>>42600710
>Trying to make a pose from scratch is hard.
It is, but it's a mental muscle you have to work out. I used to only use reference or my poses would be dogshit, but it killed my motivation. But if you use no references at all you won't know how things look right and you will stagnate.

You need to find a happy balance using references, and not looking at it at all so you can work those neurons.