So, I bumped into this guy’s stuff online, Lucas Andrade. Really liked the vibe, you know? Seemed kinda unique, the way he did his colors or lines, can’t quite put my finger on it even now. Anyway, I thought, hey, I wanna try that. Looks cool, maybe I can pick something up.
First thing, I just grabbed my tablet, opened up the drawing app I usually mess with. Nothing fancy. I pulled up a few pieces by this Andrade fella side-by-side with my blank canvas. Figured I’d try to copy a small section first, just to see if I could get the feel.
Man, it was tougher than it looked. Seriously tough. The way the light hit stuff in his work? Tried matching that. Spent maybe an hour just fiddling with brushes and colors, trying to get this one texture right. It looked okay-ish on his, looked like mud on mine. Deleted the layer. Started again.
Getting into the weeds
Okay, second attempt. Focused on the linework this time. His lines had this sort of clean but slightly shaky feel. Mine were either too clean, like a robot drew ’em, or just plain messy. Fiddled with the stabilizer settings. Still wasn’t quite getting it.
- Tried different brushes.
- Zoomed way in, then way out.
- Looked closer at his examples. How did he do that?
- Got frustrated. Took a break.
It kinda reminded me of this one time, years back. Totally different thing, but same feeling. I had this client job, some small illustration thing. They showed me this reference image, wanted exactly that style. It had this soft, painted look. And I just couldn’t nail it. Spent days trying, pulling my hair out. Delivered something… okay, but not what they really wanted. Lost the client. Seeing Andrade’s work kinda brought that back, that feeling of knowing what you want to achieve but not having the skill yet. So this time, I was like, nope, gonna figure this out, at least a little bit.
So, back at it. I stopped trying to copy exactly. Instead, I just tried to get the feeling. Loosened up my hand. Stopped zooming in so much. Just focused on the overall look from a distance. Played with the color sliders more freely. Didn’t worry about perfect lines.
The result, sorta
And you know what? It started looking… not like his, not really. But it looked better. It had some of that energy, maybe? Hard to say. It wasn’t a copy, but it felt like I learned something. Like my own style shifted just a tiny bit.
End result? Didn’t nail the Lucas Andrade style. Not even close. But I ended up with a piece that felt kinda new for me. And I guess I proved to myself I could push through that frustration barrier, unlike that time with the client job. So, yeah. That was my little experiment trying to capture some of that Andrade magic. Didn’t quite get the magic, but found something else instead. Good enough for me.
