Emulating style

One of the hardest things as to do as an artist, is to emulate someone else’s style.
To me, it is also one of the more rewarding things to do.

Emulating styles is difficult to most people, mainly because they try to copy someone who is (far) more proficient in certain aspects of art, and has done dozens of drawings in the same style. But you, you are new to this style, and you have to start from scratch. The keys to emulating others are patience, and honest (self) criticism.

Patience and criticism I can do, and after a few weeks of trial and error, I finally(!) managed to emulate Myrons’ style!
At least, I feel like it’s close enough that the difference won’t get spotted by the average player, in-game.

Below you’ll see a couple of assets, each one drawn by me, with a similar/the same asset done by Myron next to it for comparison. (Click to enlarge the images.)

I decided that I should emulate his style from existing artwork instead of trying to do it while also designing something new. Making a ‘carbon copy’ is always easier than generating new content (in the same style), so that’s what I did. After trying to copy the Essenite storage for a few hours I gave up on it, mainly because my lines were off in the sketch phase, and I was using the wrong shading techniques.

This was the simplest asset Myron had created so far, so naturally it’d be the easiest to try emulating. I ended up shading not over the line-art, but around it, which resulted in splotchy colors and a weird look.

I gave it another shot, this time using the proper shading techniques.
I got real close this time, the biggest differences are that my sketch isn’t 100% accurate, and that my shading is just a tad lighter than Myron’s, which makes it look like I forgot some shadows in some places.

Right now I feel like I’m up for something more complicated, maybe I’ll try Blue’s storage again. After that, I’ll probably re-do the Ruins, maybe change the sketch up a little bit, to keep it interesting for myself. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated.   As always, if you have any comments or questions, feel free to post them here or on  Twitter and Facebook.