Francine

Thank you for yr kind words - I don't think my "style" is especially unique, but I do like how my work looks currently and I feel like i'm on a good track developmentally speaking. I am, however, not a member of the conscious "style" school - I think a "style" or the collection of unconscious idiosyncrasies that can be summarized as such isn't something you can "Find" - it's a slow accretion of tics, persistent flaws that become features and minor adjustments that don't feel like a direct choice at the time. Style is what happens while you're just continuing to work and develop naturally - I feel like the current model for sharing work in online spaces (Current since... the 90s lol) prioritizes discussing "styles" and there's a great deal of importance placed on your "art style".

I get a lot of queries from younger artists who ask me with some urgency "how I do find a unique art style" or etc. It's understandable, and often what that really means coming from folks is "how I do get better" but there's definitely a pressure to develop something that stands out. A lot of ppl have a conception of an artist having "Made it" once their name becomes a byword for a specific visual school or set of techniques - "This looks like Mignola" or "Very Miura-esque" or the like., going hand in hand with a saturation of art spaces across the board that additionally compels people to "stand out" in order to get even a minimum level of audience. That's a totally understandable angle, but when it comes to your own work, you can't consciously pursue it imo or it's going to feel very forced - you may end up stunting your development or adopting practices that run counter-intuitive to organic promotion of your own idiosyncrasies.

I learned a lot of these lessons - the chief one being that style is what happens when you're not looking - from Conceptart.org, the first community I was a real member of when I was a kid, which was a sometimes harsh but kind of unique forum staffed by 00s-era industry vets and later fine artists who rubbed shoulders with amateurs and aspiring kids alongside other professionals or Names. In retrospect I don't think the site's habitual mockery of places like DeviantArt and the communities they perceived as retrograde for being purely affirming and not always pushing improvement in technical terms was always helpful, but it meant a lot to be in a space where critique was offered by default and offered by people who really knew what they were doing because it engendered a healthy critical eye not just on my own technique but on the way I thought about my technique and the arc of my development as an artist. "It's just my style" was a common defense on the site when it came to critiques levelled at technical skills by people who felt affronted by being evaluated rather than praised exclusively - I don't think that the sort of "Baptism by fire" is the best universal model, but it left me with a healthy sense of what a defensive response to fairly offered analysis (When it is fairly offered and in good faith, which certainly isn't always) can do to your development. The site championed the slow march of progress and the emergence of personal style through organic, unconscious development - sketchbook threads that ran for years would exist as a testament to a person's journey from literally picking up a pencil for the first time to being formidably skilled - but it DID take years!

I've really rambled here, and I want you to know I really appreciate your question for leading me to think about this stuff and lay some of it out, even if it's not especially coherent. In short - the few times I tried to consciously pursue a style, it would stunt my growth, maybe for years. In the end i've just decided to keep working, trying to effect a healthy balance between studies, work outside my comfort zone and indulging in what i'm best at for the pure joy of it. My style is an ongoing fermentation - it's a mix of everything i'[ve ever read or drawn or admired slowly compressed and changed by chemical reaction into something more than the sum of it's parts.