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Your Own Artistic Style
Stop Drawing Like Other People!
Developing artistic style is a huge concern for many beginner artists. One of the things that happens is that they start copying the styles of other artists that they admire. You can’t blame them, really. In fact, doing studies from the Old Masters is part of what you do in art school. But doing a study and copying are two different things.
A study of another artist is meant to examine how they handled the medium, perspective, line, lighting, etc. It’s not meant for you to create a precise copy. A study should help you understand how they solved those elements and how you can incorporate that understanding into your own art. And generally with copying, you don’t learn nearly as much.
I’ll admit that I copied other artists for a while, too. I had never drawn comic book characters before and I happened to be a huge fan of Jim Lee’s style. At the time he was drawing for The X-Men. I liked his style so much that I found myself trying to draw just like him.
The problem was, that wasn’t my style. It was his!
So my work ended up not being anything special. My work looked like someone who was trying to draw like Jim Lee. That’s not what I wanted. I want people to look at my work and know it was my work, not someone else’s.