goshh anon i'll share my tips but to be fully transparent i have to tell you upfront that i have SO many stranded wips in my collection :')) so unfortunately this is simply something everyone deals with sometimes! but here's some of my own methods and experiences anyway, i hope they can help you out somewhat 💕

for me personally, i can usually (not always!) tell i'll be happy with a piece within roughly the first 2 hours of working on it. even if i still have a long way to go to finish it, i'll notice how confident i feel about the result, or how much fun i'm having, or i'll have a very clear vision of what i'm working towards, and i'll know "oh yeah, this will be a nice one". i might still feel some hesitation when i'm almost done but that's just my perfectionism kicking in; those first few hours are really the most important and reliable tell for me.

most of my stranded wips were works where i did not have that feeling; i'd stubbornly keep working on it for hours and hours but still not be excited about it. now, sometimes when i have that feeling i still continue despite it all, and the art turns out pretty good in the end! but in those cases i'm never sure if it was worth the pain of getting there, bc i'm usually truly pretty miserable when working like that, and i know that sometimes starting over will get me right on track immediately.

i think when you're feeling stuck it's good to sit down and make an objective estimate of how much time you'd still have to spend to make the drawing look nice. how much do you need to change, what parts specifically will you need to work on, is it just about facial features looking off or are you dissatisfied with the entire color scheme, etc. really take time to have a critical look and take it all in and make a list. don't to this while you're trying to draw; try to see it as a separate exercise (maybe dont even look at it in your drawing program but simply in your picture gallery). doing it this way removes you from the equation for a bit and can help in not getting too distracted by insecurities and frustrations about your own skills. after this, you can decide whether all that work is feasible and worth it.

for example, this one time i'd been working on a jisung portrait commission for a few hours already and he really wasn't turning out the way i wanted it to. the colors looked dull and his face wasn't looking like his face and the angle wasn't satisfying. i knew i'd have to work on it for at least another 3-4 hours to turn him into something i'd be happy with. i also knew that when i work on a portrait and it goes well, it sometimes only takes me about 4 hours total. combined with the fact that i knew the hours i'd spend on the portrait i already started would be hours i'd be feeling miserable, whereas starting a new one could make me feel hopeful and excited again, i decided to drop the wip and start over, with a different ref! and i loved the result (it's the one titled "claimed", if you're curious) :)

it can be a painful choice when you have already spent a lot of time on a work, but that should be no automatic reason to then keep punishing yourself by not letting go. besides, when you start over you do have the advantage of already having tried it once before, meaning some things are bound to go more smoothly this time!! so it's never wasted time, it was simply practice.

on the other hand, sometimes i'll feel mentally very stuck on a drawing, but after some reassessment i realistically KNOW it's really 80-90% done and probably not actually looking that bad to anyone who isn't me. in that case it's not always worth it to give up, i think! sometimes taking a little break or working on another piece can help a lot already, but usually i just show the wip to my friends or my priv to get some validation and that also helps a lot :') when you can't convince yourself something is looking good but 6 friends are yelling at you that they love it, it strangely becomes a lot harder to keep looking at the drawing in a purely negative way...

but even when you decide not to give up, there will still be the matter of actually having to work on something you're not enjoying atm. there's different ways i trick myself into doing that. one is creating pressure; for example by sharing the wip with people and telling them i'm aiming to have it done by the weekend/in a few days. this way i'll have a deadline, and i might plan some moments in my calendar when i'll actively want to work on it. sometimes i'll even tell a friend i plan to work on it that night and ask them to check in on me. in that case i'm kind of treating it like work!

the other way i sometimes trick myself is to actively take away pressure and NOT treat it like work at all. in that case i'll sit at my desk while watching a fun video or hanging out on twitter, and i will subtly put my tablet on my desk as well. maybe i'll even open procreate. maybe i'll even open the canvas. this is all done in a very casual non-committal way... simply having my tablet there with the canvas open doesn't mean i need to work on it, after all!! but usually at some point after i've put everything in my field of vision like this my brain will go "oh you know, might as well work on it for a few mins now that i've got my tablet here anyway...", and then i do! and i won't try to think of having to actually Finish the drawing, i'll really just try to treat it like.. idk. like i'm knitting a scarf and i just want to add some rows. i'm not thinking about the ending, i'm just adding a bit of work to a project, and if i happen to start feeling excitement again that's lovely, but if not, then at least i'll have added onto it a bit! and it'll be less work for me next time!

in the end, we all work differently, so it really comes down to trying out what will work for you specifically, by trying different methods whenever you feel stuck. and please don't overlook the value of asking for help or validation from friends! or asking another artist friend for advice on how to make something look better! a pair of fresh eyes might be scary when you feel vulnerable about your work, but sometimes someone can help gently pinpoint a problem area and as soon as you change that you're like. oh! suddenly i feel excited to work on this again! you really don't have to do it alone, it'll only make you a better artist in the end :)

i am sadly still not someone who is able to consistently push through my mental hurdles, so even with all these methods mentioned, things don't always work out for me. but as the years continue i do feel a bit more familiar with my patterns at least, and it becomes easier and easier to estimate when it's worth it to give up on a drawing or not, or feel more at peace when something is taking me a bit longer. i'm sure you will get to that point eventually as well, if you keep at it! i'm hoping i'll continue to grow as well :) (stares at my two almost done wips that i've been intending to finish for weeks now.... i'll get to it eventually.... aghghh)