SOOO, for this situation, let's assume that I'm a great drawer. Heheh, try hard, keep imagining. Anyways, and my art style is well known by a lot of people, just at first glance, you can tell that a sketch or strip is mine. Along with this popularity, comes the ability to influence and inspire others to draw. And pretty soon their art style is seen in a lot of places, learned from other people and used in their own works. I'm not going to call it stealing because it really isn't, but how would it feel if it happened?

I'm asking because after a lot of drawing, sketching basic things, I still didn't "solidify" my art style. Granted, there are a few things that I think I do unique, but whenever I draw something I've never drawn before, it looks similar to something I saw drawn from another person. My main influence for example, is Katie from Awkward Zombie, her style is very distinct, and just a glance you can tell its from her site. I guess if you read someone's comic enough, then their art style will sink into you.

Is it ok to have your art style created by mixing several others together? After a while I expect to have a set in stone format, but we'll see.

I think its safe to say that no drawing style will be 100% original. People are products of their experiences, and drawing styles are no exception. It makes sense that someone would assimilate aesthetics that appeal to them from other artists into their own style. Eventually, though, probably more and more it will become your own as the stuff you've absorbed flows more and more with each other...

The technical aspects of drawing, is still something you have to achieve on your own, you can't really steal that from anybody, or have that taken from you. The style aspect is just pure aesthetics.

The other part of your question... if I was successful and popular enough to inspire other folks to draw like me, I think that might be pretty cool. On the other hand, if they ape my style and get more successful than me, I might have to go their house and break their pencils... who knows! ha!

So far as it goes with style, I agree with Matt. You are a product of everyone you have ever known and everthing you've ever done. Style is definitely not something you just create out of the blue. Pretty much everyone on the planet takes little things from their favorite artists and blends them together until they arrive at their own style. In my case, my earliest works from high school had heavy influences of colour field, American cartooning and pretty much ended up coming out looking like Jhonen Vasquez's artwork ( Despite my familiarity with his work consisting of having vaguely heard someone mention JTHM. ). As time went on and I looked at more artwork I picked up the influences of the graffiti culture in my hometown, various webcomics, and several illustrators like Edward Gorey and Andrew Bell .

A lot of times I still end up scraping a number of sketches and ideas because I realize after coming back to take another look that I subconsciously copied something another artist did. It happens to everyone once in a while and it's just important that you realize it and either change it or come up with a new idea before you show it. People copying each other is no big deal really.

lba
So far as it goes with style, I agree with Matt. You are a product of everyone you have ever known and everthing you've ever done. Style is definitely not something you just create out of the blue. Pretty much everyone on the planet takes little things from their favorite artists and blends them together until they arrive at their own style. In my case, my earliest works from high school had heavy influences of colour field, American cartooning and pretty much ended up coming out looking like Jhonen Vasquez's artwork ( Despite my familiarity with his work consisting of having vaguely heard someone mention JTHM. ). As time went on and I looked at more artwork I picked up the influences of the graffiti culture in my hometown, various webcomics, and several illustrators like Edward Gorey and Andrew Bell .

A lot of times I still end up scraping a number of sketches and ideas because I realize after coming back to take another look that I subconsciously copied something another artist did. It happens to everyone once in a while and it's just important that you realize it and either change it or come up with a new idea before you show it. People copying each other is no big deal really.

That's interesting. Whenever I would read Last Words, I would get a heavy Evan Dorkin vibe. Probably mostly due to some of the subject matter, long tirades, and.. well... angry food items. Ha!

Its interesting to examine yourself and try to figure out what the influences are... I know, when I was young it would be, phases... Okay I'm trying to draw like Todd McFarlane, now Erik Larson, now Frank Miller, now Mike Allred... so on. Nowadays, things assimilate faster and smoother. I'll always have a discriminating eye open when I'm reading comics, and I'll see a cool idea or something and put it in the memory bank, and by the time its synthesized onto my page, I won't even know where it came from... I'm just constantly working so much, it all just comes out in my own language it feels like.

Nowadays, I don't really imitate how other artists draw, like their whole style like with everything, but instead, I grab bits. Like I'll go through stuff done by Stuart Immonen, and I'll be like "I like how he draws hands" and then I'll imitate it, and then repeat. and sometimes it won't be other artists, my torso's are based off Greek sculptures.

oddly enough, when I think about it, mine is a really weird path. I started off with copying garfield. I did "read" the dark knight returns a lot, by reading, i just stared at the pictures because i was like 5. and then i drew batman with out any basic knowledge. throughout grade school it was a bunch of monkeys. middle school was street fighter. high school, i tried anime/manga with out even knowing what it was. the kids were like "it's the coolest thing evar!" and then that quickly got boring so i started reading marvel and dc comics. and near the end of high school, i picked up a spectrum book, which is one of those show case books.

This subject interests me because I have never consciously copied anyone's style. I worked through Burne Hogarth's various books just to begin getting a grip on anatomical studies, but his rather unique artistic styling did not stick with me.

Anyway, as for the stylistic purity, it wasn't because I felt that my personal style was anything to write home about but because it was all I could do to draw anything in a realistic manner to begin with, much less attempt to pick up bits and pieces of style.

My stuff would probably look a lot better today had I been able to dip into other people's artistic stylings, however.

Had I been able to to pick up another artist's style I would have gone for Frank Frazetta's stuff.

Oh, I have so many influences- not all of them comic artists. Crumb, Coop, Charles Burns; I think someone else mentioned Gorey, too. My hero is Drew Hayes, although I don't think you can tell from my work or subject matter- maybe from all the cross-hatching. Heh. I also look at late Gothic and early Renaissance narrative paintings a lot. Some contemporary printmakers- Michael Barnes, Bill Fick and Tom Huck, especially.

I don't pay attention to how it effects my style- I think it can be crippling if you're too self-aware as an artist. I try to draw mostly from life, or from memory/ imagination. I don't use references unless it's something super technical or specific, that needs to be exact. I think that's helped me develop a distinct style, although sometimes it works to my detriment; even my "fine art" is super cartoony. Meh.

Hmm,influnces and styles.

I try not to copy other people's style if possible. Majority of the artists that I enjoy the most have fairly unique styles and I try to follow that principle: if you want to follow someone with a unique style, you can do it only by coming up with your own unique style, otherwise you're just a copycat. Of course nothing comes from nowhere and it has to originate somewhere, either from copying nature, taking bits of other people's style, your own shortcuts and limitations or from some outside media (for example Tsutomu Nihei, creator of Blame!, studied architecture and it totally comes through his art).

I think the artist I love the most is Philippe Druillet, but I also heavily enjoy Tsutomu Nihei, Katsuhiro Otomo, Ashley Wood, David Mack, Ted McKeever, Andreas, Richard Corben, Dan Brereton, , Alfredo Alcala, Dan Schaffer, P. Craig Russell, Enki Bilal, Dave McKean, Paul Pope, Sam Kieth, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ted Naifeh, Ben Templesmith, and many others...

Do I see them in my art? Some. People saw some McKeever in early pages of Din Krakatau while others saw Dean Ormston (growing on his art too) and from the moment I started to get into Kirby, I started to use heavier shading and strive for more dynamic poses(and it took me a while to connect these two facts until someone pointed it out that is).

Do I have my own style then? I think I'm building one. In my case it's more of a set of limitations and workarounds rather than copying something directly. I'm probably missing some obvious inspirations though, stuff that seeped in unnoticed :)