hot take: anime redraws are just master studies for nerds (im nerds, nerds is me)

teen me didn't want to do painting master studies of classical artists unless i thought it would help me develop the kind of style i wanted, and bc of that i thought i just didn't want to do master studies at all, but in reality i just wanted to study ikuko itoh's iconic style

fuck it, i'm an adult and i still think doing master studies of most classical western artists isn't fun. i don't want to sit and stare at a painting of a man all day while i try to copy the brushstrokes and colours. i want to draw anime girls

the artists i always say recommended for master studies were so realist so the subjects were always very mundane and the colours & stylization weren't very experimental. i am sure that would probably teach me something but at what cost when it didn't inspire me at all lol

the first time i saw a master artist recommended to study from that i got EXCITED about was a mattesi lecture on gesture drawing where he gushed about leyendecker bc ofc i'm going to get hype abt a queer artist with an excellent understanding of shape and form and illustration!!

anyways after that i started deciding that i was going to pick and choose who i'd learn and study from based on what i actually liked and what i wanted to channel in my artwork so like. gestures at queer artists, disney and anime artists from my childhood, etc etc