Copy cat.

So, here's me. And, here's my haircut... and my dirty mirror.
Can I call this art? Well, not really. I cut the bangs, but my mom did the major body of it, and I don't really take good care of it, and I didn't brush it and it's 9:00pm and.... Anyway, that's not really the point. 

This is my hairstyle... Why? 

Simply because it's on my head.

But the truth is, that this is (an attempt at) Nocchi's hairstyle! ->
My favorite singer/dancer from my favorite J-pop unit, "Perfume"!

 That aside....I got thinking about style.

As an artist, and especially a comic artist, I believe that it's majorly important to find one's own "style". Yet, I always find myself copying people. This was especially true when I first started drawing my own characters.

This screenshot is from one of my favorite shows. 

Note the incredibly large cow-licks........ Now see mine.

I think the comparison speaks for itself.

But when I look at my work, I can honestly say that I do have a distinct style. And you can look at this and say, those characters look nothing alike! Of course one can see the little bits and pieces that I've stolen from other books and shows but because those aspects are being filtered through my mind and translated through my hand into my characters they become mine. Much like Nocchi's haircut on my head becomes MY hair style.

Another way to think about it is like the development of a child. From the moment they are born they see the world around them and they see how people eat, walk, talk, etc. If babies never copied the actions of those around them, they would not develop properly. Either that, or they would develop much more slowly. So, coming back to style, I think that myself and others naturally want to be or act like the things and people we admire and that's okay, because style will develop when we emulate what we like, adapt it to what we're working with and make it our own. Style is our mind's translation what we've already seen. 

⁹ 

"The eye never has enough of seeing,

     nor the ear its fill of hearing.

    What has been will be again,
             what has been done will be done again;
                  there is nothing new under the sun."

            Ecclesiastes 1:9