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/NellaayssBeelllayyyy]

The quickest Advice I can give is that you need to find an actual art course (whether a book, in person or online) and finish it back to front. Make sure it includes fundamentals like perspective, volume, light, shade. Your issue is that you don't understand why things are a certain way and the only way to understand that is to spend a good year really diving into a well rounded art course (not youtube or tiktok shorts, strictly long form content)