Do you ever feel like your art style is limited?

[Michael Angelo Go]

Hi guys, so after my last piece from last year, I sort of stopped drawing portfolio pieces that are geared towards a younger audience, and shifted towards wanting to draw comics and young adult content.

But an obstacle that I realized is that for so many years I have trained myself to draw character designs of Western cartoons for visual development, that I have not grown my ability to draw landscapes, backgrounds, or human anatomy.

This realization has sort of discouraged me from producing art. Only because I deal with a lot of crippling anxiety. I believe that I am a decent and talented artist with lots of potential, but I have spent a lot of energy trying to make a new style if I intend to go a different route, and I am not entirely sure if this is how I can develop my identity and career as an artist.

Here are a couple of pieces that I am working on right now. Most are sketches.

So I when I was thinking about revitalizing my portfolio, I wanted to update my avatar. I drew these just this week. I started out with A, and what I wanted to do was draw myself with a conceited smirk, but then I looked at the final thing and I felt like the face was too creepy or made me look too much of a villain. Then I did something a little freehand with B where I tried to simplify my style. For some reason that didn't feel right either so I drew C, which is basically B but with more detail and cleanup.

I am trying to replicate this still from a movie I like, but I realized that in order for me to have achieved this drawing, I basically had to trace over the still, which Idk if that's just good for training or laziness on my part. My intent is to develop my own art style that is more suited for comics, but I am not entirely sure how is the best way to approach that?

And here's a couple of face profiles I tried drawing from heart as opposed to direct tracing.

[Michael Angelo Go]

[MarcRobinson]

@Michael-Angelo-Go mate, I am not fond of my style almost all the time. I think most artists are like that. With regards to tracing, I think it's good to do sometimes as study method. As a way to understand forms and silhouettes. But I'd be cautious of using it to actually produce the art, as it can often look very stiff. My advice is don't be afraid for your work to look janky by drawing it completely freehand. When you get more confidence it will be apparent in your work. I remember drawing from real life loads when I was a kid. That helps massively too. Good luck mate.

[ArtMelC]

I think style is always limiting. But the limitations have to be something the artist deliberately chooses for good reasons. An illustrator doing highly realistic painting like Norman Rockwell or Allen Say will encounter limitations in trying to push strong shape languages. Someone with flat primitive style like Jon Klassen will have a different set of limitations that they have to solve stories creatively within the paradigm of their own style.

I think Will Terry mentioned in one of the many 3PP episodes - don't let (lack of) skill set the limitations of your style. Keep plugging the skill gap and eventually you'll get to choose what limitations to impose on yourself

On tracing - I trace a lot especially for foreshortened poses because I keep needing to learn how different they look compared to my imagination. Firstly, I trace the outline. Then, I trace the "beans shape" and action lines. Last step, I redraw everything from scratch and put in my actual character after I felt like I have understood the first two traces. Direct traces usually don't turn out as good, apart from being ethically dodgy too.

[kirsten-mcg]

@Michael-Angelo-Go I know that for me, when I stopped tracing and started just drawing while looking at reference, I was overall happier with the results. I still had (and have!) a long way to go, but not tracing definitely helps. Sometimes I still do trace to figure out a pose, but then I start over and free-hand it once I feel like I understand what's going on. I actually really like your drawing in A! But if you want the facial expression to go more towards conceited you could try altering the angle so that you are looking down slightly instead of looking up. Sometimes changing the angle so that the face is turned slightly away but the eyes are still looking at the viewer can also help pull off a conceited look. Let me know if you need an example!

[KathrynAdebayo]

You've improved LOADS since you started posting art to this forum. Whatever you do, don't give up, even if you need a break sometimes. You'll amaze yourself!