Destroying the cliche

[Jushra]

So I being sketching, things look promising and then as I go along I realize that the dude/chick/monster/enviro has been done before, either by me or someone much better (or worse) than I. On the psychological side, it almost is a deterrent, drawing the same ideas over and over again, instead of being new and fresh and whatnot. It probably explains my lack of posting in my sketchbook, my ideas, while 'cool' are old hat.

So, how does one break out of the mold, reconfigure the brain, and start creating 'the new' instead of 'teh old'?

[Moai]

Feed the brain new stuff. Research some culture or some family of animals that you've never researched before. Draw subjects that you usually draw. Slap your own wrist when you see yourself drawing things you've already drawn, and force yourself to come up with a different solution.

[Brendan N]

What Moai said. Often, getting new ideas/new stuff means not only changing what you are drawing, but how you are drawing in general. Explore new avenues, look at stuff you don't like and try to figure out what makes it tick. Do some experimenting. Once you go on this wild and whacky route you might find there are plenty of cool stuff you haven't explored before, and with it a bunch of cool non-cliche ideas.

[alesoun]

Try a new medium. If you usually got traditional, try digital. Or pastels, or charcoal, or draw with coloured spices from the kitchen, or (if you're male) borrow old cosmetics from your girl and try to make an image with them.

A new approach is sometimes all it takes.

[Burtzum]

make a mess. Draw random lines without looking at the paper. Then punch it a couple times. Spit on it. Dump some ink down and slap it with your hands imitating that slapping motion that infants do. Then try to make your mess make sense. Turn those shapes into a creature/spaceship/character/whatever. You'll have something down on paper to start from that isn't derived from the last movie you saw or the last game you played.

[kev ferrara]

Imagine the scene is true in your mind. Imagine what the situation would *really* be like. Live in that moment in your imagination, feel the fear, the wind, the sunshine....

If you truly live in a picture, you will never draw cliches. Your imagination holds visions of truth. Draw from it.

[Grief]

don't worry about trying to be original everytime.
who cares if someone else has a composition tht looks similar to yours? you shouldnt let the desire to be 100% unique get in the way of creating and learning.

explore other styles, its okay to directly emulate another artists' work. just be open to giving credit where credit is due, state your references.

you should devour the world around you, taking in all sorts of information.

you wouldnt expect someone learning an instrument to play only original music would you? of course not, they practice other muscicians work until they are experienced enough to branch out and be creative on their own.

sometimes you'll unknowingly do something which has been done before. it happens. don't let it bring you down.

email artists and ask them about their process and how they go about creating their work, chances are they love talking about themselves. as long as youre not trying to profit from someone else's idiom, artists shouldnt mind if you copy their work. if anything most would be flattered*.

artists all throughout history have copied ideas and explored styles of one another.

blindly rejecting your interests for fear of being labeled as cliché you'll find is really not the best way to go about finding your own voice.


*a generalization, there's always those who don't want others on their turf so to speak.

[bhanu]

dont just get inspired by art alone , read books, meet people, do some research on anything...something , go deep..... reality , take to it, nothings more creative than nature. nothing can make things of such variety seem in so much unity....Its easy to preach though....

[Ilaekae]

There are always times when a germ of an idea tries to come free into the real world. It may have come to life because of something you subconsciosly saw or heard...so it tends to take on the overall appearance and vestiges of that original exposure.

You can identify when this is happening by looking at your drawings (I'm using blattent examples here)...

Are they all lizard-like, or resemble superficailly some other life form or being? Are all the drawings including some sort of stereotypical cybernetic attachments? Basically, looking at the drawings and ideas, can you spot a "trend?"

If so, flip your consciousness on it's head--180°--and replace all living matter with inorganic, and vice versa. If it flies, make it walk. If it walks, make it survive only underwater. If it is sleek and fast, make it slow and clumsey. If it's a being, make it a place. Unnerstand? Try to purposely do as opposite an image of your original first thought as you can. Do this with the envioronment, color, values, postion, and even media. Use acrylic and a tampon instead of pencil (...BORROW one, dammit...), or just use your fingers dipped in paint or ink.

[Seedling]

Another approach is to take on a cliché head-on. Pick the most painfully clichéd subject and draw it without hesitation. Draw it as if it is entirely your idea. Don’t borrow it, steal it and make it your own. Identify what elements of the cliché are personally important to you, and make that visible to everyone.

Fantasy subject matter in particular is nothing but cliché. It’s the same few stories and the same few monsters retold and retold, inverted and recombined. We love fantasy because of its familiarity. Embrace that. Tell the same old story but focus on doing so with the highest degree of craft that you can achieve.

I explored a cliche recently: a classic unicorn hunt. After pondering the matter, I concluded that the whole idea had deeply creepy sexual overtones;not to mention that is was all about murdering something beautiful. All of this was at the heart of those saccrine unicorn-and-rainbow images, and it became important to me to show the story in a manner that was honestly dark.

This is what I came up with:

[Vhan Juju]

Just thought:

Do something that you think is totally unrelated to your art.

Be aware of that *spark*


-cents of a squid.

[Favila]

I liked most of what Seedling said. That looks like a good exercise.

I think if you want to do something medieval-fantasy themed, get your inspiration anywhere except medieval fantasy things that have already been created. Look for real medieval references, and get your inspiration from things totally unrelated to medieval fantasy like sci-fi or gangster movies.