How NOT to use Art Reference 

Ok

Question: When you design characters an abstract or stylized look, is your knowledge of human anatomy still essential?

I'd love to hear abt your favourite ones im always eager to discover new artist's using colour in unique ways, they're not that easy to find

Hello Beth

I dont think so, that image may be even copyrighted but your art belongs to you.

I don't think so either. I mean, you have to have some reference if you want it to look accurate, no matter what you're creating. Usually I will have a few references for commercial stuff and just incorporate my favorite aspects from several photos. Also putting the references away to do some work and then pulling them back out to compare them, but not making a direct "copy" can help. (:

In the video she’s showing you just that: she uses references for the commercial art she’s planning to sell. She’s showing you how to do it legally, whereas selling a straight-up copy of the photo without paying the photographer would not be.

It's DEFINITELY okay!

I always use copyright free and Creative Commons sites like Pexels, Unsplash, ect. Because Pinterest and google are notorious for stolen works, and you never know if that photo was put their with the photographer and models consent or knowledge and you never know what the original intent for the photo is. Where as on Unsplash and other such websites photography theft isn’t an issue and the photographer specifically says it’s ok to use their photos

Hy

@@joshlayonworks hi?

@@justfaeriethings do you do art too??

@@joshlayonworks yes i do!!

@@justfaeriethings awesome 👍👍how do I check it out

BOOK?!

Hy nina

Spider-punk

Agreed! Cool question

I definitely agree that the nose is a little too steep and pointy (reads as European) but what was wrong with the lips in your opinion? She pretty much only changed their expression.

I like it but the hand isn’t giving

I would say that copying a model's face as a perfect 1:1 is lazy. You're not making choices or decisions to accentuate certain features, that's just tracing.

@@hoshi-15 I don’t think it’s lazy either since a lot of thought was put into the drawing, but I think what the others meant that the nose/lips lacked some of the ‘expression’ that the model had on her face. She also showed a previous life drawing she did (min. 7:18 I think) which shows that she could stylize the nose to be round but didn’t and the lips weren’t curved like the model’s. Tho tbh, it’s just a reference for a drawing, not an exact face study or anything. Honestly my main issue with the drawing is how expressionless the face looks and maybe that’s why it gives off this ‘generic’ look idk (there was more focus on how good it’d look conceptually from the shapes/colors than the subject itself. Idk what feeling I should get from that face, like maybe the whole ‘bold and beautiful’ thing, but I don’t feel ‘confidence’ or anything, it just looks like she’s staring into the distance at something and shows no emotion/interact with the butterflies and flowers around her. Basically, to me it looks like a drawing that needs a scene behind it; ‘what/who’s she looking at and how’d they get the attention of someone with butterflies/ flowers in her hair?’

Wait nvm, she’s probably looking at one of the butterflies in front of her face or something.

but yes i love references, the cat in my pfp is a painting i did from a reference photo of my best friends cat Fred

I do see your point, as someone who's also been hit with the 'you don't have a tapered, pretty nose' comment.. but at the same time, we can't really police how people draw every last detail of their characters. Features exaggerated in a way that's disrespectful and triggering in a way that no one; not even the artist, actually intended is one thing- but cracking down on the slightest features like this will actually make artists reluctant to include different races in their art, fearing the slightest angle or feature they miss will back them into a corner.

@@otaku-chan4888 notice how she focuses on “the shape” of this and that in this video. She’s very aware of what she did.

@@otaku-chan4888 She showed another drawing at 7:18 and the lady she previously drew had a stylized round nose, so her making this nose sharper was what I thought the ‘Don’t do this!’ in the thumbnail was referring to that sort of ‘stiff-face model’ look and thought the video would cover how to make a stylized face that shows more emotion to your art or something ‘cuz many beginners struggle with dynamic facial expressions for characters. There was a lot more focus on shape language/color/details that the emotions for the character/the main subject felt like an after thought. When you get into the zone, it’s hard to realise that you’re repeating bad habits from what you’ve been used to drawing and why the stylization looks iffy to some people (nose/face). This looked like something that needed the ‘take a break from drawing and look at it the next day with fresh eyes’ approach since I feel like she would’ve been able to add more diversity to the face/expression if it had some more thought put into it like with how she experimented alot with new techniques for the colors/textures.

Also I doubt making a person’s nose rounder would destroy a learning artist’s journey for improvement. Just like how there’s many anatomy practice vids, if someone’s interested in drawing people they’ll *HAVE* to practice different shapes/features. I also think you’re misunderstanding the fact that you don’t have to settle for less if someone wants to draw a POC. Knowing/implementing the nuances in faces is one of the learning curves that’s necessary for proper representation (I think that’s why there’s these ‘100 faces’ challenges and such). You notice how good she was able to make the colors complement the skin tone from experience and many trial and error, so getting better at diverse faces is just part of the process of learning. The ‘nit-picking’ on the slightest details you described is is more about the trolls who are probably also beginners ‘cuz they don’t give proper advice to those who want to improve their art, just bash/mock the artist ‘cuz they don’t understand how long it takes for a person to improve their artwork and that making mistakes is apart of learning/improving as an artist.

Idk I don’t really have this problem. Maybe colour pic one colour for the hair and skin and whatever then make a new layer and try and recreate that pallets without Colour drop. Also maybe make it look more LIEK how the skin is perceived because colour drops usually end up more saturated than they appear especially with dark skin in my experience.

its normal. just to lead people into clicking the vid

How is it misleading?

@@blssompack it says “don’t do this” and shows the picture of that they actually tell you to do. What do you mean how is it misleading?? R u playing dumb

@@omoriiboy_ normal doesn’t mean it’s cool

Huh? She drew what was in the thumbnail tho please explain what you mean. I’m just now seeing that this comment was 1mo ago 💀