Fandom Drawing Exercises to Try

Something that makes practicing fun and helps boost your inspiration is making fanart. Creations that you make simply because you enjoy the subject so much, you can’t resist but to do something about it. Your enthusiasm and pride for your work may increase if you make a piece of fanart once in a while.

It’s not just joy that fanart can give you, however. It can also be a great chance to experiment and hone your skills. You can turn your favorite show into a learning opportunity, and there are four ways right below that can act as exercises for you to try.

Art Style Swap

You take a character from one property and draw them in the style of another. It is a challenge that allows you to analyze both a character design and an art style and figure out how to make a character recognizable in a context completely different from their own. This practice is known as an art style swap.

If you ever wanted to see what Spongebob Squarepants in the style of The Simpsons looks like, the only person stopping you from exploring that idea is yourself. You can give a modern cartoon a vintage look, or a vintage cartoon with a modern look. Perhaps you want to base My Little Pony off of something more realistic or grounded in appearance. There are plenty of neat and unique ideas waiting for you to try with this one idea alone.

Alignment Chart Memes

Something that is popular on the internet is to take the concept of the alignment chart, fill in labels, and put images of characters in an appropriate place in a grid. This is another exercise for analysis, but drawing characters will always get you to improve no matter what. So, you may as well have some fun with it and assign what archetype they are while you are drawing them.

Alignment charts can label more than morality. They can also label your opinion, what they would do in a situation, or even what animal they would pet and how. If something is a spectrum, you can put it on an alignment chart! You can either make a chart yourself, or you can use a pre-existing template on the internet.

Character Redesign

What if My Little Pony characters have to face an apocalypse? What if the animatronics from Five Nights at Freddy’s are human? Playing around with characters and their designs could show them what they look like in alternate scenarios and timelines, or even how they would look if you were the one who designed the character.

This is treating other people’s stories as your sandbox taken to its natural conclusion. They may not be your characters, but it can still be fun to put them in situations they would not be in otherwise. It is a form of storytelling that thousands of people do as a hobby and a way to express their love for a character or a series. Why not take a crack at it yourself?

Draw Yourself Interacting With Your Favorite Characters

Finally, you can just draw yourself or a representation of yourself interacting with the characters and worlds that you enjoy. It is fun to put yourself into a different world that is more on the fantastical side and see what happens when you are there. Many people will put an idealized version of themselves while others may exaggerate their worst traits.

The most important part is that you have fun with it. Even the worst versions of this concept come from a place of love and passion for these stories. It is a high compliment to make something people love so much, they want to be in that world and explore it. That they want to befriend or romance the characters you created.

Conclusion

There are many things you can do with pre-existing properties that can help grow your creative horizons and show what you can do. While fanart is often frowned upon, it can help make things feel less tedious especially when your skills might be in that phase where they are still developing. After all, why must being new be torturous when it doesn’t need to be?