Adhering to a set image reduces time required and therefore increasing monetary gain. I think it's as simple as that. Coming up with a design, then drawing it, then inking and finally checking with the commissioner to see if it's okay- only to get it thrown back in their face 2 or 3 times because some of the markings aren't what the commissioner had in mind would make me require a ref sheet as well to produce art. I'm not saying everyone would be like that commissioner, nor am I saying that some people wouldn't be completely fine with artistic freedom commissions (Look at all the "artistic freedom character design" journals), just one of those types of picky customers would make any artist impatient and annoyed. Meh...

I agree and that's what I meant above. I'm only commenting on how it's change in a way based on volume of characters where some people can earn pretty well. The result is the speed necessary because a bottle-neck to the production; therefore, refs were born as a requirement. I do, however, miss seeing completely exotic interpretations of my character that I'd never have thought of before. My favorite cougar art ever was with no direction to the artists and I ended up loving it best. So I'm not saying it's wrong or right, only that it has change now that many can make a living from it or at least supplement their living.

i think it's funny that an artist would not want to draw without a ref sheet. That's basically the best thing to just draw whatever you like ....keeping a brief description in your head :P

If only I could get you to draw more...and by more I mean my character. I wonder if Dark Wolf could be talked into using some kind of shocking device on you as...encouragement to draw :P

ummm ... a shoking device .... e-stim does sound quite good :P marff

Character design and construction is a different job than posing out expressions and emotion! Rendering style can be an even different job still (inking and color). Compare it to all the parts of creating a live movie character- casting, wardrobe, makeup, lighting and staging... then the acting can happen. So, asking for ref makes it a way easier job for the artist. And it can be pretty hard work, so if some people want to concentrate on the parts they find fun, ref can reduce the parts that feel like a chore. Personally, I find character design to be endlessly hard! I teach character design to students, but I'd rather show them ref about how other people do it. It takes me many, many re-draws and repetitions to start to get the character personality down... I'd rather jump right to storyboarding for animation (it's my favorite.) A lot of the other parts feel like chores, until the final payoff of seeing a piece of finished animation projected to an audience.

Are you...are you asking to animate my character for the big screen? Because if so...my ref sheet is on its way to you :)

I can completely understand your analysis and appreciate your input as well. Certainly I'm not faulting any current artists for this style of product; like I said, I can understand it from many angles. Perhaps then what I'm an noticing is the number of artists who have developed to a point where they can focus on their preferred aspects of the process. As opposed, to years ago with fewer artists, when many were seeking to define their own style and being very happy to use a generic character basis to render your character in their imagination and through their chosen medium. I found it more like a grab bag as you may not know exactly what you'll get.

With current refs I feel it's more standardized. Not at all less quality by any means but I know my character will look mostly like my character with their style usually shown in examples on price sheets and you're pretty sure to get exactly what you expect.

Once I had my character's general description ref and got a piece of art back as a medieval Prince wielding a sword on a field of battle with my character showing mostly under the knighted hood and the tail and paws. It was very unexpected and totally unique. Needless to say, I loved it.

So as I said, it's not the difficulty with the use of ref sheets over the previous prevalence of the creative unknown; perhaps its the growing community of specialty artists making it a longer journey to find those who want to just take your character for a spin as they see fit. :)

This is a fun discussion :) It gets into the issue of animation and standardized characters... they call it keeping characters "on model". That makes it easier to work but less unique... Disney used to get criticized for having all their design look the same... but it was efficient "industrial design" so how can they be faulted? It's really hard and expensive to make those movies!

Going "off model" is something that an animation director like John Kricfalusi did a lot for Ren and Stimpy... in that case it was a style choice to make things much more whacky and distorted and expressive, that wouldn't fit all kinds of acting or stories. It also came with business and studio difficulties... on one hand, he had a lot of great criticism about studio politics... on the other hand, he had a reputation of being difficult to work with, missed many deadlines, and lost his show because of it! It seems to be a pretty debatable thing with various opinions, and maybe none of them are right, it just depends on the situation.

I do love seeing art with unique style, and a lot that comes up on here is kinda derivative... but as long as it has appeal, I'm not going to call that a bad thing. Everything is derivative of something! If you find artists who work without ref, that's great :) It may be a more difficult way for them to get things done... or who knows... I decided to stop working on other people's stuff or for studios or freelance, and only do stuff I want to do, because all the fun got lost in trying to please people and meet deadlines... I'm not suited for working for others, best for doing my own business. I admire people who can crank it out and love it too. :)

There are commissioners who specifically ask for a personal interpretation of their character too. They might be a minority but I'm not too sure about it. As you mentioned most popular furry artists have set up themselves to work in a very standardized way, so they don't target at all the part of the fandom which wants personal takes on the characters. Therefore that part is much less visible than the part which favors detailed ref sheets and such.

The fact is nowadays making furry commissions requires a bit more though about targeting and marketing. If an artist wants to get asked creative commissions he needs to openly advertise that he has that kind of approach to art. An artist who is known for working strictly "on model" and having a very uniform style isn't going to get suddenly asked to do something as they please.

From the customers point of view I think most fans just assume that ref sheets is the way it works and don't think at all about the possibility of collecting pictures in wildly different styles. Especially if the pictures are digital and meant to be shared only with close friends, because the people who will see them won't have a huge range of different tastes and so it wouldn't be useful to collect many different styles.