Behind the Scenes: Cyberpunk Food Truck (Patreon)

Every illustration starts with an idea. I talked a lot about the list I'm keeping and updating to have new ideas ready to go anytime. But it's not always like this. Sometimes, it's just a cool thing I see and want to make something similar. As straightforward as it sounds, even for cases like this, I have a process.

Thing is, I'm not always ready to jump onto the next thing, even if I'm heavily struck by inspiration. I might be in the middle of a project, or have something else planned. A lot of times, when for example scrolling through Instagram, anytime I really love something and it sparks a creative inspiration, I trained myself to save it.

It's really easy to do on Instagram, there's a button for it under the posts and you can even organize your saved posts into albums. I call mine "inspiration". Creative, huh. But over time, it accumulated a lot of different works and I can always refer to it, when I struggle with motivation. 

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And having that kind of album also helps with the cooldown period. See, sometimes you might see something and get motivated, but give it a week and the idea might not seem so hot anymore. Also, this isn't a list of ideas to make. This is a list of other people's work that ignited my creativity, but they need to be treated with respect. So no copycat shenanigans.

So they need to sit there for a while, get picked on occasion and go though the same creative process and proofing, that I apply on all my other ideas. There must be a thorough research, it has to comply with my current goals and values and I must be able to come up with a good enough of my own idea to be able to make it distinct and mine. Otherwise, it's a scratch.

This time, I got inspired by this amazing piece of work and immediately wanted to create something. Lately, I locked myself into overhead and isometric cameras and it's been a while, since I made something in perspective and more FPV. Also, it was not far from the Cloud 66 series I made a while back, so I was confident I could come up with a flying cyperpunk thingy and breathe my own style into it.

If you put these next to each other, they don't look like rip-offs. More like they were a part of same design competition, or a challenge. And that should always be the goal, when you feel inspired by something. You need to identify, what is the essence of the work and idea behind it, and then go and do your own research. You might even surpass your original inspiration. But never just use it as is. Apart from obvious moral reasons, it won't feel satisfying. It will never feel as your own, unless you put work into it.

This includes gathering a large set of new references, reading on the topic and style and learning about the genre, getting all the facts. Not only observe, but understand. 

Steal like an artist. (Read this book if you don't know how)

You can watch the process video on Youtube