A Process of Style

Disclaimer, this is what worked for me and doesn’t mean it's a universal process. I’ve seen a handful of videos talking about style, but none of them really spoke to me in the way that I would approach it. So anyway this is how I figured out my current art styles.

As cliché as it sounds, it really is the journey that matters not the end goal. I’ve seen my art go places I wouldn’t normally expect (I feel like my range is rather large) and I’ve felt very little satisfaction from seeing them. The little voice in me would tell me, impressing people that’s what matters, right? I couldn’t be more wrong. Some of them were impressive, sure, but I felt nothing for it. I wasn’t excited about my own work and it felt like eons before I could understand why.

High school was when I decided to get more serious about art. I don’t think I have much of my old drawings anymore, but I still have the skills that brought me to where I was at that time. I drew basic photorealistic type animals and still life. I was pretty okay at oil painting and decently good with colored pencils. I brag about it because my parents were willing enough to pay for those classes and I’m grateful for that opportunity. But this was also the time I realized when I had no idea what I wanted from my art so I drew whatever I could to make my portfolio look impressive. It looked like schools wanted something unique from the coming students and I didn’t know how to approach that idea. I didn’t get accepted to many schools at all. Part of me knew why but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. There was nothing in my portfolio that I really felt like was a reflection of what I wanted to do. I don’t think colleges knew where to place me and I understood why.

Skipping ahead to my final years in college. I was beginning to realize that getting an internship was going to be fairly difficult. My portfolio was pretty weak and to add an insult to injury, my cover letter sounded like it was computer generated, it seemed completely lifeless. So I didn’t get disappointed, just tired because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. After college I moved home and drew, even wrote stories here and there. Decided I wanted to get a linguistics major so I could use it to write about cultures. Decided I wanted to get a masters in animation so I could prove to the recruiters that I could do something impressive. But all of it felt like I was simply trying to stay afloat in the middle of an ocean.

I decided to write a story, one that was about someone just like me. It started from a girl, Remi Lee, someone who grew up in a similar environment as me, even looked like me in some ways, but she felt somewhat beyond me. She was confident, feisty, and knew what she wanted in her own life; it felt like she was becoming a glorified version of me so it became difficult to write more about her without getting a little sad about what I wasn’t able to be. There was nothing to tell, she was perfect and I almost hated her for it. I felt little to no satisfaction in the way I drew her and the idea of finishing the drawings was strangely difficult.

Then I decided to create another character, someone flawed, someone a little lost, someone who needed a story to be told, his name was Yuuto Fujimoto. The thing about Yuuto was that I probably would have had little interest in a character like him a year ago. In my mind, he was the perfect protagonist, had lots of friends, was the heir of some exorcist clan, was bilingual, and a bit OP at times. But the more I delved into his character, the more flawed I realized I made him. The reason he had friends was because he needed them to keep him grounded. He was bilingual because of all these huge business meetings he had with Japanese people that were only a little more than strangers but less than family. This also made him chronically anxious because the world was on his shoulders at times. He had his life planned out by the people that raised him and somehow he still had this deep longing for something else.

I realized that I wanted to finish drawing Yuuto because unlike Remi, he was imperfect. I found myself driven and managed to finish a complete character lineup.

We’re not treading complete wilderness these days with the internet and all, that’s why we look to other people for inspiration. There’s nothing wrong with trending a path everyone else has taken. I’ve scrolled plenty through Pinterest and likely contributed way too much time on there. I’ve scrolled through creative FB groups and was determined to post there one day. But I still have the student mindset that I’m not there yet and I’m still learning more.

Soon after I found style inspirations. From the past year of me trying to figure out a “style,” I drew from partly realistic looks to a more animated and simplistic look. Jamie Hewlett and a scissor seven, Chinese donghua.

Let’s look at it from the point of view of a singer, no one is going to know you sing unless you sing. No one is going to know you draw unless you draw. It may not be the same as everyone else, but what helped me figure it out was thinking: what do I want my style to work in? A show? A comic? An illustration? Me being unsure, I did them all. Again, I speak for myself only. Honestly at this point I’m surprised how much I’ve actually done at this point but I feel so much more proud of these works than any of my classworks and projects combined.

This process of mine took time and a lot of introspection. I know this spiel was supposed to be about style, but style for me was also about me having a voice. Honestly I wished someone would ask me the basic question of: what do you want to do? Why do you do art? What makes you excited to make art? And go do it! But do not expect immediate results.

To add on to the “not expecting immediate results,” don’t expect to simply jump off a cliff and survive . It happens in games and movies, sure, but realistically it’s not a pretty fall. I would get very vivid dreams sometimes and I would wake up in a complete daze for the rest of the day. Out of nowhere, during one of those dozy days I had this mindset one day that I would die if I didn’t start running or leaping into my goals. I knew logically it was kind of a dumb thought, but I felt that rush scaring the little me I hid inside. No one benefits from the anxiety of feeling left behind. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging it, in fact please do acknowledge it if you’re anxious.

Set short-term and long-term goals, set schedules, set break times, eat regularly, take long-ass walks. Do basic human things. But if any of those are difficult, seek help, talk to friends, talk to family, talk to a therapist. Not only can you be an artist, but you owe it to yourself to be human.

I’m still learning to this day and I hope that I’ll continue to be proud of the work I’ll do in the future. So if you’re out there still trying to figure yourself out, hang in there. I can’t say it’s been a simple process for me but I'm excited to know that I’m starting to understand what I really value.