Find my own style

[DJJ-asshole]

I know it's not something as easy as to give an answer in one simple post.

But I'm in this art school where I get constant critique. It's about me not having an own style.
I'm confused right now. I used to just do my own thing, even if I don't make a lot of progress, I've got something to base on. I know each time I send a new Flash, I get better by a bit.

Now, in my new school, the teachers expect us to do something unconventional, something unique that only you would do. Not the kind of thing you see online, or on television.

I'm totally confused, I don't know what's good or bad anymore.
I just keep getting the same comment, that I don't draw fluent enough.

I heard of people in my class who has experienced the same: they drew live people in order to notice pecularities. Doing that, they develop their style a little by little.

Of course, they're probably right, but I don't have time for that. Each task I have is a little something that counts as the final results of my year. Also, being demotivated each time doesn't help. Now, it's like I'm drawing for someone else, not for myself. And even if people were to tell me "do your own thing", I don't know how to do it anymore. It feels like a pain to draw now.

So, help out a fellow artist, with something you personally experienced. Or else I'm going berserk.

PS.: Thomas, if you are reading this: fuck that Evil One. =')

[Havegum]

I would really like to see some comments on this as I'm interested in knowing how other people developed their styles, please bring it up in the lounge!

Unfortunately, I don't know how to develop a style of my own. At the moment, I just study the works of my favorite artists and try to draw in a similar way of them.
I think maybe style is the result of impressions and previous experience of drawing those impressions?

Either way, bring it up in the lounge, it's a good question!

[Daverom]

The best advice I can give is advice that was given to me.
People put way to much stress on having their own style when style is such a loose term.
Simply drawing a circle can be your own style, as no one else draws circles the way you do, that's how YOU draw circles.

Just draw, limiting yourself to a style is just that, limiting yourself, the way you should form a style if at all is to find shortcuts to drawing, be it hands, feet, what have you, not because you decide that you want your stuff to be a certain way. Last year I went through so many styles, to many to count, because I thought that's what I was supposed to do, I learned a lot from that, but I also didn't like how my stuff looked. So instead of having a style all my own, I just drew, and I drew and I learned, and evolved my own style from my own little shortcuts.

[BlackmarketKraig]

All you need to do is art. Crit is important and you should learn from it, but no one can tell you how to develop your own style, that (should) just come naturally as you improve.

In other news: ..::hint::..

Also, we can possibly help you, but you need to post some art here in the art forum.... so do that if you make a new thread or ask about it in the lounge.

Thanks, and have a beautiful day. =]