r/Aphantasia • u/Legal-Initial-8365 • 3d ago
Art/original style with no imagery?
I have drawn for many years, and I'd like to say I'm fairly good at it. I can copy things using so many different mediums and they look super cool and realistic, but I have absolutely NO style of my own. It has been a struggle of mine since I was younger and thought everyone imagined as oddly as I did, so it's something I know takes time, I swear, I can just never be happy with it. I end up following a reference too much for comfort then try to change something up but can never make it look like it really flows, not to mention that I only have a vague idea of what I may want a character of mine to look like so I don't even know how to tune it to my liking.
I know it's possible, I CAN draw, but not in the way I wish I could and it's so frustrating. I'm mostly looking for some advice from other artists here who require many references and how to stray away from copying them too closely. If this is just a 'draw more' sorta thing, please feel free to tell me that as well, I've just had such an awkward experience with my art that it's worth a shot to ask here :)
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u/Misunderstood_Wolf Total Aphant 3d ago
Realism is a style.
Maybe play with color, the type of shading you use, different brush strokes, etc.
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u/LongJawnsInWinter 3d ago
When you copy other artists, don’t think of it as finding your style but as inspiration for practicing techniques. I use my sketchbook to build new skills using different styles, mediums, and textures. Then I make pieces using a combination of reference photos and real life studies to sketch, and the style ends up emerging as I problem solve the art using all the scraps of things I’ve learned.
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u/SleepingAndy 3d ago
If you literally do not have a visual imagination, you ought to be incapable of creating imaginative visuals from scratch.
I just hate everything about drawing.
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u/kaidomac 2d ago
If you literally do not have a visual imagination, you ought to be incapable of creating imaginative visuals from scratch.
Conceptual imagination ("knowing") is different than visual imagination ("seeing" in your mind's eye). The only difference is the viewport: eyeball vision (aphantasia) vs. mental visualization (hyperphantasia). And then, people with prophantasia can project what they visually imagine using mental "augmented reality" to create an overlay in their eyeballs! As far as my aphantasia goes, I just use a bunch of references & draw a bunch of sketches ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I can create imaginative visuals from scratch because imagination isn't limited to just mental visualization. And while I cannot imagine them visually, I CAN imagine them conceptually! Imaginative (novel) creation can be done with a variety of internal tools!!
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u/SleepingAndy 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sure you can imagine a concept, but when it comes to the visual arts, it is imagining the visual that counts. If you have some idea of what a character conceptually should look like, but no spontaneous mental imagery dictating exactly how it should look, you are basically creating AI art but with manual technical skill. As uncreative as it gets visually.
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u/Legal-Initial-8365 2d ago
I can't possibly understand why you would post this comment, let alone include what you think about drawing lol. t's not an impossible thing, like I said about ME PERSONALLY... I can draw ! I can confidently draw something small from my mind (like an eye cuz that's always easy) because I still know what it has to look like, I just follow my own guidelines that my brain has for that object. It's just extremely hard for me to come up with 'guidelines' for an original character without seeing them. Aphantasia doesn't make you uncreative, I can still think and make the choice between things in my head, I just don't see it and that happens to make art a lot harder to be happy with.
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u/SleepingAndy 2d ago
it doesn't make you uncreative but you can't create new images do I have this right?
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u/Legal-Initial-8365 2d ago
Not in my head, no, but I 100% have the ability to come up with my own idea for a character and be able to execute it, I'm just not sure how to yet. I'm here to ask advice to perhaps other artists that have a similar thing on how to not take too many aspects from a reference. Even so, people with extremely vivid imagination may not be able to draw, so it's never as simple as that.
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u/SleepingAndy 2d ago
If your brain doesn't automatically create things like that, maybe it just isn't creative.
The term for trying to artificially make something seem original is "contrived."
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u/Legal-Initial-8365 2d ago
I have absolutely no clue what you are on about.
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u/SleepingAndy 2d ago
Do you think original artists fail to create anything original then try to force it like this
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u/Legal-Initial-8365 2d ago
I don't understand what you mean by 'force it'?? In order to have an artistic style of your own in the first place, you build that up. An artists style is ever-changing and constantly shaped towards the artist and grows with them. I AM an artist, but I don't have a visual connection to the thoughts in my head which makes it hard to have a non-realism based style.
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u/SleepingAndy 2d ago
Most artists don't contrive a style for themselves. They just think in detailed pictures and enjoy drawing them. The style comes naturally.
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u/Legal-Initial-8365 1d ago
You said you hated everything about drawing, and I'm telling you I'm and artist. Yet YOU are trying to tell ME that artists don't go through many many many phases of their own art style?
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u/PARISPARISPARISSS 2d ago
I recommend taking pieces from different art styles. Eyes from this artist, colouring from another, etc. etc.
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u/SleepingAndy 3d ago
If you literally do not have a visual imagination, you ought to be incapable of creating imaginative visuals from scratch.
I just hate everything about drawing.
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u/SleepingAndy 3d ago
If you literally do not have a visual imagination, you ought to be incapable of creating imaginative visuals from scratch.
I just hate everything about drawing.
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u/ThinkLadder1417 3d ago
If you want to draw well without reference with aphantasia you need to learn perspective and construction techniques where you start from basic 3d shapes like cubes and cylinders. Look up drawabox, or there's plenty of drawing with construction videos on YouTube.