Notes: emulate knowledge instead of style (the process instead of the results) - know how it's done - fix what you see as mistakes - copying knowledge is not as sinful as copying style

Style, for one thing, isn't as important as everyone seems to think. Sure, it grabs attention, and is certainly the first thing people see that determines whether they like it or they don't - which is why style is very valuable. It's not when you take other things into account.

Before that, I would like to tell you of something disheartening: people seem to think that they don't have a style, and they must base it off other people's. So they copy, or at least attempt to copy. It does not work. If you do that, you're only second rate to the original artist OR you're just copying from a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy etc. For example: "I would like to try out a Disney/anime/Balto/Kontinasu/Tim Burton/Don Bluth style!"

Style is when you can't help but draw something as it is - it's like your personality wearing clothes. It's how your brain perceives things. The nice little details (like the big eyes, fingers and such) are just tricks and cheats in order to simplify things.

It's also a visual reflection on your perception of the world, your moods, your influences and the amount of artistic exposure you have experienced. This cannot be copied by anyone.

If you want a style, DO NOT copy other people's. You cannot find your own style this way. It's already in you, and it grows as you do as an artist.

And if you want a style, you need to learn principles. Step-by-step lessons to improve yourself.

Let's forget about STYLE for a moment, and ask yourself:

Am I satisfied with my work?
Do I enjoy my drawing?
Do I want to improve myself? Must I make drawing as rewarding as possible?

It doesn't really matter how you answered those, because, accomplished or not, you still have to have skill:

Construction, line of action, silhouette, clear posing, perspective, negative spaces, composition (functionality) and appeal, specific design, shapes (style).

Style is the last thing you need to think about. The frosting on the cake. The buttons on your shirt. The paint on the walls of a house.

Or take it like this: skills are like the walls of a house. If you don't have any, you don't have any walls to paint your house with. People don't start painting the house first before building the walls, right?

Unfortunately, some artists want to paint first. A few do it well, and it all seems very great on the outside. But they never find any satisfaction within their work, even when they try telling themselves that they do.

A few also become one of those (I'm sure you've seen them before) who believe their faults are part of their 'style'. "It's my style, that's how I draw" has become a popular psychological defense for those who are unaware or insecure of their own drawings. No matter how many times you try to tell them of their obvious, blatant mistakes, they will INSIST that you're wrong and that it's their style. They will never fix their faults.

The real world isn't like that. When they go out to strive for an artistic career, they'll have superiors - people who look at millions of portfolios - criticising. And their criticism is ten times harsher than those you get from your peers. But that's another topic.

The point is: if you don't have skills, style is the last thing you should worry about. It's superficial. It's not enough for you to survive.

Here's good advice, from one Katie Rice. I'm sure she says it better than I do:

I almost think that anyone who can tell you what their style is, or openly talks about "developing their style" is in danger of never finding a real style whatsoever. I tend to think that your "style" is similar to your personality- something that grows as you get older and learn more, but that you're born and stuck with none the less. A real artist's style is like a thumbprint...unique and impossible to really recreate. You can copy an eye shape that John invented or a particular Chuck Jones mouth curl or whatever, but you can never master their "style" because you can't absorb what really matters- an artist's personal point of view, their emotions, or their personality. I guess this sounds sort of cheesy, but it's difficult to explain!What John said about learning skill before style is extremely important. People today are far too interested in "expressing themselves" and trying to prove how unique their points of view are to take the time to learn. No one wants to waste time learning how to do something right. In most other professions this is ridiculous. Would you get up onto a stage to sing some song you wrote in front of the whole world if you couldn't play your instrument? If your ideas are so important to you that you want to show them to the world, do yourself a favor and take the time to learn the skill. I can say from personal experience that studying and practicing and eventually getting better is EXTREMELY rewarding. Before working on APC my drawings were REALLY crappy. I had no skills whatsoever, although I talked a lot about construction and perspective and all that. I didn't actually learn anything until I was forced to while doing layouts for John. After the season ended I woke up one morning and realized that something new had clicked- where a year before I could only draw someone standing perfectly straight with no emotion or life, suddenly I was having fun drawing poses that I had previously thought to be too hard. It seemed like almost over night drawing went from being arduous and kind of entertaining to being thrilling and super fun. It's been two years or more since then and I'm only now coming off of that high. I'm in no way saying that I made the leap from amateur to professional- I've only made one tiny step towards being good enough to tell the kinds of jokes and stories I like through art.The thoughts in this post aren't very organized…sorry! There's one more thing I want to say though- I've observed something about the modern world, and that is that it encourages creativity and uniqueness in people than ever before. This is very bad. I learned in school that it was more important to be "unique and creative" than it was to be smart or knowledgeable. Dumb people on MTV or in artsy fartsy magazines who aren't smart or creative tell you what smart and creative stuff to like. I wasn't around until a somewhat short while ago, but I believe in the past people who were meant to be artists simply became them because there wasn't anything else to be. Today there are millions of "creatives" fighting to be the most popular with our dumb modern culture. Ask yourself if you have no choice but to draw funny pictures for a living (for some reason it seems so glamorous to people). If you are reading art/theory blogs like John's and you love the art but aren't helping yourself out by following the advice, then perhaps you ought to look for work in another area. If that makes you mad and you don't want to be thought of as a faker, then take what John says to heart and better yourself. You'll be happier, and the people looking at your work will be happier too!