The Intricacies of Inspiration
- Kris Petrova
- Mar 28
- 5 min read
Have you ever had a really good idea for a book or a movie? But then, you find out, your idea sounds a lot like the movie you watched a year ago... It's okay! You had this really good idea for a drawing! You'll get to making it soon, for now you just scroll on your phone and-- No! Someone beat you to it! By that moment, you would've probably started to wonder why none of your ideas are ever “original”.
Originality is a big topic in creative fields and stealing intellectual
property is no joke, so how do creatives deal with all of this?
I'm going to let you in on a little secret: original ideas are nigh impossible to create.
It's true. Almost everything you know was inspired by a plethora of other things, which were inspired by even more things before them, and so on. Art, in all its forms, is and always has been an ever-evolving practice. This is why any art teacher or artist worth their salt will instruct you to study others' work, especially the ones from the greats of old times.
The point is that true originality is hard to come by, so focus on your uniqueness.
Van Gogh took inspiration for a lot of his artwork and techniques from Japanese art.
Good Artists are Good Fans
What's the difference between "getting inspired" by someone and straight up copying them? It all lies in appreciation and self-confidence. Let me explain:
There is a quote often attributed to Picasso: "Good artists copy, great artists steal." Before you start putting on the ski mask, let me clear something up. The meaning of this saying does not literally tell you to steal other people's work, but instead uses provocative wording to express the idea of making something "your own".
Think about it this way: Imagine yourself as a visual artist. Your desire to create art most likely came from an outside source: A show, a comic book, an anime, or even another artist. You started your art journey copying their work, even in some cases tracing it (which is okay for practising purposes), getting better and better with each drawing. But, as your confidence and knowledge grew, you started to stray from that original inspiration.
You gained other inspirations throughout the years, practised anatomy, colour theory, shading, until eventually, you end up with an art style that's entirely your own. There are clear signs of your original Inspirations, but in the end, no one would mistake it for a copy. Your work is like a child: Similar yet different from its parents.
To summarize, and to answer your question of "Why hasn't this happened to me yet?", no matter what art form you've chosen, you should expand your diet of art in general.
Watch a variety of movies, follow a variety of artists, listen to a variety of music, read a variety of books, and so on. The more things you feed your mind, the more unique your art will end up being. And, of course, don't forget theory! People teach art for a reason. You have to learn the rules and learn to break them.
Here is an example of the artistic journey I’ve been through when it comes to the way I draw characters. Throughout the years I’ve taken inspiration from many sources, but this example focuses on one of them.
I’ve been a fan of the webcomic The Glass Scientists since 2016 and I still read it to this day. Even now, as my art style has changed more and more, I can still see traces of the comic that inspired me to pursue storytelling and make art my career.
Let Your Baby Grow
As mentioned before, your art is like a child. Your child. And naturally, as you strive for improvement and uniqueness, your art will change.
A lot of artists get nervous about this part, especially because of the Dunning-Kruger effect, also known by the quote "The more you know, the more you know you don't know".
The way it works is: In most fields that involve learning and improvement, everyone starts with a set of expectations. The better you get at your art form, the closer you inch to a period of despair, in which you know you've put in time and effort and yet it looks like your art hasn't improved at all.
This is inherently not true, as you have improved - you've improved in your technical knowledge. It's like you've grown a pair of new eyes/ears, and these appendages recognize mistakes you hadn't noticed before.
The more you learn, the quicker you climb out of the valley of despair and eventually end up with a pretty even ratio of technical knowledge and skill.
The problem is: a lot of beginner artists - most often unintentionally - hit the brakes on their journey of growth out of fear of this artificial "loss of skill". It's important to remember: Your art will change, and so will your eyes/ears. You'll find your work ugly, and then you'll find it beautiful again, and that is good! It's all part of the process, so let it grow.
Everything Has an Audience. Everything.
You’ve worked on your art and you’ve let it grow. But now a thought creeps up in the back of your mind: “This doesn’t look/sound like what’s popular right now. Why would anyone be interested in my work?”
And this thought might lead you on a whole spiral about popularity, algorithms, analytics, and so on, until eventually, art becomes a chore and no longer a well-loved skill.
As an artist, you should avoid this spiral. Of course, with the way the world works, one cannot simply “make art”, they need to monetize it too, but that doesn’t mean you just strip away that uniqueness you worked so hard to build just for your art to earn you a living.
What you need to do is find your niche!
Everything has a niche. Even the largest products you could think of started as a niche and grew in popularity from there. If you were to look up niche musical genres, you’d find words like Folktronika, Hypnagogic pop, and Shoegaze (which I’m now interested in checking all out).
The way art works is that there’s an audience for everything. No matter how obscure, specific, different, or seemingly strange your work might be, as long as you’re passionate about it, others will be too! So don’t fret about following the trends; just focus on spreading your work.
It's About Trying Your Best
As I conclude this blog post, I’d like to leave you with this pearl to ponder: Art is about creativity, passion, and expression.
Sure, not all the art one creates contains these things (art is subjective), especially if your career is art, but these are the elements that turn your work from technically skilled to unique and interesting.
Don’t worry too much about not being original, not improving your skill, or aligning with current trends. As long as you try your best, you’re open to learning, and you create from your heart (and not from Generative AI), you will create art that is unique.
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