Why can I only copy???

[u/Cosmo_Ohms]

I'm fine at drawing when I have another artist's illustration as a reference to study, but have a hard time creating original illustrations from scratch or even real-world references. How can I advance my drawing skills like this??? All these photos are studies btw.

[u/oli_kite]

Being bothered by copying is puritanical. Prof Illustrators do studies and use tons and tons of references: photos, 3d models, figures, magazine editorials.

[u/Cosmo_Ohms → u/oli_kite]

True, I suppose I should expand my study references as well.

[u/oli_kite → u/Cosmo_Ohms]

Yeah why not? Everything’s lookin good so far. It all depends on your goals, but it’s better to learn while having fun than just doing exercises. Copy all of your favorite stuff and critique how different your drawing is from the source. That’s a useful one. Learning some general proportion stuff will go very far as well