Finding my art style (Patreon)

'Find my picture style' received the most votes. 

It means we've been struggling with the same worries.

Before I get started, what I want to talk about one thing  is that I have never finished this journey.

I'm sorry if you were expecting something accurate.

But I think there is no right answer to finding own art style.

* here you can see the history of my old art 

I remember that I was really pressured at the beginning of this journey.

I've been thinking, trying a lot about it in the meantime.

As a result, I am now enjoying this trip.

So if it can be of any help, I want to share this story.

When I was very young, 

I never worry about styles when I first painted the picture.

I just painted what I wanted to do.

I used my fingerprints to paint or attached tissue on the paper.

Painted in a variety of materials and different ways.

But after deciding on art as a career,

At some point there was an obsession that I should have my own art style.

Most of my artist friends were having the same troubles, and many of them still worry about it.

I think this is an almost endless problem ...

Famous ART masters of the world have their own unique art styles and themes.

I wanted to be that way, but I did not know how

So... Why did I suddenly feel like this?

I think it started from a competition.

I had to compete with people of my age for the entrance examination of art college.

And now we are competing globally via the Internet.

There are already too many artists in the world.

We even compete with dead artist and technology.

I saw an article about Illustrator job that could be gone soon.

the stock image site gets bigger and there are already great apps to converting photo to illust you know.

Recently, I have seen a program that can created illustrations with various animated art style. 

Because of this, I have been very stressed for a long time.

I began to compare with others, and other artist seemed to be much better than me.

My paintings seemed nothing..

At this time I was advised by my art teachers to copy people who were completely different in their art style.

I remember copying Frank Miller's Sin City.

Frankly, I do not know if this has helped  much.

But I did not know what to do, I tried to solve the anxiety by drawing and drawing again.

In the other hand, the most helpful advice that I received was that seeing various work.

It surely helped to know what i like, what I do well, what I interested.

And one book I saw at the library.

Original book title was 'Die Perfektionierer'  by  Klaus Werle.

It is a German philosophy book, but I can not find an English version.

Maybe there is no English translation;; 

Anyway the Korean title was 'Trap of perfectionist' 

I think there are another similar books about perfectionist.

To summarize this book, it is just same as a title.

Abandon perfectionism and study own strengths.

If you try to do well what you can not do for perfection, you becomes ordinary with others.

It is said that the only way to improve own competitiveness is to do what you do well.

At that time I was struggling to fix my weakness.

I even thought of my strengths as a disadvantage.

For example, I actually thought 'Cute drawing' was my drawback.

My paintings were influenced by Disney animations and Japanese anime like Pokemon, and other mass media.

I like to draw cute things, but it also was my complex.

I wanted something that my paintings did not have, like Perspective, cool mechanic, sexy characters.  

Even I tried to draw some kind of erotic illust, but it looked like still cute to others.

But now I realized that this is my strength and I am happy with my drawing.

This is my art strengths that I have analyzed myself.

• Color
• Texture
• Shape
• Peaceful atmosphere
• Cute styles

I had written a lot more my weak points at that time.

Well, It's been a long time I did not think about my shortcomings.

Because since then, I decided to do thinking about what I do well.

Anyway my style has changed a bit since then ...

From that time on, there was reason and purpose.

1. Colors and patterns

I liked colors... 

So I used a lot of colors.

And I liked to decorate the painting with geometric patterns.

One day I heard one advice from my mentor.

What makes a rose flower more special than leaves?

That's because the only roses are a brilliant red color.

But in your painting, it feels like both flowers and leaves are telling everyone to see me. 

Your' painting is very colorful but it also means people did not know where to look.

I  can feel you love both roses and leaves, but is that what you intended?

So I started to moderate the use of color.

I did not think about focal points before 2015.

My art style was quite complicated because of patterns. There are a lot of patterns everywhere.

But now I do not draw this complex pattern and fur details.

In fact, It's not easy to keep this balance because it was a habit for years.

I still painted all the details and then erased them again and again.. you can see this in my past WIP.

2. As required

I used to paint character's eyes very big and complicated

I think the big eyes are very cute.

The reason I made character's eyes smaller was when I started to made the product and drawing many characters in one pictures.

In this case, many character 's big and complicated eyes tend to look a bit scary to people. 

As you know, I also do the line works on sticker packs and comics. 

• work time reduction
• legibility
• capacity problem. (in sticker pack)

In this way, I am changing my drawing way as needed.

I'm continuing to study this part.

I feel comfortable my styles now.

But maybe this will continue to change in the future.

If you ask me if you are satisfied with my style ...

My answer is half and half. 

My art have my own characteristics.

You can find my work among a thousand artworks.

But if there are 10000,000 illust ...?

Honestly, I'm not sure if you can find my picture.

Fortunately, there are not 10000,000 artists around the world who drawing the cory catfish or shrimp. 😂

I think It's not just the art style that makes my work special.

Of course, it would be great if I could draw cory catfish in a unique style that nobody could follow of me all over the world.

But now what I want most is not the unique style. (still want, but not the no.1)

I wanted to have good painting skills and unique styles before.

Now I want to do some meaningful art.

Beyond simply a nice and well-painted picture...

It is a work with a message that the artist thinks.

Hope people think like

'I'm scared of fish, but now I feel more comfortable.'

'Shrimp can be cute'

'I like marine life more since saw your art'

'I knew for the first time that there was a sea slug.

Something like this I want to paint a picture of my heart.

I am keep thinking about how to draw effectively for that purpose.

Depending on this need I will continue to study and my style can change.

And because I continue to strengthen my strengths

After all, I think my artstyle will become special too.

So my journey will continue.

Thanks for reading!