Random Drawing Idea Generators and How to Make Your Own

There probably isn’t a single artist alive or dead who has never looked at a blank page and wondered the age old question: what should I draw?

In a perfect world, you’d have endless inspiration for what you want to bring to life in your drawing. In reality, however, it’s totally normal for your mind to be as blank as the piece of paper in front of you—and to need a little help tapping into your creative spirit.

This is where a random drawing idea generator can help you out. These helpful tools offer thousands of drawing prompts that can spark your next idea, with a pretty much endless stream of jumping off points for the artist who is ready to get to work but isn’t sure yet what they actually want to get to work on.

What random idea generator for drawing should you start with? There are a lot to choose from, but here are eight that stand out in terms of originality, variability, and creativity.

8 Best Random Drawing Idea Generators

Much as we’d like them to, drawing prompts don’t always just appear out of thin air—at least not all of the time. If you’re stuck, use a random drawing idea generator from the list below and get the inspiration you’ve been looking for (or at least a fun way to pass the time until your next big idea hits).

Here are eight of our favorites.

1. AudityDraws

AudityDraws encapsulates what we like to see in a random idea generator drawing platform: a no-nonsense and no-boundaries approach that spits out tens of thousands of ideas you might have never come up with on your own. It’s a little bit silly (as many random drawing idea generators are), but essentially limitless in scope, pairing together the two simple prompts of “who” and “what” and letting your imagination fill in the rest. Download the app for on-the-go use, or head to their site and get started from there.

2. Random Things to Do

For as long as you can press “next” on the page, the Random Things to Do drawing generator can supply you with prompts for what to put on the page. This is at the top of our picks for the best drawing idea generator for beginners, since the ideas tend to be simple and easy to execute (for example: “draw a little man in the top left corner” or “donuts crying because their bodies have holes in them”). Bonus points for a fuss-free interface, though be aware that while there are a ton of ideas, they tend to repeat pretty often—but keep pressing the button and new ones will appear.

3. Random Drawing Idea Generator 3.0

Meet the Random Drawing Idea Generator 3.0 from Pseudofolio, a fun and feisty idea generator that never fails to impress in the originality department. We’re big fans of how this generator ropes in real-world inspiration such as your workplace or your phone’s gif folder, as well as its slightly cheeky approach to drawing ideas (we bet you’ve never thought to draw your favorite historical figure out at the club before).

4. Random Idea Generator 2.0

Where there’s a 3.0 there’s a 2.0, though the Random Idea Generator 2.0 isn’t related to the prompt generator above. No, this one is all its own, and it tends to be a little more wholesome than the other random idea generator picks on this list. And with less than a 0.01% chance of getting the same prompt twice, we’re confident this one will keep you busy—and inspired—for a long time.

5. Drawfee

If you’ve got a taste for working pop culture into your artwork, then Drawfee may be the perfect drawing idea generator for you. This platform has a ton of creative prompts featuring celebrities and characters from famous TV shows and movies, with a lot of content geared toward superheroes (and their nemeses).

6. Andesign Labs

This random idea generator for drawing prompts is a bit different than the others we’ve mentioned, but has a lot to offer for the artist with a passion for product design. Created by Andesign Labs, each prompt consists of four parts: a style, a type of product, a brand, and a medium. Lock one part of the prompt in place and swap out others until you end up with a combination you like, or randomize your prompt and run with whatever idea gets put in front of you.

7. Magatsu

If you want to have some say over what direction your prompt goes, then check out the drawing idea generator from Magatsu, which lets you specify how many prompts you want to generate at a time and if you want them to be simple, elaborate, or a mix of both. The sky is still the limit in terms of what the prompts can consist of, though we found them to trend more sophisticated—think designated time periods, artistic styles, and color palettes.  

8. DrawingPrompt.com

Last but not least is DrawingPrompt.com, another great drawing idea generator for beginners that flushes out half-formed ideas and lets you fill in the gaps from there. One feature we’re a fan of is the ability to narrow down your prompt by genre, such as fantasy scenes, wild animals, or alien worlds. This can be a good way to go if you have a general idea of what you’d like but are lacking concrete details, or if you just prefer one genre over others.

What Should I Draw? How to Make Your Own Drawing Idea Generator

Another great way to ensure you always have plenty of on-demand inspiration available for your artwork is to create your own drawing idea generator that’s completely tailored to your style.

If you have the skills to build your own website, app, or randomizing gif, then more power to you, but this method requires little more than some pen, paper, and time. Here are four steps to making your own personalized drawing idea generator that you can use anytime you’ve hit a mental block.

Step 1: Figure Out Your Format

As the idea generators above demonstrate, there’s no one single way to go about formatting drawing prompts. That being said, decide what direction you want to go in before coming up with the ideas themselves, since your format will dictate how you word your prompts and how you organize them.

Some format ideas you might want to work with:

• Noun plus adjective
• Noun plus verb
• Noun plus artistic style
• Full sentence prompt
• Pop culture reference plus verb and/or adjective

Note that depending on your choice of format, you may need two or more separate piles of words and phrases to pull from.

Step 2: Gather Your Supplies

This part is simple. Once you know which way you’re going to go with format, grab the things that you’ll need to actually put your prompts down into words—some paper scraps, a pencil, and one or more containers for holding your ideas should do it.

Keep in mind that there’s no reason to get fancy here. Save your artistic skills for the drawings themselves and go basic with your drawing idea generator itself.

Step 3: Fill in the Details

Now comes the fun part, which is actually jotting down your ideas. There are no right or wrong answers, so try not to limit yourself or second guess what you write. (And if your mind has gone completely blank, check out this list of things to draw.)

The trick here is to opt for a stream of consciousness approach and to resist the urge to make rhyme or reason out of your selections. Just like the prompts provided by the random idea generators we listed above, it’s perfectly fine—and perhaps even more fun—to end up with two or more words or phrases that have very little to do with each other.

Writing full sentence prompts? Give your imagination room to expand by leaving the prompt open-ended. Add in a cliffhanger, conflict, or concept that will require you to suss out a solution during the creation process itself instead of giving it all away at the get-go.

Step 4: Pick and Draw

You’ve made your lists, so now you can actually sit down and draw.

How you pick out prompts is up to you, but to keep it as random as possible, don’t peek before you pick. If you’re really not feeling an idea, you can put it back and pick again, but don’t overthink it—the goal is to stimulate a creative mindset, not to try and control it.

And there you go: your very own random idea drawing generator. Between that and the platforms on our list, you should never again find yourself at a loss for what to draw (or at least a loss for where to source an idea). 

Need some inspiration without the generator? Try these creative drawing exercises sure to unlock drawing inspiration.

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