How do you come up with unique drawings?
Have you ever wanted to come up with a drawing that was completely unique, but weren’t sure how?
Here’s my BIG SECRET.
I almost always use reference photos.
You really can create unique drawings from reference photos in just 3 easy steps, and that is what I am going to teach you today.
I am going to be showing you a real example of my work, alongside the references I used.
If you’re new here, hello!
My name is Leah, and I am a young artist studying character design with dreams of being a professional someday.
I have a goal of drawing illustrations in both comic books and children’s books and making my artwork for a living.
Today, I am so excited to share with you some of the knowledge I have gained over the years and talk about reference photos as a means of learning to create art!
I will also be answering the age-old question, Is it okay to copy reference images for drawing?
Step One: Pick THREE reference photos
For this first step, we are going to pick 3 reference photos from Pinterest.
I have put together a MASSIVE COLLECTION of reference photos on my Pinterest page, so if you ever need inspiration for your artwork be sure to follow me over there. (Click this link to check it out!)
If you are learning alongside me today, pause and go pick out 3 reference photos!
Don’t look for anything specific initially, just pick 3 photos you like.
Here is the first reference I picked:
Pernille Orum is my favorite artist, so I have a lot of her work pinned on Pinterest.
She uses some really great color palettes, and green is my favorite color, so I really like this image.
I didn’t stick strictly to these exact colors, but I did use them for reference.
The next image I selected was this one:
Honestly, I am not sure who this woman is, but she is beautiful, and I liked the composition of this image.
What I took from this image were her pose, the look on her face, and her clothing style.
Lastly, I chose my character’s hair and skin tone from the image below:
I’ve always really liked the movie Anastasia and thought that her hairstyle and coloration would fit my character well.
I like the way her bangs look, and I felt like the coloration of her skin, eyes, and hair, as well as her hairstyle, fit the feel of my character.
Step Two: Select unique elements from each that you enjoy
Once I had my reference photos picked out, I started sketching!
You want to select different things from each photo that you like.
As I talked about in Step One, I picked an overall color palette from one, style and skin/eye coloration from another, and, pose and clothing reference from another.
By using multiple references instead of just one, you can create something totally new and unique!
Step Three: Put them together
Finally, let’s see how I put my references together to make a unique piece of artwork:
By looking at all the images below together, you can get a really good feel for how I used these references to draw my final image.
And there you have it!
This is a super simple way to create amazing characters and scenes and come up with drawings you may have never thought to create before.
References can be such a great way to learn and grow your art skills, and I highly recommend learning from using them.
Is it okay to use reference photos for art?
This is something that a lot of beginner artists (as well as some that have been doing art for a while) ask.
Is it okay to use reference photos?
The short answer is: Yes.
I believe that the only way for us to learn how to draw is to use a reference.
Whether this is a live model or a photograph.
My recent illustration of Cara Dune from the Star Wars series, the Mandalorian.
The illustration above, Cara Dune from the Mandalorian, is one example of a drawing I did from a reference.
Reference images are important for studying perspective, anatomy, proportion, color variations, and so much more.
The artist Sam Yang (Samdoesarts on YouTube) has said it this way, that we are constantly adding to our mental library.
When you are starting out drawing, you don’t have anything to go off of. You need some help figuring out what to draw and how to draw it.
But as you learn and grow as an artist, you store up information about the drawings you have created as well as information about the art that you have studied.
You can learn so much from using reference photos for drawing and I, like many other artists, almost ALWAYS use a reference photo (or 3 like the example above) when drawing.
Reference Drawing Tutorial on YouTube
If you enjoyed this tutorial, be sure to check out my drawing from a reference video tutorial here on YouTube!
This video is different from what was taught today because it goes over using direct references and also how to use references for poses.
DISCLAIMER:
Also, I feel like I have to say this though I want it to be obvious:
I do not, have not, and will not ever use AI software to create images.
The drawing I created in this tutorial was done by hand by me on my iPad using Procreate software.
I DO create all of my own artwork and have been drawing since I was a little kid.
I also went to college for art and drawing.
If you’re interested in seeing the full process for this picture, you can watch this reel on my Instagram page!
Thank you for reading this article today!
I hope you learned some valuable skills for creating amazing drawings using reference images.
Keep drawing!
Read this next: How to Draw Beautiful Mermaids
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