Speaking as a person who has aphantasia, which is the no-mental-images thing, 2d references can be really helpful in terms of giving an image to work with -- I have ideas in my brain but they tend to be nebulous, like "three owls clumped together on a branch" (with no info on colors or textures or anything), and my owls look more owly if I get a few photos of owls for visual info. But I then struggle with how much detail to include; there are artists that can draw photorealistic stuff but I'm not one (and if I were, there's very little point to copying an existing piece) but also I'm perfectionist and struggle with the need to include everything -- even when I know that e.g. a suggestion of fur looks better than drawing every individual strand...
I struggle with the same thing! Including perfectionism & not knowing what to leave out. Though I am trying to make my work realistic. I do portraits of my favorite characters from a fantasy rpg
i love using references they help me see what i should change about my art to look better also same with the anatomy and color of the character im drawing theres no cheating in art unless you're using ai "art" or calling someone else's art "yours" even pro artists use references and sometimes even references can help you with artblock
