seen before (a new character, a prop, etc.).
You get to draw something that has already been designed and thought out. This is something that eases your mind and lets another kind of creativity flow through you.
The biggest takeaway is that sometimes, being creative is demanding and thus might create pressure for you. Fan art gives you a way to express yourself while still easing the pain of being super creative.
Draw Concepts or Concept Art
This is a bit different than the rest of the ideas. But still, a very good way to get drawing going. Now, I don’t do these too often. The main gist is that you draw concepts of characters, items, landscapes, objects, creatures, etc., without drawing anything final.
Where I tend to struggle is to create concepts of things. I usually draw one sketch and go and finish it to a full illustration.
The idea here is to draw what comes to your mind without thinking of making it to the final illustration. When you have poured your imagination and creative juice onto the canvas, then you can decide whether to finalize one of those concepts into a fully finalized illustration.
The trick here is that you don’t have the creative pressure of making something to completion. You can let your mind flow freely and draw as little or as much as you want.
Create concepts of the ideas floating in your mind. Draw, let go and move on to the next idea.
Resources for finding concept ideas and inspiration:
Draw With A Certain Theme In Mind
You can also draw by choosing a certain theme for your drawings. Drawing with a theme in mind is something that directs you to a certain path. It locks your creative mind into a spot. It narrows down your concept but simultaneously makes you focus on drawing something specific.
Let’s say you were to draw a clown. You could think about drawing the clown in a pixel theme or that it would be made out of water. Maybe the clown would be part of plants and vegetation? Think about the theme you can create around a concept or a drawing idea.
Another way is to draw with an established theme, like games, nature, technology, etc. The thing is to draw something that has a specific idea behind it.
Themes help you with ideation, and you can easily select something from the present time and draw that with a certain theme in mind.
Draw Original Characters
I have always loved creating characters, and that hasn’t changed. I think this is where you can truly put your imagination into play. You decide what features the character has, what kind of eyes, personality, hair, outfit, etc. You are in control, you are the creative director and lead character artist, and you can make any kind of character you want.
While designing your character is a lot of fun, it’s also probably a bit demanding. To make your character believable, you need to make the outfit, items, and accessories work well together with the personality of the character.
The amount of creativity and imagination needed is rather intensive and massive. So in order to give your character real life and to make it a living person. You truly have to put in the work.
Then again, when you have created that character, you can be proud for a long time.
Creating original characters is insanely rewarding but demands a lot of creativity from you. So approach with care.
Resources for creating an original character:
- Character art prompt generator
- Character name prompt generator
- Ideas for character designs
- Ideas for character models
Drawing Animals and Imaginative Creatures
While we might sometimes focus too much on designing characters, drawing creatures and animals is also a fantastic option. Drawing creatures is actually pretty fun as you can easily break the laws of animal anatomy a bit more if you so choose to.
You can easily add multiple eyes to a creature or maybe color the creature with some truly unique colors. You can really bend your creativity and add interesting things to creatures, even clothes, and items.
What you should remember, though, is that the creature design should have some sort of muscle anatomy behind them. So let’s say you are drawing a creature that is out of this world. To make it believable. You have to make sure there are some bone and muscle structures to support the creature.
My biggest advice is to collect reference images first of a certain animal you are about to draw. That way, you have a better understanding of the anatomy and then expand that in your creature’s design.
Designing creatures opens up another level of creativity and might be a challenge to take on. However, use reference images to your advantage.
Resources for finding reference images of animals and getting inspired:
Practice Drawing
Maybe you might not want to create a fully-fledged illustration. Maybe you just want to practice drawing? Doing study drawings is very important and also something I lack totally but will be picking up sooner or later. Doing these study drawings is something that improves your artistic abilities.
We still need reference images, but the more you do these study sessions, the less and less you are dependent on reference images. I think you are not ever 100% free from reference images, but the less you need them, the faster you can draw for sure.
You are also more able to distort the shapes realistically, and you will gain a lot of skills and enhance your abilities to another level. So in that sense, these are one of the most important things you should do when starting out as an artist.
Practice is important for us artists, and it’s good to do some practice drawing now and then and develop our artistic skills that way.
Draw A Mecha, Robot, or A Cyborg
I chose this idea for its own, as it is something I know people like to draw and is different from character, landscape, and creature drawings. Drawing mechas are both easy and hard. The reason why they are easy to draw is that you can just add detail after detail, and it still makes sense to the overall design.
You can draw very complex mecha, robot, or cyborg designs by just adding details and elements to mecha, and they are always justified.
What makes robots, cyborgs, and mechas hard to draw is actually the amount of work needed to make them interesting and exciting. I personally love drawing mechas as I can just throw ideas into the canvas and see them evolving into something complex and exciting. Remember that mechas and robots can also be beautiful.
If you are looking to pour all your complex ideas and like to draw very detailed drawings, drawing a mecha, robot, or cyborg is an excellent idea.
Best ways to find inspiration for mecha, robot, and cyborg designs:
- Movies, tv-series, anime, video games
- Search space, astrophysics, and quantum physics-related images from Google
- Study car and motorcycle engine parts
Draw a Portrait
Portrait drawing is probably one of the most obvious options on this list. However, it had to be included as they are so much fun. What makes portrait drawing easy is the fact that you have a set of boundaries and limitations before you even start drawing.
Drawing the head and upper body is all you need to draw. You can start the creative process by defining the mood, facial expression, hairstyle, whether the character is female or male, etc.
Portraits are fun because you can somewhat develop your own original character at the same time, but you don’t have to think so far as to what is the world he/she is living in, etc.
If you want to expand the portrait drawing, why not add some sort of creature to it?
Portraits give you certain frames on how and what to draw. That eases the pain of creating massive and complex drawings that take a lot of time to complete.
A wonderful resource for finding inspirational portrait drawings:
Other Noteworthy Digital Drawing Ideas
If the above list didn’t give you enough inspiration or ideas, below are more drawing ideas you can try out:
- Portraits of animals
- Landscapes or cityscapes
- Still life compositions with objects such as fruits, flowers, or books
- Mythological or fantasy creatures
- Vehicles like cars, trains, or planes
- Architecture or buildings, either real or imaginary
- Action scenes, like sports or dance
- Food and drink items
- Abstract shapes and patterns
- Nature scenes, like forests, oceans, or mountains
- Historical events or figures
- Science fiction or futuristic scenes
- Cartoon or caricature-style drawings of real people
- Interior design or home decor scenes
- Surrealist or dreamlike compositions
- Cultural or religious symbols and icons
- Fashion designs or clothing sketches
- Insects, birds, or other animals in their natural habitats
- A different version of the same drawing
