What’s a good way to get new original ideas?

No one can be completely original.

Best advice I can give is to brainstorm characteristics for the main characters/events.
And is okay to get inspiration from any source, as long as you don't plagiarize or do a "Butch Hartman".

Play with designs, colors, take inspiration from real life too, experiences you had, stuff you know or want to investigate about, make character sheets to give them more personality and make them feel different from already existing characters that might share some traits with them.

It will take time, but it works.

A really great teacher I had once told me "everything's been done before, but not by you" which is a quote I don't remember the original author of--but something I think about A LOT. I think there's a lot of pressure on us when we're young to be new and groundbreaking, but the older I get, the more I just want to make things I want to make, vs what everyone else expects me to make.

Learning what I want to make vs what everyone else expects of me has been a life-long discovery. It's not an overnight realization.

I think it's way too early to try and come up with a new big idea so soon. You just dropped your big project and obviously it's still hurting you.

Perhaps...look into other things. Comics might be cool and all...but there's more to life than just that. By continuing to engage in this cycle, you're hurting yourself. That alone should be an indicator to keep taking a break.

Find a job you want to do, look for purpose in something else besides comics.

Am I saying stop drawing or creating characters? No I'm not. Keep drawing, but maybe stop trying to force a comic story out of the blue.

But it's ultimately up to you. You're only gonna get fractured opinions from the people who want to help.

Well that's a big mood. I constantly struggle with a burning need to produce things and achieve in order to prove that I'm valid, so I know how hard it can be. I'm currently in the middle of developing a pitch for a print comic for publishers and my own impatience to get it done and need for whatever I make to be not just "good" but to go the extra mile can be a difficult thing to handle.

I can't tell you what's best for you, but I can outline what goes into coming up with a new comic concept, because I've had to do this a fair bit when entering competitions, pitching and creating webcomics.

• First thing: You might not have the best idea in... what has it been like a week? Last I saw you were talking about Drachenseele as if you were making that, and now a week or so later you've canned it and you're bummed you haven't had a better idea? Listen... I am so good at coming up with ideas on the fly, it's literally a large part of my day job, but even I wouldn't trust myself to come up with a concept for a long-form comic that I was happy with in a week. It takes time and iteration!

• The first thing I do is to list out the things I want from the project. Where do I want to publish? What's the audience? It's a good idea to look at what sorts of things that you like are successful in that market. Errant is a poor example because I mostly made it as a passion project and it's really not that well suited to Tapas (though better suited here than webtoons and definitely better suited to web than print), but with my other project, I first went and looked at Middle Grade and YA graphic novels with similar vibes to my work; stuff like Lumberjanes, Witch Boy, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
  Make notes of anything important about the format, themes, art style, colour palette etc. So if I wanted to try to succeed on say Webtoon, I might go "Okay, it seems like action comics here that succeed are long scroll, drawn in that generic webtoons manga-esque style and they have this distinctive kinda anime colour palette, and a lot of them are things like isekai genre..."

• Then I start listing cool things that I like that also overlap with what my audience likes. For example, if I was making something aimed at a mostly queer female audience and planning to make a romantic GL Fantasy story, I might write "Witches" "Lady Knights" "JRPG esque Fantasy setting".
  I turn this into a spider diagram and start branching off things I might associate with these, finding links if I can, like say "crystals" could link to both witches and JRPGs, or "quests" connects to both knights and JRPGs. I might go "Knight- chess piece - knight piece moves in a strange way - a knight who always does the unexpected".

• I also make myself a Pinterest board and I start collecting images and references that nail the look, atmosphere and colour palette I want. For example, Errant's had a lot of old X-men covers because I wanted that bold inking and lurid colour. I've had another project where I was collecting loads of examples of classic abstract art, and another where I was looking at moody fantasy digital paintings from stuff like D&D. Every comic I make I try for a different tone to the art to suit the story.

• I start to make notes on things I think I'd like. I keep an open mind to change. Like my current project I started with three characters, then was like "this setup with three characters is boring!" and wrote ideas for five characters, before realising some of the characters I'd come up with could be merged, so now I have three again, but two of them folded in characteristics for other scrapped characters, so they're more fleshed out. The plot also changed significantly as I started making notes about the story and joining the dots. The theme that emerged wasn't what I expected it to be! It's taken weeks, but now I have a good grasp of what the story is to the point I've been able to actually give it a name. (It's rare for me to know what the name for a project is until well into development. I tend to just give them vague working titles).

• I start doing style tests in the aesthetic and doing doodles of the characters. Test panels, character designs etc.
  So like, Errant is bold and lurid because it's Fantasy Action with over the top characters, and I knew it'd have influences from older comics colour palettes for a "pulpy" look, but it still took some refining, like the early designs were too scruffy and complex:
  

  

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And the early style test with a much more gloomy, lurid look closer to western comics, was too time consuming and too dark for the tone of the comic.

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In other comics, I always experiment with the style to make sure it's a fit with the tone, so when I was making something in a more real world setting, I used a more muted colour palette and hand-drawn speech bubbles and slightly wonky backgrounds for a more naive feeling:

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You might notice even the fonts used are different between each of these and Errant. This exemplifies my approach: Every comic is different, so every time I plan and make a comic, it's all about "what is special about THIS comic? Why is THIS comic awesome in a unique way."
It's very important not to think of the project being not Drachenseele as this bad thing. You need to look for the opportunities this gives you. What exciting story can you tell here that you just couldn't there? What cool aesthetics could you use? What pulse-pounding scenarios could happen?

And most importantly, don't expect a perfect idea overnight. You have to keep chipping away at it until the shape of the story emerges.

Keep an idea file/book/notepad. Write down all the ideas you like (even the ones that do not work for your story).

Occasionally create something out your main story with those ideas. It stimulates creativity.

Big agree on this point! Luck is always a factor but it should, ideally, never be the factor as it's not actionable. There are a lot of other aspects that creators can and should be trying to "course correct" towards a higher success probability, for lack of a better word, between projects to give the next one even better odds

People have room in their hearts for more than one story (and often seek out more stories with similarities to their favorites) - it's not one project vs. others . Good luck!!

This The people on this site are our peers, not our competition

you need to know what you are doing.....it's your story. If you dont know, nobody else will. Instead of just adding things because "it worked for that author" figure WHY it worked under that specific situation. When you understand the reasoning behind storytelling you will be better at telling stories.

Any idea is a combination of sources of inspirations. Not all said combinations have been done, so mathematicaly speaking there is an endless world of posibilities.

And about sources.....ANYTHING can be a source.....yes ANYTHING.

i once got an idea for a monster for my game by watching some grapes and imagining them as eyes.

Great discussion and great ideas, thanks!

Oh yeah! I totally agree with your entire response. I pulled that line because I think the phrase "I can do it again" is sooooo important! I agreed with that part extra and wanted to expand on it because it's so key.

Edit: Honestly my life changed the second I realized I was going to go for it with all I've got on something I know isn't going to be a whopping success. But getting to that took years of being unsatisfied and fumbling around with trying safe things. I think the thing that makes it worthwhile and exciting for me is what you said about it making an impact for someone.