This week, there’s been a lot of chatter in a group I’m in about this. ‘This’ being when an illustrator leans on another illustrator’s style too much. At best, it’s mildly annoying, at worst, it’s theft.
[Above: Illustration I did after researching a number of styles - I love clear shapes, scratchy textures and bright colours, so I took what I learned and combined with my own ideas to come up with something unique]
As part of education, I can see how it happens. It’s a part of learning to be able to deconstruct something and put it back together, to be able to analyse and talk about it. However, if you carry on putting it back together and making decisions based on how another artist would do something rather that how YOU would do it, you have a problem. And that problem will eventually bite you on the ass.
If you’re new or finding your feet, or you’ve been asked to take inspiration from another illustrator for a project, here’s a few tips to keep you out of hot water:
RESEARCHING and making mood boards of others work is acceptable as long as you don’t target one illustrator. You should do this with a range of illustrators/styles. This is helpful to see how others have tackled similar themes before you. You should always find at least three different methods from different artists. Using three themes from one artist will just demonstrate how that artist thinks - it won’t inspire you to be unique and develop your own way of thinking, it will show you how they think. This is when researching can turn into copying. See COPYING for why that’s bad.
BORROWING can be helpful, but there are rules. If you like the way someone draws hair, and the way you usually draw hair isn’t going to cut it (maybe you’re on a short-deadline project), you can borrow. Within reason. It’s not a permanent solution to your problem, but hopefully it gives you something to put on your to-do list. The way to do this successfully is to incorporate a new method of drawing hair into your own style - but don’t copy. Use a different brush stroke, or texture, or introduce something extra or take something away. The unsuccessful route would be to also copy the way the same person draws noses, legs, face shapes and textures. Because then you’re just copying their style. See COPYING for why that’s bad.
COPYING will make you a laughing stock and no one will ever trust you are creative enough to come up with your own ideas. If you want to work in copy art 100% of the time, that’s fine. Just remember you can’t advertise what you create on copy jobs as your own ideas, and you can’t create work for new clients in those styles. It’s unethical.
TRACING will ruin your reputation and everyone will remember you as a thief. The only exception is education. If you trace to learn, bin the traced work as soon as you’ve finished learning and don’t ever put it online, unless you tell everyone you traced it and credit the actual illustrator.
If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear them - please leave a comment.