What Are The Limitations Of Your Art Style?

Originally, this article was going to be titled “The Curse of Cuteness” because, as much as I love horror art, I can’t really draw or paint it very well.

This isn’t for want of trying, but because people usually find my horror art funny and/or cute rather than disturbing when I show it to them. Whilst it’s nice to have people react to my art in this kind of way, it kind of defeats the point of making horror art.

Dammit! This is supposed to be frightening!

I guess that part of the problem is probably self-censorship, but it’s probably more due to the limitations of my own art style more than anything else. Which, coincidentally, brings me on to the topic of this article.

Developing a unique art style (through both lots of practice and learning techniques from a wide variety of sources) is an absolutely amazing thing to do and it’s one of the best ways to really stand out as an artist. But, at the same time, literally every art style has it’s limitations.

“Realistic” styles can’t be cartoony and fun, “cartoony” styles can’t be realistic and serious. “Simplistic” styles can’t depict a wide range of things and “detailed” styles can’t be used to create quick art. “Abstract” styles can only be used to create abstract art. “Manga” styles can only really be used to create manga (and anime). I’m sure you get the idea….

In my case, one of the limitations of my style is that it always looks slightly too “cartoony”, even when I try to draw or paint “serious” art. Whilst I quite like this “cartoonishness” and whilst it’s interesting to see what various things and various people look like in my style, it’s still a limitation.

Trying to make horror art in my style is kind of like the equivalent of trying to make a genuinely scary horror game using the “Doom” engine – yes, the results might look really cool (in a nostalgic retro kind of way), but they probably won’t be particularly creepy.

So, if every art style has it’s limitations, should we abandon our art styles?

No. If you’ve spent years developing your own style, then it’ll probably almost be a part of who you are and you’ll probably find it difficult, if not impossible, to change it drastically. But, you can slowly steer it in more interesting directions.

But, at the same time, your art style is constantly evolving every time you paint or draw something. Every time you practice, your art style improves slightly. If you don’t believe me, then compare your latest picture to one you made a month ago, then compare it to one you made a year or two ago.

You will probably see some differences and, however slight they may be, these differences are proof that your art style is constantly evolving. Here’s an example of my own style evolving:

“SeeI I Told You This Place Wasn’t Haunted” By C. A. Brown [24th September 2012]

“Struck The Hours” By C. A. Brown [10th June 2014]

So, if your art style is evolving anyway, then you can gradually add stuff too it over time either through lots of practice and copying, or through looking at art tutorials online (there are loads of free ones on Youtube). The thing to remember when you’re practising new things is that you are looking for things to add to your unique art style and not things to replace it with.

But, whilst it’s possible to upgrade your art style, there’s certainly something to be said for knowing the limitations of your art style and trying to work around them. Yes, it’s a challenge, but if you are feeling inventive and imaginative enough – then you can probably find a way to make genuinely scary cartoon art, cartoonish “realistic” art and lots of interesting stuff like that.

Going back to my earlier point about the “Doom” engine – although “Doom” came out in the early-mid 1990s and it’s a fairly primitive game by modern standards, there are a lot of interesting fan-made levels and modifications for it on the internet. Some of these modifications take a 20+ year old game and do some truly astonishing things with it that would have been seen as impossible back in the 90s.

Yes, it still looks primitive. But the people modifying “Doom” are working within the limitations of an old game engine (even with all of the modern source ports, it is still a 20+ year old game engine) – so, anything they produce is about ten times more amazing than it already is for this reason alone.

So, when you find one of your art style’s limitations. You can either try to gradually “upgrade” your art style by learning new stuff and practicing a lot or you can see that limitation as a challenge and try to find an innovative way to work around it….

The choice is yours.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂