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I'm possibly sure I'm posting on the right thread, If wrong, feel free to move it.
So, I'm renovating(more like changing styles) in my drawing and I've done it many times before. I noticed that whenever I pick up a new style, I forgot the last style I used. Am I normal or do I need to re-study the basics and fundamentals of art...again?
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." ---Mahatma Gandhi
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Uhm... I reckon the reason is because you haven't found a real style yet...
Style is something that changes very slowly and organically, one never arrives at a "final" style, even 60 year old masters are always refining and changing. So when you find YOUR style you'll be able to see a clear evolution in pics that are.. say.. a year apart even though they're both clearly in your style. If you can see a massive difference between two pics that were made consecutively, then chances are you haven't really defined your style yet.
Don't know how you learned art, but the misconceptions with style come. a lot of times, when one learns to draw entirely from manga or comics. Mind you, one will always have influences, but the best way to go is always to draw from life and then apply the ideas and techniques that influence you to that basic framework.
To explain it with a metaphor, imagine that some artist's style is finished drawing on a piece of paper and academic drawing is another piece of paper, only blank. When one learns to draw entirely from manga, you're drawing on top of someone else's already finished drawing... it's always gonna look.. off. Everyone starts off by copying.. but when you learn the academic drawing, you're drawing on top of a blank sheet of paper and taking the elements you liked from that other, finished drawing. You put them on your blank style, and make them your own.
no, that's not what I meant. I used to draw something that even if i want to make it manly i can't but now, I can't even draw a girly one even though i want to draw it. they all become those manly kinds now. Though I'm practicing things up again, I'm just kinda curious if its actually normal to be like this or I'm just forgetting things a lot lately. :/
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." ---Mahatma Gandhi
I no longer use this account. Please refer to my new account, enta if you want to contact me. Thank you.
Maybe the issue isn't that you're forgetting your style, maybe it's not really yours to begin with?
What I mean is, a lot of artists will find another artist they like, fall head over heels in love with their work, and try to emulate it to the fullest degree. While it is fun and good for practice, it can hinder your own creative expression and make you feel constrained (not to mention you change styles every time you find a new favorite artist). Being a very impressionable person, I personally tend toward this... I'm not really sure how to combat it, but I know I use slightly different styles for different stories, and once I have decided on the look (style-wise) I like for a character, I usually don't change it.
I think it's kind of like a "grass is greener" phenomenon in a way too, though. You can't draw in every style at once, so when you see something different from your own work you're instantly struck by it and get depressed by how boring yours is (because you are so familiar with it), when in reality the other person would probably think yours was new and different and feel that theirs was boring instead.
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— William Faulkner
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I'm not copying anyone's style. More like I can't even copy... when i was still around 9 or 10, I'm good at doing fanarts and such but now, I can't even copy the simplest style of my fave artist. So, I'm pretty sure that it's my own style. (And also, no matter how much I wanna draw a fanart, I can't do it at all Dx all i can do were original characters or something) TT.TT
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." ---Mahatma Gandhi
I no longer use this account. Please refer to my new account, enta if you want to contact me. Thank you.
Erhm.. mate.. it seems to me that you're a bit self-deluded about your style. I don't mean it in a bad way, just as something that has happened to me and.. I'm guessing pretty much anyone, at some point. Because you say you can only draw manly types.. but the guy in your avatar (which I'm assuming you drew) doesn't look manly at all... it's pretty girly. Style also has nothing to do with fanart... fanart has to do with the design of the character, not the style in which he's drawn. When Tsutomu Nihei draws Wolverine, he draws him in his own style, not American Comics style.
As a manga style artist (who's just began diversifying over the last few years) I can tell you, while one can achieve a great range of character variation in manga style, most of us are or have been in denial. We think our range is great when in reality its VERY, VERY limited and things we consider girly or manly or whatever.. well.. really aren't.
I can suggest a few art exercises, if you'd like. (Art is a muscle XD)
Honestly, something that helped me bypass that range limitation is the 100 faces exercise. Basically you have to get some paper and draw the face of 100 characters. Very quickly, spending under 3 minutes on each one (you can go at it over several days).
Buuut there's a few limitations. You must have;
50 Women
50 Men
20 Children (8-13)
20 Teenagers (14-20)
20 Adults (20-30)
20 Middle aged people (40-60)
20 Old people (60-80)
10 Fat People
10 Thin People
10 Muscular People
10 Ugly People
10 Plain Looking people
10 Handsome people
10 People with Big Eyes
10 People with Big Mouths
10 People with Big Noses
10 People with big Chins
10 People with Big Ears
10 People with big foreheads.
10 Bald people
10 Hairy people
As you draw, range limitations will jump out.. like.. always using the same noses, the same mouths, the same shapes. Or the bane of anime artists... making old people be young people with wrinkles. The idea is to try to make every face as unique as possible. You can post them up so people can help you point out faces that look too similar to each other.
Just a tip on making a style: Figure out what you find most attracted to in the world. Not just in a romantic sense, but other things- what colors do you like, what shapes do you like, ect.
For example, I love the colors lavender, pink, I also like clouds and the way bright sunshine makes things glow, so obviously my art has a shiny pink glow to it. When drawing I heavily base my structures on rounded squares and triangles. I also love big-eyed animals, so, that's also incorporated in my style.
Find what you really love and practice drawing them to incorporate them into your art. Though, like Duredhel says, diversify and do tons of drawing exercises. Try to find your weaknesses so you can work on them, work them drawing muscles!
Am I normal or do I need to re-study the basics and fundamentals of art...again?
