Fanart to learn!?

Hi, I've recently been contemplating the decision of whether to collect images from games like wow, kill zone etc. you know, and to draw them either digitally or traditionally and to then paint them digitally, my question to you is, is this a good way of learning, provided I am NOT colour picking and am NOT tracing the image, but recreating it and building it up myself?

Asking this because reading a few Jason Chan interviews and he keeps saying thats how he developed a style, and thats how he practised, on games he played and admired.

Of course once I'm at a level of competency that is acceptable I plan to develop similar characters but not from images but from my imagination and memories and to apply the observations of the characters unique features to different poses and positions.

Sounds like a great idea imo, what are your thoughts, or have you done this yourself?

Have done this myself

In fact, when I have the urge to do fanart, and I sorely lack the knowledge of the character(s) I'm supposed to do, I hunt them images - I consider them as my references (after all, we're not the original creators! So how do we know how to draw the characters like the original creators?) It's better to use them image references rather than blindly draw the character from memory - I've seen how people bastardize characters of their fanart in this manner =.=;; (sorry, but it's true).

Eventually, once I'm familiar with the character's anatomy/facial characteristics, I am able to apply what I've learned from there to drawing my original characters. It's a slow process, but look where it takes me now - I can comfortably draw the poses/facial expressions from memory and imagination, without the need to look up further refs.

Thanks lammy, and thats a place I'd like myself to end up at, being able to draw from reference, and to then learn to draw the characters with my own style!

Cheers.

Sounds like a translation of masterclass to me. I think especially with traditional art they make you copy masterpieces of the masters anyway, for various reasons.

The trick is to eventually develop your own style or at least develop, I've seen too many people that were copying/doing fan art "to practise" and never stop copying or developing past the point of scribbles on notepaper.

But you're not like that are you

Haha, that's the thing. Some people got too engrossed with copying the masters' style that they eventually produce works JUST like the masters' style -sadly, they're not considered true artists, more like imitators - Mass-Producers LOL

But at any rate, we all got to start somewhere. BUT we must then know how to move on from that point

One memorable quote from Leonarda Da Vinci's that stuck to me till this day:
Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.

Cheers

That's real inspirational!

I agree, some people who copy from masters to become imitators. I hope I'm not a victim of that.

But in reply to people learning from masters, I think the idea is to learn from different masters from different genres, surrealism, impressionist, abstract etc. etc. and to take all the pros from each genre, and cons even, and to THEN develop your own style, that sounds like a round about jist of the excercise, but those who copy one genre or style are limited too such. Once again I hope not to be a victim of such.

Every bit of practise helps, so defonatly do that. Copying from the masters is an excellent way to learn....
But I caution you; dont JUST do that. The best best best way to learn is not from someone else drawing.. but from real life. I cant stress that enough. Go to some figure drawing/life drawing groups. Draw from life models.Learn how to translate reality into visual art.

Again, Im not saying studying and learning some tricks from artists you admire isnt a good thing, it is. It really is. Just make sure thats not all you do, because a real person standing in front of you will teach you more about how things work then a drawing.

There's nothing wrong with doing fan art for practice. Even I like doing fan art. However, I don't copy existing images, though i will use them, as reference to make sure I get a given characters' details right. I prefer to come up with my own poses, my own scenes and compositions rather than copying any given picture exactly. Much of my Fan art is Transformers related, and more often than not, instead of using pictures of them for reference, I'll use an actual model of them. Like Eruanna said above, drawing from "life" is better than from an existing piece of art.

Fanart sux, u need more than making fanart to developed a style. Good luck!

I've seen a pretty good amount of really good ones to justify it but the best ones are always ones where you apply some of your own style to it.

For example


or

PIKACHU IPOD CASE! XD I would so use something like that just to piss people off

Popped back in to second the "drawing from life" thing. And don't be afraid to people/critter/machine watch obsessively, it's great for learning about anatomy, movement and how different body shapes effect body mechanics.

= ))) LOL

Haha...Pikachu Ipod case is scary , whereas the 2nd one...doesn't...really...uh, it looks like a cross between a rabbit, a squirrel and a kangaroo pouch thrown in for good measure (understandably, the artist used references)