Dec 2021
1 / 11
Dec 2021
Jan 2022
Klaustasya
Dec '21

Hello there.
As the question above, i opened this thread because i'm curious about the process to develop a new artsyle.
I think i need to clarify that i'm not trying to "find" my artstyle, i already have a well-defined one i think, but it would be fun to draw in a different way sometimes! :smiley:
I don't know if there is an actual process to develop/create an artstyle (youtube was not mucj helpful lol) so i thought about asking here :3
Thanks in advance for the kind replies :blush:

  • created

    Dec '21

  • last reply

    Jan '22
  • 10

    replies

  • 498

    views

  • 11

    users

  • 17

    likes

CarltonIsaac
Dec '21

I trained my weaker left hand to have a whole other art style.

Maybe that could work for you too.

Cheers!

darthmongoose
Dec '21

I usually start by collecting examples of the sort of style I'm aiming for and look for what the key touchstones of the style will be, like the general proportions, colour palette, line style and rendering.

Then I try doing some tests, just general doodles to get me used to drawing that way.

Then I'll start drawing up the characters or whatever. The first few will usually require some rounds of changes as I get used to what works with the proportions, detail level and palette.

So as an example of me working in a different style from my comic, here are some of the tokens I made for playing and streaming Dungeons & Dragons on Roll20:

mytokens.png862x472 281 KB

Key things I wanted for these were:

  • I need to make a lot of these for running a game, so they can't be too complex to draw or colour.
  • You'll mostly see them zoomed out a lot, so simple, uncluttered character designs with clean shapes and big poses and exaggerated weapons, props and armour so you can tell at a glance what each token represents and get a lot of information about their personality or role.
  • Strong colours that stand out well, but muted enough to fit the Fantasy aesthetic.
  • They look fun to match the often humorous tone of my Dungeon Mastering. If I wanted serious tokens, I'd just buy some, after all :sweat_02:

So the style mostly uses warm, bright colours with lots of rich browns and each character with a one or two bright accent or theme colours. Cartoon proportions and dot eyes, big heads simple limbs and bodies without too much definintion. Line weight isn't completely uniform, but definitely not as varied as my larger scale work.

Legendofgenii
Dec '21

I love these! :heart:

BLTX
Dec '21

I developed an art style when I was 12 (and was a horrible drawer) really came back to it when I was 18, and saw it evolve into something VERY different. With not much thought into the details, or what I wanted. Most of it is just, okay I made this, that's my style.

Self Drawing.png708x1994 130 KB

A DRAWING OF ME.
image.png459x551 320 KB

WHICH FOR REFERANCE I LOOK LIKE THIS

One thing I do try to do when it comes to real people is capturing the feel of their face, which for me was easy, but for other people I still need practice.

aqua03Party Planner
Dec '21
darthmongoose

I like the little yellow dragon guy in armor at the bottom. He seems like a good guy to have around for a friend.

Swamp
Dec '21

I think just knowing what you want to go for helps. There's the good old "let's draw in the style of a specific show/artist/comic", but you can also set general goals.
"I want a more simple, expressive style" try to break characters into exaggerated shapes, get more comfortable breaking the rules of anatomy, and pay attention to how other authors do it.
"I want a more realistic, classical style" Do some life and classical studies and start thinking about how you could bring more of those rules and feelings into your art
Like... more than an artstyle, what do you want it for? A simpler style for quick comics? A surrealist or painterly style for covers? A cuter style? A scarier style? A weirder style?

GesuGesu
Dec '21

My art style changes literally by the roughness of the pen I use, the saturation/contrast, and the thickness of my pen. It also helps that I either draw a shoujo manga style for one series or just furries.

DokiDokiTsuna
Dec '21

Developing new artstyles is practically a hobby of its own for me. ^^ There are few ways I like to start when I need a new one:

1. Come up with a new eye design first
A great place to start if you're working on anime art-- eye design is often the main difference between anime styles. But just in general, the eyes tend to inform the rest of the art style as it develops, at least for me. Simple begets simple; sharp begets sharp; high contrast begets high contrast.
For example, compare this:

rwbs.png729x1121 31.5 KB

to this:
371.png1215x1159 37.7 KB

Or, compare this:
eld.png1459x1107 29.5 KB

to this;
yukimeri2.png804x1212 26.8 KB

2. Copy something you like
Most of my art styles are cobbled together from things I've seen. Lots of people have pointed out the clear GAINAX/PSG influence in the first two styles, and I try to copy TRIGGER's coloring when I want something that looks really bold and lively:

disaster.png1239x1176 48 KB

And this style, which I only used once, was something I came up with after looking at Xenogears art:
bluechan.png805x1397 184 KB

3. Do the opposite of what you usually do
If you usually draw angular figures, try rounded ones. If you usually do cel-shading, try a softer coloring style. If you usually work with bright, contrasting colors, try something more muted and monochromatic.
Or if you usually go for realistic styles where everyone looks like a reasonable facsimile of a real human being, try something more abstract where you can exaggerate their features and play with shape language when designing their bodies. You can generate a lot of ideas this way. ^^

rajillustration
Dec '21

One of the best ways to shift your style is put on new restraints. so doing something that is flats instead of rendered, doing linework with a different size of brush, doing art with no linework, only having a certain number of colors--it's a fun way to expirement.

Another way is to study other art styles that are really established to kind of add em to your visual library of what shapes work well together. A lot of those styles became mainstream because they were so editorial and pleasing to the eye, so breaking them down helps impliment it in other ways.

1 month later

closed Jan 7, '22

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.