what's the difference between a reference and an inspiration?
ive been chewing on this for a while but i think this rn:
a reference is applied to the artwork material during the process of making it
an inspiration influences the artist's concept of the work as a whole
for example, you can reference a specific image of islamic geometric tilework when painting an illustration that has a similar but abstracted pattern in it. whereas the idea of repetition as building credibility can inspire you to create an illustration of an entirely unique repeating pattern of your own design.
you reference a specific animal's body type in your creature's design, but the inspiration for it lies in your childhood love of making up fake pokémon
horror movies inspire you, so you become a director. someone else references your work in their dissertation on horror.
you feel a kinship with unicorns, because you've always felt out-of-place, so they often inspire your subject matter, but you also reference different pop culture depictions of unicorns in how you design your own
inspiration is a song you imagine an animatic of your favorite characters to, and you reference a specific movie still in one of the frames of that animatic
