what do you do in a artstyle crisis? as in, "i wanted to draw things a different way, but i can't seem to find a satisfactory approach"?

illustrator in π§π·
furry alt: @kiromiromiro
what do you do in a artstyle crisis? as in, "i wanted to draw things a different way, but i can't seem to find a satisfactory approach"?
i'm not an artist, just a musician, but i found myself in a similar rut a while back and both radically changing up my tooling (going so far as to switch DAWs just for a while) and breaking out of my listening habits (trying new artists and genres) helped out a lot. maybe you could try a different medium? just go into it with zero expectations, is the only thing
That could definitely work. It does feel like i've been consuming the same material since forever. I switch around between traditional and digital a bit, but it seems i've never fully committed to experimenting with different creative processes. Might start switching up where i get my refs from.
I would look to other artist's works for inspiration as to how to approach the things in my own stuff I'm unsatisfied with (and then it's a matter of actually doing that, I guess haha)
I swear my biggest hurdle is just finding a good middle ground between realism and style. I really don't want to make close-to-life stills, but I also really like drawing bodies. One of the biggest criticisms I received when learning was that I didn't exaggerate gesture enough, and I can't unsee it now, seems like there's an invisible barrier there that just drives me nuts.
Although, I never really did artists studies. I've been sticking to real-life references up until this point. Will definitely try.
oh gotcha, then I would recommend some gesture drawing, while of course trying to exaggerate rather than mimic the poses given in https://quickposes.com/en
hope it helps!
Oh this is a mood. What I've done in the past is pick an artist whose style I like and then do a bunch of studies of it without looking up their process, to see if I can reverse-engineer it. Or even just a piece of art I like a lot. And then afterwards follow their process and see if I get different results from improvising
I've also done stuff like Draw X Thing using different tutorials (like hands, for example).
The different tutorial approach seems pretty good. I'll start picking up some artists i like and do some studies over them, maybe just get one pose/character and try to replicate it in different styles.
I have learned from speedpaints before, but it's been a really long while since i've watched one looking for some tips. I'll give it a go.
maybe just get one pose/character and try to replicate it in different styles.
this is something I always want to do but never get around to but!!! maybe I will this time
If one of the things you're working on is making emotions/gestures visible enough, my highly specific suggestion is to look into cartoons and comics. Western comic book aesthetic isn't my thing, but it's been boiling down what it wants to convey to a smallish image that a printing press can handle for decades. Good stuff if you can find tutorials that get at the how and why!
One of the better ones I've found is "The Etherington Brothers": (deviantArt) (blogspot)
Most tutorials focus on more entry-level how-to (hand foreshortening!) but some have surprisingly good insights, and every so often there's a tutorial focusing on how to convey what you want. For example, hands 1 & hands 2 about making hand poses more emotive. Over here are panel composition ideas that honestly are pretty fantastic for solo illustrations too.
Given the quality of your art I'm sure there's a lot you don't need. π But I've found some serious gems in there, it was a big help for me. Plus I'm sure there's other artists/tutorials out there if you go looking, of course!
Oh, i've seen some of these images around the internet, but I never knew who made them. They defintely helped me before, fundamentals are always useful.
I'm also not into Western Comic aesthetic, but the composition/thumbnail stuff feels a bit universal. I'll look into it!