Copying As A Way To Improve - Yes/No?

[Obscura]

One thing I haven't done much in trying to improve my artwork is copy other works. I hear many people saying this is a good technique while many others disagree.

What do you guys think? Has copying helped or hindered your art progress?

[MaiMai]

Copying for the sake of studying another artist's technique is perfectly fine. Hell, for my intro to painting course, one of our major assignments was to choose a master painting (Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, etc.) and recreate it. I chose Van Gogh in particular since he was a painter who liberally applied layers upon layers of paint on his canvases, something, I myself was usually afraid to do (because if I ran out of paint, then I would have to buy more. Oil paint is freaking expensive!)

Regardless, it was a learning experience and I'm glad I did it. I recreated the sunflower painting he did. It would have looked so boring if I kept to my smooth, blending technique. I learned how to make use of my other colors that wasn't just yellow and blue despite it being the predominant palette.

[nyaatrap]

Copying what you are watching is only way to improve art. However, I think what you are asking here is copying particular art style.
The answer is it helps much, unless you know what you're doing for.
Only bad cases are:
Sticking with one artist, and don't learn other styles.
Just trace them without using your brain. Not thinking structure, anatomy, e.t.c.
Copy and paste them onto your art to hide your flaw, then show off them saying they're what you've done.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

One thing I haven't done much in trying to improve my artwork is copy other works. I hear many people saying this is a good technique while many others disagree.

What do you guys think? Has copying helped or hindered your art progress?

I don't think "copying" is the best way to think of it. Instead, I would phrase it in your mind as "studying". Because that is what you should be doing. It is a time honored practice in the art world for students to copy the masters. Artists used to make pilgrimages around Europe to the locations of famous artworks and spend a time at each sketching and studying them to try and replicate the work and discover how it was done. Apprentices studied under masters until they could finish the master's works in the master's own style, so all a master would have to do is plan and start a painting, then his assistants could finish it. When an apprentice got so good they could compete with the master or surpass them, they got a letter of approval from the master and established their own workshop and studio and took on their own apprentices. All this was done by studying/copying the master - we know some famous paintings have such perfect duplicates because they were painted at the same time and place as the original, with the copy-cat artist literally looking over the shoulder of the master.

The key is to copy "correctly". By that, you should never turn your brain off as Nyaatrap warns, because that can be an easy trap if you aren't careful - just copying shape and form and color with no thought. You want to study the work you are copying - why does the artist do it that way? Why were these colors chosen? How did they form the lines like they did? How did they achieve that blending style? You need to deconstruct and examine the skeleton of the work, then rebuild it piece by piece with understanding of how it all fits together.

This obviously is hard for a new artist to do, but the longer you create art and study it, the easier it is to dissect other artwork. This is the way professional commercial artists work all the time - for instance illustrators of an ongoing book series, comic artists having to finish an issue started by another artist, or Disney artists all having to draw the characters in an identical way. It all starts with copying model sheets and other drawings, studying them and breaking them down.

But this brings you to the most important part of this method as a way to improve - taking what you learned and practicing it by drawing an original drawing. You should do this in pieces as you study the other artist or style, study their linework until you can replicate it in your own drawings. Then move on to replicating their color, etc. Take it one aspect at a time. Only by practicing the things you observed in your study will you truly learn and improve from the practice. Ideally at the end of it all, an outsider should be able to mistake your original drawings for new work from the artist you were studying.

But you don't want to copy just one artist - you want to "remix" lots of them with a dash of your own style in the mix. And don't force your own style or try to consciously create one - it will happen and develop naturally on its own. Personally I have a folder with subfolders of favorite artists, and another folder with certain styles of art. These are divided into categories like "Linework" or "Eyes" or "Color Mixing" or "Composition" - all named for what I want to study and learn from the images within.

By copying an artist, you are asking "How did they tackle certain problems?" and "How can I use their solutions in my own work?"

[Geckos]

As everyone else so far has said, studying other artist's work is definitely something that will help you improve. Tracing over their stuff won't really get you anywhere, but if you attempt to replicate the image on your own canvas by just looking back and forth, you will learn quite a lot. I highly recommend it, if you have the time.

[Hellboy]

I don’t recommend it, but it’s not a bad practice if you don’t turn it into an habit.

When I was younger, all I did for years was copy. I wasn’t making much progress that way. I was stuck. I did started to make progress as soon as I stopped doing it.

I also did the master copy in my second year, its a good exercise but the best you can do is to let yourself go and experiment on your own all you can.
References are good. Taking things from here and there for inspiration and apply them on you'r own way.

[Obscura]

Thanks for your answers everyone. I'll be making similar art for most of the upcoming year, but am hoping to improve whenever I've got the chance. Right now I'm just sticking basics like anatomy, and was wondering if the copying--or studying--as LWR puts it, was in order.

Hellboy, it sounds like you only recommend it up to a point, so maybe I'll just try not to overdo it.

[Kaireen]

I would say copying is a good way of learning workshop, terrible for all other things.

I would say it's like retyping chapter of book some writer likes. During retyping it might be easier to notice few details and polish style(since you give more attention on how something was done), but probably will not help in improve overall writing style on base level.

Copying itself will give you only result, without reason. For example I remember there was a phase (or trend) to add lighter line next to lineart. It was easy trick to makes artwork looks better somehow 'new' in anime art so it spread quickly and exaggerate to effect called 'plastic skin'. I'm pretty sure there were a lot of people who didn't knew why this trick works and that was a simplification of backlit. I'm pretty sure if people knew that it wouldn't be so common mistake to make skin too shiny.

Other basic problem with copying is that when you learn from other artist not nature it's high possibility of learning original artist mistakes. It might be troublesome in the future.

Just be careful like other sad and you should be all right... but... I would suggest copying from nature if you can. It's slower process but more fruitful in the future ;3.
Reading tutorials might be good idea too but be careful. some people just write for the sake of writing and are not giving any good information. It might be hard to choose good tutorial from poor one especially at the beginning.

[Hellboy]

Thanks for your answers everyone. I'll be making similar art for most of the upcoming year, but am hoping to improve whenever I've got the chance. Right now I'm just sticking basics like anatomy, and was wondering if the copying--or studying--as LWR puts it, was in order.

Hellboy, it sounds like you only recommend it up to a point, so maybe I'll just try not to overdo it.

It won't do you bad as long as you don't do it as your main learning method. You better pay attention to everything you see, what you like or don't about what you're looking at, what makes the image great for you... even real life details, then try to use what you learned on your own, you'll develop your own style faster and will actually make you a lot faster too.

[Fungii]

My entire style is made up of aping other people sooooo................

The only trip up you have to watch out for is knowing what is stylisation and what is actual anatomy - a habit I need to try and pick up on myself.

[Obscura]

Thanks for the additional feedback all! I think what I'm generally doing right now is drawing mostly from photo references, and then if I get to a problematic area, I take a look at how other artists have solved that particular issue.

[Jazzy-Chii]

This thread has struck my interest. I have heard that copying (or studying, I should say) your favourite artist is a good way to learn. But as the saying goes, when you copy an artist, you also copy their mistakes. This is probably where copying different artists come into play,and that you shouldn't use copying as an only method of learning.

Anyway, the reason why I decided to post on this thread - I would like to pose a question to you guys. I decided not to make a new thread about it, since it would only spam the forum and this thread goes hand-in-hand with it anyway.

What do you guys think of art studies?

I'm thinking of doing several short art studies of my favourite artists. Study their art - ask myself why they do what they do, what makes their art so unique, what makes their art stand out from the rest. I don't how just how much or how long I should study an artist for. I used my Google-fu and searched up art studies. It mostly came up with studies of classical artists, but it says that, in schools, art studies go for a whole term, which is something like 10-11 weeks. I think that is much too long, so what timeframe do you guys recommend?

Anyways, I'm getting a little off topic here. What do you guys think of art studies?

[nyaatrap]

[/deleted - sorry I misreading a bit]

[Zylinder]

What do you guys think of art studies?

I think I'm constantly frightened by the number of people who ask this. I don't mean it in an offensive way. It's just that I've encountered a bunch of people recently who are all no references bad and no copy bad but then call it a study and it's all peachy. I'm wondering why because for the life of me I can't figure out what's wrong with it.

I think studies/referencing/copying

1. is a fantastic, if not ONLY way to learn and
2. It's interesting.

You learn a lot when you copy/reference something because you spend a hell of a lot of time staring at it. I would NEVER stare at a painting/subject matter for 6 hours, but I'll have to if I'm making a replica off it. By doing so, I'm noticing all the little quirks, how the shadow falls, all the tiny things that make the painting great that I would never have noticed otherwise.

I think it's a perfectly valid way to learn, whether your point of reference was produced by a contemporary artist or a classical master. It's no different than putting up a bowl of fruits and drawing from it (except for the nifty copyright thing but nobody's endorsing your making money off it so just hide it under your bed and nobody will know) and if no one has a problem with that, then there shouldn't be a problem with this.

My recommended time frame is forever. There will always be things you need to study.

[Jazzy-Chii]

What do you guys think of art studies?

I think I'm constantly frightened by the number of people who ask this. I don't mean it in an offensive way. It's just that I've encountered a bunch of people recently who are all no references bad and no copy bad but then call it a study and it's all peachy. I'm wondering why because for the life of me I can't figure out what's wrong with it.

I think studies/referencing/copying

1. is a fantastic, if not ONLY way to learn and
2. It's interesting.

You learn a lot when you copy/reference something because you spend a hell of a lot of time staring at it. I would NEVER stare at a painting/subject matter for 6 hours, but I'll have to if I'm making a replica off it. By doing so, I'm noticing all the little quirks, how the shadow falls, all the tiny things that make the painting great that I would never have noticed otherwise.

I think it's a perfectly valid way to learn, whether your point of reference was produced by a contemporary artist or a classical master. It's no different than putting up a bowl of fruits and drawing from it (except for the nifty copyright thing but nobody's endorsing your making money off it so just hide it under your bed and nobody will know) and if no one has a problem with that, then there shouldn't be a problem with this.

My recommended time frame is forever. There will always be things you need to study.

I hope this doesn't mean I'm conveying the wrong message out. I agree with absolutely everything you have said Zylinder~ Every. Single. Thing.

Also, what I meant by the timeframe is how long I should study one artist.

Or maybe I should just study whenever I feel like it. Yeah, I think that's the way to go.