"Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal" - A Formula for Capturing Your Favorite Artist's Style

Hey everyone,

We all have our favorite artist or inspiration that shows us their particular way to see the world, and sometimes we want to capture the world in this same way too, but understanding other artists' processes is complex. We get attracted by the end result, but we don't always have access to the process behind, thus leading to a big wall of questions. But what if I told you, you don't need to know this process as long as you understand the goal?. 

In today's post, I'll share techniques for studying the work of artists, allowing you to capture some of that magic you admire.

1. Structure of Analysis (Shapes, Colors, Values)

Art pieces are a composition of one or many different art fundamentals like anatomy, perspective, lighting, colors, etc. Artists might have different processes, but the composition is pretty much the same; what might change is the order in which these fundamentals are addressed and the tools the artist uses. That being said, I often approach analysis based on this structure.

1. Shapes: Anatomy, Gesture, Costume, Composition, Perspective.
2. Values: Lighting, Shadow, Volume, Textures.
3. Colors: Saturation, Composition, Balance.

Having a simple structure of analysis in which you can translate what you see will help you dissect the object of study in a more organized way, then you can choose to focus on one aspect at a time. Again, this is the way I often build art, so if you have a different structure, it might be smart to analyze the art you are trying to study from that point of view.

2. Execution

You have chosen the piece you like, and now you want to replicate them using the structure of analysis I just gave to you. Here are some instructions to focus on each.

Shapes:

• Make a quick reading of the piece's composition, searching for one aspect of the shapes to focus on. Why one? This phase might contain the whole backbone of the composition, so it's easier to get overwhelmed by the amount of information. Some things to care about are the number of points of perspective and where they are, message through face expression, body gesture, costume, or props.
• I often recommend turning the piece of art reference to black and white to avoid color distractions, often they are irrelevant during this phase, as the same with values, but it's easier to remove colors than values.
• You can choose to define with red lines essential aspects of the shape on top of the piece or choose to replicate the piece on a different canvas (I recommend this last one), again using line art only and focusing on shape silhouettes or key lines to suggest volume.
• After you cover one aspect like 'face expression' for instance, you can move into the next challenge like 'body anatomy' or 'gesture' and so on, one step at a time.

Values:

• Turn the reference black and white as you should focus on how the light defines forms.
• In a new canvas, draw the same or similar shape of the references in line art as a base.
• Determine how many light sources there are; often, one major source is the protagonist, and there are others as extras. Focus on the main one first.
• Start with a single color tone to fill in the basic shape. Do this on one layer.
• For shadows, pick a different tone. Create a new layer above your base shape layer and set it to 'multiply' blending mode. You will paint your shadows here.
• Use a hard-edged brush to define the shadows projected by the largest light source. Use a soft-edged eraser to achieve smooth surfaces; this will create the illusion of realism.
• Use textured brushes if your goal is to replicate texture with values.

Color:

• Understanding how dark or light the values are will give you a sense of how to capture the saturation and hues. So although you are approaching colors, check the reference you are studying in black and white.
• Once you have covered shapes and values, opt for changing the tone base shapes have as well as the color of the shadows and highlights. You can also paint on top of those layers by creating a new layer and changing the blending mode to 'color'. What you will actually do is assign a color to the values already defined in the previous phase.
• Use 'selective color' and 'hue and saturation' to make adjustments and achieve a similar result.

Your goal is not to make an exact copy of the original art but through this structure, decompose the art into manageable pieces for easy understanding, memorizing key aspects, and then reproducing in different ends.

Conclusion

The value or what you find attractive in the art you admire does not always rely on one single aspect of the structure (shapes, colors, values); sometimes it's about the combination of the three of them, sometimes it's all about the context of the piece and not the technical aspects. What is important to take from this way of analysis is that by dissecting complex compositions into fundamental pieces, you might also find a useful way to understand and thus come up with similar ends.

It is good to take inspiration from other artists, but remember this is a limited version of reality; authenticity, in my opinion, is always better. Think of these kinds of studies like small explorations into other people's minds, but keep your eyes always on your end goal, which is developing your own vision out of reality.

Tomorrow, I'll be sharing the process video of this piece along with the files and insights. They will be available for Mastering Maestro tier and above. Feel free to upgrade if you want more insights about my work.

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