kittrose • Wait, wait...

Wait, wait…

I don’t understand.

Are people under the misapprehension that artists just sit down and try to imagine really, really hard what stuff looks like? That Real Artists don’t use references or models or work from photos?

I mean, not like no one does this, but usually, it’s coming after a whole lot of the other stuff. Unless you’re some sort of autistic genius, lemme tell you, if you draw just what you THINK people/ships/birds/whatever look like, you’re gonna come out with something like this:

Even if you mostly “just draw,” even if your work is highly stylized, at some point, you have to actually, really look at something real. Or your work looks awkward and wrong.

And photographs/screencaps are great for that, by the way. They’re cheap. They don’t get tired, or need to go to their dentist appointment. It’s never awkward asking a photo if you can work from it. The lighting is always the same, and they don’t wiggle or drop things.

Without careful use of models and other references, half the great art we have today would not exist. And if you want some examples of what was going on before people were like, “Oh, hey, let’s actually observe stuff when we’re drawing,” go check out some Medieval European art. Especially babies.

And finally, don’t be such a dick.

If you have a legit concern that someone is taking another’s art and claiming it as their own, you should pipe up. But if you just think that someone should be able to pull a photorealistic depiction out of their ass, and are Very Disappointed that they are working from an image, go fuck yourself.

Nothing to add. Just nodding my head vehemently. You know what? Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael. None of those fucking amazing geniuses came to birth with any knowledge of how to draw or paint. They just… learnt. By practice. By studying real life and human anatomy. By spending one hell of a lot of time copying, and copying, and copying, from nature or from their masters’ works, until they had enough control of the technique. And also, surprise! They used models! Shocker! Does that make them any less brilliant than what they are?

Source: insoulated