Finding my own style
For the past one or two years I've been trying to find my own art style and I'm definitely not there yet. I've been trying a lot of different styles, but I'm not really sure what I'm comfortable with or what I like. I guess all artist struggle with it at first, but how to you find a style and stick to it?
I think there is a noticeable difference between my "fashion illustrations" versus my "art illustrations". I'm still not sure if I want my art and fashion sketches to be the same or different?
I'm planning on experimenting with different styles and techniques during the summer break and see where I'll go from there. My problem thought is the fact that I'm torn between wanting a style that's clean but still with lots of details and a style that is still connected with the manga style that I love and grew up with drawing, or if I want it to be messy and simple?
One of my favorite artists' is Arina Tanemura. A mangaka whose work I began loving at the age of seven, her art has always mesmerized me and there's just something with the detail and her coloring that I love. Her eye for the details in her artwork is amazingly stunning !! I'm still really impressed by her work and I still wish I had one of her artbooks *crying in silence*.
A close up of some of her detailed artwork
I think the fact why I love her art so much is because she still draws traditional art, using Dr. Ph. Martin ink and watercolors for all her artwork and I think that might be one of the reasons to why I love working with almost only watercolors myself. And the fact that she works on around 30x40cm sized paper is amazing! Definitely an artist to look up too!!
But when it comes to fashion illustrations my favorite artist is a guy named Guillermo Meraz. He's kind of "a nerd" and he design a lot of dresses inspired from video games, movies, famous people, you name it.
I came a cross his artwork about a year ago and there's just something with his style that caught my attention, not sure what, but something.
He, just like Arina, has an eye for detail, but Arina's details are more.. "clean", while Guillermo goes for more "messy" details.
A close up of some of the details in his work
I love Meraz style with anatomy and proportions, his technique and eye of detail, he capture the poses of the bodies perfectly and I love the facial expressions he gives his artwork, something I really need to work on.
So my challenge for the summer is to find a style that I, myself, am happy with and can stick with. Nothing too complicated, but also nothing too simple. A mix of both Guillermo's and Arina's art styles? We'll see. I still want it to be my own but inspiration is never wrong, right?
