>>7709827
>those Dishonored portraits were done from reference
Fuck me, I always though those were done from imagination, now I feel lied to.

Anyway, I feel the same way as you do, working from a reference someone else made, unless it's a specifically made reference sheet I only use to plan out a pose. The only time I work from reference is when it's some throwaway picture, like fanart or some shit, other time I feel like an original idea carries the picture more than just skillfully copying a photo. There's a chinese artist that does faux-trad in digital very nicely, but all of his pictures are just some chinese insta-whores repainted with trad brushes in photoshop, it's very tiring to look at