#I wasn't even allowed to watch batman tas haha

[cookinguptales]

lmao be nice to me, I never saw sailor moon because we didn't have any of the channels that had it when I was a kid. we lived in the middle of nowhere in southern ohio, okay. I didn't get the good channels until we moved when I was a preteen.

[biteghost]

What did your base your drawing style off of? Cause honestly i get a lot of Batman TAS vibes from it, which is a great vibe, btw!

Hi anon! Thanks for the message - you're right, there is a lot of Bruce Timm's art (and specifically his work on BTAS) in my art DNA. You can also find a lot of various anime/manga series in there, and if you go back far enough you'd see some other cartoons, too!

Now, I hope this doesn't come off as pedantic, but I wanna talk about how you asked this question. Don't worry, it wasn't rude or anything and I'm not trying to call you out specifically. Obviously I understand what you are asking, but I find phrasing it "what did you base your style off of" interesting.

I spoke with a couple of my peers about this, and we've all seen similar things throughout our various time on the internet - and it's getting more frequent. A lot of upcoming artists are looking for advice from professional and established artists online and approaching art and 'success' as a mathematical formula with a correct answer. A correct answer that professional artists aren't giving away - and honestly? How dare they.

(I think part of this is definitely at the fault of social media. Quantifying successful or 'good' art by how many followers, likes, shares, reblogs or retweets is... bad for brains. 'Number go up' doesn't really mean anything, and the sooner you start to ignore those numbers the easier it will be for you and your relationship with your own art.)

I did not 'base' my art or general drawing style off of anything. It was not a conscious decision I made. I didn't watch Batman: The Animated Series as a 13 year old and decided to copy the art style until I could draw the shapes in my sleep. What happened was the art moved me, it resonated with me, and I liked it so much I wanted to draw it. I made a lot of fanart for a cartoon that wasn't even airing on television anymore, and the fanart I made wasn't very good because I hadn't been drawing seriously for very long. My control wasn't good, my lines weren't confident, and my tools were limited (printer paper, black sharpies and colored pencils all the way, baby!) But I didn't care because I loved those characters, I loved that world, and I wanted to express that love and appreciation - even if myself and a few close friends were the only ones who would ever see it.

To be perfectly honest, the art style I tried to replicate as a child (before BTAS, even) was CLAMP's work Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. My oldest sister introduced me to manga when I was 11/12 years old, and I thought the art was so beautiful. I'd never seen anything like it before - the stark black and white, the use of negative space, the VERY BEAUTIFUL characters which stole my heart and captured my imagination (Kurogane, mi amor 💕)... I tried to copy the work I saw in the manga (my volumes are very well-loved from carrying them around school in my backpack), but I hadn't tried consciously to copy what I was looking at before. I hadn't tried drawing seriously before that point. I had never cared that much about something that it made me want to create something of my own, too. But I didn't have the knowledge that CLAMP did. I didn't have the years of inking experience to understand why they did each stroke, and where they allowed their figures to be implied. So try as I might, I never got the style down because I simply did not have enough experience with drawing. Instead, it's how I got comfortable with holding a pencil and drawing with it. It gave me more confidence in myself. I think that's why when I got obsessed with BTAS a short while later, I had a much easier time making bad fanart for it. The style was simpler, and I had gotten a lot of my bad drawings out trying to make fanart for Tsubasa first, haha!

Art style is something that is not real - or not real enough that it should be something you are worried about as a young artist. If you find your 'art style' changes a lot that just means you're learning at a quick rate. It means you are taking in and applying a lot of different things that you see into your own work. That's a good thing! As you continue your artistic journey and gain more experience, your internal library of resources will continue to grow. You will develop the ability to purposefully wield those influences and styles. You will be able to look at art and dissect what you like about it and then apply it into your own work with intent and confidence. You will experiment with this, and you will hone your other skills at the same time. Line work, confident brush strokes, proportions, rendering, color theory, lighting, perspective, depth, confidence in your tools (digital or traditional - or both!) - all of this will be worked on as you experiment, as you learn, as you practice and as you continue to chase your self-expression.

I think when professional artists give the advice of "draw every day" or "keep practicing", younger artists might feel that it's not good advice. It might be a let-down, because they're looking for the mathematical formula to become successful and to get recognition quickly. But art is a skill, like anything else. It takes time to learn, to grow comfortable in, and it's something you never finish learning!!

You have to keep in mind that older artists might have been drawing since before you were born - they have years and years and years of experience. Like, I've been drawing since about 2005, which was 16 years ago! And I get teenagers asking me things like this, and it's like, buddy I've been drawing since before you were alive. I have your entire lifetime over you in terms of experience. It doesn't mean I'm better than you, but there is just a literal gap in terms of time spent experimenting, failing, and learning that you haven't gotten to do yet.

You see an artist's current work, and you have to remember that this is their CURRENT skill level that has been attained after a lifetime of working on their craft. Every piece you make is a stepping stone in your journey, and THAT is why you should draw every day. You should draw what you love. You should draw what interests you. And if you're unsatisfied or feel you can't do justice to the things you're trying to depict - focus on that skill and practice it until you're happy with it.

OC's not as sexy as you think they could be? Go practice anatomy. Read some books, study how the body works and bends. Want to make your comics more dynamic? Go read some comics you think are dynamic or cool and study their layouts, study their framing and posing. Want to make smoother animations, want to try painting backgrounds and sweeping vistas, want to up your coloring game? You gotta go seek out the materials to help you learn. You gotta be willing to read and study in order to hone your craft into what you know it can be!

Your art style is a combination of all your experiments, influences and practice. It's your struggle, it's your joy, it's your triumphs and it's your failures. The things that you like and that bring you joy combine in you to make your unique artistic voice. Don't worry so much about style. Consistency doesn't matter in art. Don't worry so much about how other people got to where they are today. You don't need to be them to be great. Just keep drawing.