When does a "style" become a crutch?

[UrMom]

At the same time, I've seen unsolisited critics tell young artists they shouldn't draw or develop a style until they've mastered life drawing

You know what's really dumb about people who say this? Life drawing is a method for improving, a resource, not a base (realism) or a style. Like, yeah, life drawing is a REALLY good way to improve anatomy/lighting/perspective but you don't need to give up the style you're trying to develop to do it. Also you'll never master drawing from life because there's sooooo much to learn, visual art is an endless journey, even the renaissance greats weren't really "masters", they just had a lot of experience, practice and passion.

[VermillionWorks]

I told myself there was no point in trying to realize my big, fantastical, graphic novel idea until I had the most developed skillset possible. I put off drawing what I really wanted for a very long time because of this, and all it did was make me feel depressed.

Which is exactly why I never really listened to someone who told me to "completely stop drawing what you want to draw and only draw this". I'd almost rather suck than have to go years without drawing the thing currently on my mind, that would've made me soooo bummed out. >.<

Plus yeah, you can still improve while drawing the things you love, even if they're something with a way simpler style, it just helps a lot more to practice more realistic things with it, too; less likely to have your style stagnate.

[NickRowler]

In my honest opinion, some one should not say "Its not wrong, its just my style" unless they are a paid professional artist. If you are new to drawing, you are still developing thus your "personal style" has room to change. Newbies have to be open to experimentation with style.

I feel like style becomes a crutch when the artist is unable to deviate from said style. Like being unable to draw over weight people because the artist only draws super skinny people. Or unable to make a 35 year old look different than a 15 year old because that artist only draws teenagers. Or the characters faces don't emote right because the artist is so dead set on giving their characters large glassy anime eyes.

[LCT_m_a_d]

When I think of style, I think of method of execution. I'd imagine a style becomes a crutch when you rely solely on it to solve other problems.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad to compensate your weaknesses with your strengths. Crutches aren't really a bad thing. They're temporarily useful. And at the highest levels, it'll be your ability to come up with micro crutches (where others give up) to give your work a slight edge. Don't be afraid to add some effect to cover up a challenging spot. Embrace your ability to get things done. Then go back and learn "what's the most fundamental practice for this task".

[mechafeedalert]

If you can't walk properly, but need to walk across from point A to point B, then use your crutch or wheelchair if you must. Heck there's this thing called hoverboard, it looks retarded but it has this gyro-thing that helps stabilize your lazy a**. Or there's this thing called VR, lets you do everything in a virtual 3D world and lets you reach the imaginary point B, C and beyond while walking in circle in real life. Doing nothing but it felt like you're doing something.

Trolling aside I think for simplified style it doesn't really need to be criticized as much since it should be given that the artist isn't trying to impress you with anatomically correct figure or anything like that. Just simple story with simple storyline. I even thing more people should stick with simplified style corresponding with their current drawing ability.

For realistic or semi-realistic style however my visual sense will be pushed on so many wrong buttons whenever I see bad arts. If that style is their goal, like that is what they what to portray to their readers, then they should learn an anatomy lesson or two. Appreciate that someone even cared to tell you of what you need to improve on.

Then again I've seen so many bad art critics out there. They'll say the shoulder looks off, that one hand is a bit longer and so on while the core issue is at more fundamental level. The artist clearly doesn't know his anatomy telling him to fix that arm or that leg or whatever is just treating the symptom, not the illness.
Even worse for action poses, sometimes the critics can't even do proper gesture drawings. Imagine you're the artist and you get all of this advices coming, how would you separate the good ones and the bad ones when you're still clueless on what's what?

[YangKoete]

I recall being told;"Just jump into making comics, you'll improve as you go", and I certainly have.

With all the poses and things like that that are different from just facing towards the viewer, hands hidden behind back, there's a lot more.

Running, Jumping, Looking in different locations, heck even just the body turned at an angle is something to practice with but use it as a reference for improving.

Don't just say;"It's my style". Say;"It's how I draw currently and I want to get better at it".

[UbePie]

I think that it might be that people that use this excuse don't exactly understand style.
For me my 'signature style' is my preferred way of drawing. It is the type of drawing I do for fun, that express what I like and who I am. I developed this style after going through many phases, and yes one of those phases is the realistic fundamental phase. Picasso didn't start of doing cubism, he developed that style after learning and producing traditional art.
Style is a crutch when you are not willing to learn and improve and step outside your box. How are you suppose to find yourself and your style if you haven't tried anything outside of what you are drawing and/or currently doing?

[AlkseeyaKC]

I knew someone in art college that would use the "It's my style" card for any feedback. I thought it was stupid. Sure it may be your style, but if no one likes your style, then you are not going to get far in the art world if you don't try to improve your work. Just my 2 cents on this. =3

[lunaartemisasama]

Mmmmm I do like naif art,but I think people realize when you just don't know how to draw and when you develop your own style. And I really loved "Persepolis" comic.

Anyway I think it's up to the artists to decide if they want to keep mastering their drawing skils until they develop unique forms of expression that satisfies them. Who knows? People have different drawing styles or different periods with differente art styles.
Some works with non realisitIc styles that I like are ...

[scythe]

I think it only becomes a crutch if the artist actually wants to be able to draw something in proportion, but can't.

My whole approach to my art is a kind of crutch, but I don't care. Meaning, I'm sure if I spent my days striving to get better and better, I would, but to what end? I'm not trying to become a comic artist. All I want to do is tell my story.

[erma]

I had a similar experience to that in the first year of art school, and in doing that those people did not improve very much and developed attitudes that a lot of instructors did not want to deal with.

[AlkseeyaKC]

Yeah, It was a big do not say thing in my art college. The professors would start to ignore those students and focus on the ones that wanted to get better.

[kentatas]

If you can't walk properly, but need to walk across from point A to point B, then use your crutch or wheelchair if you must. Heck there's this thing called hoverboard, it looks retarded but it has this gyro-thing that helps stabilize your lazy a**. Or there's this thing called VR, lets you do everything in a virtual 3D world and lets you reach the imaginary point B, C and beyond while walking in circle in real life. Doing nothing but it felt like you're doing something.

Trolling aside I think for simplified style it doesn't really need to be criticized as much since it should be given that the artist isn't trying to impress you with anatomically correct figure or anything like that. Just simple story with simple storyline. I even thing more people should stick with simplified style corresponding with their current drawing ability.

For realistic or semi-realistic style however my visual sense will be pushed on so many wrong buttons whenever I see bad arts. If that style is their goal, like that is what they what to portray to their readers, then they should learn an anatomy lesson or two. Appreciate that someone even cared to tell you of what you need to improve on.

Then again I've seen so many bad art critics out there. They'll say the shoulder looks off, that one hand is a bit longer and so on while the core issue is at more fundamental level. The artist clearly doesn't know his anatomy telling him to fix that arm or that leg or whatever is just treating the symptom, not the illness.
Even worse for action poses, sometimes the critics can't even do proper gesture drawings. Imagine you're the artist and you get all of this advices coming, how would you separate the good ones and the bad ones when you're still clueless on what's what?

Are you saying about the reality via the unreal things?

[queenue]

A style is definitely a crutch when you never bothered to learn the fundamentals or do any life drawing. You have to know the rules in order to break or bend them. The reason people point out these mistakes are because they look off, or ugly, or tread into uncanny valley territory. Nobody goes to professional illustrators and tell them they draw heads too small and it's "not anatomically correct." Believe it or not, we understand the concept of style and can see when something is stylized. It's not that we "don't understand your style," it's that you're drawing something wrong and it's lowering the quality of your work. Making it look awkward, uncanny, stilted, or just unpleasant. Even with a simple style like say... Adventure Time, those characters still abide by the basic anatomy and proportion rules. The shapes and proportions they use in their character design are derived from real life, distilled to a more basic and easily digestible form.

So I think a style becomes a crutch when it's distracting. Like, using a harsh, erratic dirty texture on all of your panels which distracts from the scene and makes everything look muddled. Same goes with anatomy stuff. Your uncanny sausage fingers are distracting! A style isn't merely an excuse to throw realism out the window; it's a simpler/clarified depiction of the real world which is supposed to be easy and pleasant to look at.

[IdiotWithPencil]

the moment when someone tells you that something is off and your only response is "that's just my style" that's when your style becomes a crutch

[DiegoPalacios]

cool! i also enjoy "macanudo" and "en dosis diarias".
i`m surprised to find someone who knows them in this forum

[lunaartemisasama]

I suppose it's the latin background? Anyway, Mott and Liniers are really popular ( at least between 20, 30, 40 something...). There's a time when people start to like more types of art I suppose.

[Rage_The_Dragoon]

I think a lot of it has to do with "consistency" instead of realism.
If you're going for a "style" that would have aspects that aren't anatomically correct, I'll only be ok with it if I can clearly see it's been adapted in everything the artists draws. things should still make sense on a fundamental level.

A bit of an extreme example but...

If I had a super detailed realistic style but all my characters had triangles for feet because I don't know how to draw them, then there's no consistency in my style. however if my characters are made up out of angular shapes entirely it becomes a different story.

[catluckey]

Criticism versus learning. I've received positive and negative criticism. Deal is, right now, I'm too old for all that "noise". I don't even ask for it anymore, unless it's on my comic...like dealing with panels, dialog bubbles, story flow, and character interaction.

No artist is perfect...BUT...continuing to learn, draw, practice from real life, pictures and/or another artist is key to advance that gray matter within our skull.

I'm more into semi-realism and a bit of the anime look. But I know I need to grow in action and difficult poses which a person does every day! I'm learning from photo references, real life drawing, and other artists.

[dawgofdawgness]

My rule of thumb (that probably doesn't work)
is if someone learns from anatomy or from another person's art. That's how people start developing the habit of saying that their humans look wonky because of their style...
Learn the rules before you break them, it never works the other way around....