Talking about the challenge & my experience with it.
Just in case you don’t know this already; whenever there’s a fun, appealing art challenge I take it.
I love challenging myself and my art, it helps you improve and it’s also a good way to engage with the community and – sometimes – gain following.
The theme for this week’s post is the “draw this in your style” challenge. You probably have seen it all around before, haven’t you?
In this post I want to talk a bit about it; why is such a trend between artists, it’s pros and cons and also show some of my entries so far.
ABOUT THE CHALLENGE
I tried to find out who or when exactly it started before but – wherever that is – it’s buried deep on the internet. If you know for sure, let me know in the comments!
All I know it’s that it started somewhere in 2018, I think it was first on Twitter and then it moved out to Instagram.
(Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong or give me more information if you have some!)
In case you’ve been living under a rock – cause there’s no other possible way for you not to know about this challenge – it’s about recreating someone’s drawing/illustration in your own style hence the name Draw this in your style…
@meemomori
The funny thing about this challenge so far, it’s that its popularity hasn’t decreased yet though it’s been about a year, it had its up and downs, though.
Usually, these trends come and go and don’t last for long…
But it’s been 2 years and it seems it’s here to stay.
I first saw the small-medium accounts start it, and it was like that for the first half a year. Then, one by one, the artist with quite a following started doing it, and you know how it goes, now everyone is doing it!
Some people are even doing 2nd and 3rd events, to celebrate milestones or just seasonally.
PROS & CONS
Well – as everything in this life – I feel like there’s a lot of benefits from this challenge, but also some negative things.
And no, I’m not including that trends can get annoying when they’ve been on for so long, though maybe I should…
What do you think? Tired yet?
With these things I’m gonna mention next I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t do it, though, I know they’re fun!
Just maybe keep them in mind, in case.
Oh, and if you’re interested, I do have my own Draw this in your style event going on, with no deadline if you want to give it a go! Check out more info in this post.
FIRST, LET’S TALK ABOUT THE PROS:
1) I feel like this challenge is really good to realise you have your own style.
I started to see a style of my own after starting doing these, but of course, this doesn’t work if you are copying practically everything from the reference image.
2) Another good thing I see it’s that it challenges you to use different colour palettes, themes, compositions, … To sum up, helps you get out of that good-old comfort zone!
3) It can bring attention to your social media profiles, or from your favourite artists.
4) Lastly, I think it helps you a lot to keep creating if you’re feeling stuck with your art or in some kind of art block.
SECOND, THE CONS:
1) Continuing what I was saying, it helps you create when you’re not feeling creative or inventive.
But this can be a bad thing, cause you can stay in the “draw this in your style” zone for a long time, – it’s addicting, believe me – because it’s comfortable not to have to think about what to draw.
And when you realise it, it’s been months since you’ve produced any of your own work.
2) There’s a ton! I have a full gallery of screenshots that I probably won’t do anymore – or just one or two – and it can be both overwhelming and frustrating to know you can’t do them all.
Especially when they have some sort of deadline.
3) You can’t do anything with the final illustrations, so if you live from your art, it’s basically wasting your time… What I mean with this is that you can’t add them to a portfolio, sell them, or anything besides post them – or at least you shouldn’t as it’s not your idea – and if you want to sell them, be considerate and ask first and don’t be rude if they don’t want you to.
I believe that was all, but I might be forgetting some things…
These conclusions come from someone who has been doing a lot of pieces for the draw this in your style challenge – on and off – for almost a year. On these past few months, I’ve abandoned the practice, basically because I realised I wasn’t really getting out of my creative slump or doing art for my shops or myself.
But I said before, I’m always trying new challenges, you can read more about my the last one I tried here; the 100 heads challenge.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS
Next, I’m gonna show you most of my takes on different events, alongside the beautiful originals, of course.
You can click on them to get to the posts. Up there you have seen some early sketches or some that never got finished.
This is basically my way to say goodbye to this phase.
It has been good, challenged me and got me to improve, but I feel like I’ve gotten enough of it. It saddens me a bit, as there’s still a lot of beautiful pieces I still want to do, but I feel like I must stop for now.
I’ll still do one or two from time to time, but I need to get out of this phase and create my own art.
MY ENTRY
ORIGINAL
Well, that’s most of it!
There’s some I haven’t included cause I wasn’t that happy with them. The last 3 ones are some of my favourites, and I’m quite happy to see the improvement between the first ones and these last.
I hope you had fun with this little lighter article and the recap trough my Draw this in your style experience.
I would love to hear about yours in the comments!
