samspratt:

Well first, do understand that the vast majority of the best realist artists in the world use photo references in some form. Not just now, but since photography became available, artists from Courbet to better known like Rockwell used reference heavily — hell, even the magical master painters we learn about in art history were doing everything possible and utilizing the latest technology in order to reference reality to make their works. That ranged from technical devices to grid out the scene in front of them for make capturing proportions easier, to physically dissecting musculature as reference. If you feel inadequate for using what literally some of the greatest artists in history use, that seems rather strange to me.

Now, while I think that how you use reference is entirely up to you, do understand that it comes in many forms and people respect its use to wildly varying degrees. There are hyper-realistic artists who literally just painstakingly replicate a single photo in various mediums. Some of these artists are massively respected, but creatively — many just view them as human printers, a technical marvel, but nothing more. 

Many comic artists these days actually use 3d programs to create rough cityscapes and buildings in perspective that would be very complicated to freehand, even one of the gods of illustration, James Gurney (of Dinotopia fame) uses references, both photos and actual miniature models of dinosaurs that he lights and shoots. Does this lessen their work? I don’t think so — if anything, it shows an astounding levels of creativity utilizing multiple art forms and technologies to better your craft. Hell, a ton of concept artists literally use photos and 3d renders by their fellow staffed artists as portions of their paintings. A concept artist’s utility is often to bring to life ideas of a team and doing this makes sense in their workflow: not needing to replicate existing assets, while still employing an incredible amount of understanding of form, function, light, and space. 

For me? Though several years ago reference was used individually and directly in many instances as I tried to grasp the basics of realism, as I’ve worked to improve my understanding of form and light, this changed years ago and continues to. I use many, many references of the people I draw so that I can make a pose, expression, and light that exists only where I’ve created it — and if I have an established area to reference, I can imagine the rest. Things like the Janelle Monáe covers for example, they gave me thousands of photos, but neither of the final images they wanted existed in any form — expressions, hand positions, emotions, body language, lighting, hair styles, clothing, accessories, environments, they’re all things that don’t exist yet, but tiny fragments of them do scattered across a thousand pictures that helped make the final paintings possible. There were times when I painted her mouth closed but because I had a full sense of what she looked like in every angle in many expressions, when they wanted me to redo it with it open, while keeping her other features in line, that was a simple request. When I had to design her neck piece or reflective skull from imagination, that was fine because I had a reference for how the light worked on skin and cloth so I did similar research in my studio of how it might reflect and refract across some imaginary space-age chrome. For me, this is where I feel happiest. Where reference plays a large role, but it’s observed, researched, and understood instead of directly replicated. I struggle constantly and I’ll be spending my life trying and failing to figure it out, but that’s exactly why I love it — it’s observational problem-solving. That’s not how YOU need to use it, but like most debates in the art world, how you do anything will be judged in a mostly arbitrary manner that negates history as much as it expects you to adhere to its misconceptions.

My best advice is to create how you feel best about what you’re making. I place labyrinthian limits on how I make things simply because I feel better about it when I’m solving my mistakes instead of shortcutting around them. You should enjoy creating things and if you’re doubting yourself, create new rules that makes it exciting and fun again. Often the challenges we place on ourselves elevate our capacities the most.

A must read for anyone who feels bad about heavily using references ^^