In this entry I want to talk about using reference images for creating original illustration. The lines are a little blurred for creating artwork when heavily inspired by other creators, I guess. However, I believe that using references is a great way of practicing, learning, and improving… And there’re many ways to reference real life using photos to create fantasy or whimsical art (my favorite!)
Personally, even when I was in school and the task was to copy images or other people’s art, I always felt the need to create something original or different. The concept phase and sketching is where all the fun happens for me and exploring the real world for fantasy storytelling or whimsical, magical art is a big part of my process.
In the watercolor piece I’m sharing here, I wanted to draw a firefox. Foxes are so beautiful! They have been a common theme for my drawings and paintings for some time now (I think I should upload them in the blog sometime but you can see some of that in my Instagram).
Found pretty good images using our old friend Google and some of them where pretty images from Unsplash (specific reference I used here). Since copyright and fair use is a gray area, I’d suggest trying to use references from sources where the license is free to do (almost) whatever you want. More so if the final product can be compared to the source material and the resemblance is obvious. Depending on the reason for using a reference, if you’re going to share the work online, if you want to sell it, etc. you can be less or more rigid on reference choices.
Another thing I like to do is combine references. Even if I don’t have the fire images I used as reference handy, the images I used were photos and watercolor paintings. With no clue on how I would execute my idea, I just knew I wanted a firey fox. Once my sketch was ready, I had to see how fire behaves, how other artists translate it to watercolor, and how I could make it look “somewhat real” in a fox.
I’m fairly happy with the result and up to the next!
