#i have no idea how to fucking do a readmore on asks asjdhksjahdksd lol

[loseranthems]

do you do your art using a photo reference? like you paint from a photo/screenshot?

hey! someone asked me this hella months ago so i’m gunna copy/paste what i wrote back then as a jump off point and then build on that if ya don’t mind, so:

 “oh theres fucking definitely references for clothing/guns/settings for sure. tho probably not in the way you think. lol like im gunna be sittin there eyeballin’ where certain buildings are and the GPS coordinates of how they relate to each other in a made-up city […] :-P LOL. its much like painting from real life though, use certain images for references for how lighting hits shit, use other niche ref photos for how made-up guns […] look, for example. like a… digital plein air. you gotta use shit to stay true, but then mentally lump all that knowledge together under your own version of a story, and voila. set your scene, insert characters, mentally storyboard where they’re gunna be within the “shot”, how they portray shit, then you’re good. esp when you try and be ””cinematic”” about art, you gotta be precise with framing, how postures and poses tell a story, etc.     anyway this is probably very longwinded for what you meant, but hopefully that helps! please god dont ever be afraid to use refs. jeez, yeah, have it open on a new monitor and cross ref for cloth folds, cross ref for hotel signs and technical details. (example: how light hits dull metal or whatever) just use your mind to tell your own story with the organic stuff. if that makes sense lol so… build a visual library, cross reference that shit to amalgamate your final ‘scene’ i guess. at least thats how i do it (or have been, lately. oh god lord knows ive been trying)”————————-

so, that’s what i had months ago. and i still stand by it 100%. but, to reiterate and build on that, i do need to disclaim that i haven’t drawn fucking jack shit in months so take it as an archived blurb of advice that stands most strongly against art i was making months ago. as an addendum to what i feel towards the subject now? go crazy. fuck the rules and draw with refs, no one in the lord’s year of 2017 is a modern-day michelangelo. we aren’t creating in stucco houses in tuscany with large open windows and giving our whole lives to perfect art. we have the internet, we have like a gazillion people willing to give us feedback on a whim (like you are now!) and primarily;

we aren’t creating in a vacuum anymore.

there’s no such thing as puritanical creation in the age of the internet. even well-off yacht owners with 60k to spend on atelier educations occasionally inspire and are inspired by others numerous times a day. this shit is all connected, no one creates without referencing experiences or other content. hell, even other artists.

so fuck yes to refs, use it for shadows, for how light hits a linen curtain. for how someone’s thigh muscles expand against a car seat. use refs for framing, watch old foreign cinema to look at how cinematographers (a form of an artist imo) frame people in motion, how the rule of thirds pushes dynamics through negative space, etc. use refs found online, shoot your own, use it to bolster your own knowledge and push your creations further. and honestly if anyone says they do otherwise they either a) have a yacht and sailed it on their gap year b) are straight up lying to look cool and have 187k in debt from calarts & are spending another 18k on wifi for their cave. also im gunna assume this ask was about how i use refs, so i answered as such. if this was some lowkey shade throwing please visit me on the burlington skyway near niagara and we can fisticuff