Developing an enduring illustration style that is personal to you.

You see, a personal illustration style isn’t something that you develop overnight. It’s something that develops over time and with your conscious effort. A lot of illustrators copy their favourite artists to learn techniques and that’s perfectly fine, but as time goes by, you should start to develop your own style by noticing things that you are automatically drawn to (like how you always draw faces, your colour palette choices, the kind of atmosphere your images have, etc.).

Style is largely a matter of what you like and what happens to you. What you’ve been through, what you watch, read, and love all help shape your view of the world. If you’re representing the world in your illustration work, it follows that your view is reflected in that representation. That’s what sets your illustration apart. When you draw with purpose, you start to repeat yourself — you start to make similar choices. That’s not a bad thing; it’s the foundation of your style.

This is where patience and experimentation come in. You have to step out of your comfort zone a little and maybe try some things that don’t feel like you. You have to experiment to see what feels right and what makes you happy and then hone in on those things. So yes, practice is about repetition, but it’s also about exploration. The more you draw and explore the more your style will emerge.

The second important aspect of developing a sustainable style is being able to make conscious choices. Style is not a series of reflexive actions, it is a series of deliberate actions. That is, it is the act of knowing the reasons why you do something and how it relates to the rest of the overall emotion of the piece. Once you can verbalize why you make decisions you are able to take charge of your style and develop it further. This removes the feeling of randomness from your work.

So in short, developing an illustration style is a promise to yourself and your future. It develops over time with practice and exercise, but the more you work at it the more it becomes defined. It will change over time and that’s okay – it’s not about it changing but more about you moving forward.