Copy your favorite artists. That’s the quickest way to learning how lines fit together in aesthetic ways. Obviously don’t take credit for anything you copy, but it’s definitely a 100% valid way to learn to draw. I did it, your favorite artists did, and the old great masters did it.
Other than that, there is literally nothing more important than consistent practice. It sounds anti-climatic, I know, but it’s the utter truth. Practice practice practice.
NONONONONONONONONONONONO DO NOT COPY SOMEONE’S STYLE. I DON’T CARE WHO DID IT AND HOW MANY, DO NOT DO IT.
You misunderstand.
Copying your favorite artists is how one LEARNS to draw. And ideally, one would be copying several artists at once. Overtime, a fledgling artist’s OWN STYLE will evolve from the cooking pot that held ingredients from others’ styles. And then you’ll find yourself drawing completely new stuff.
But there isn’t a cutoff point to it at all. Master artists will still look at their peer’s work and try to learn something from it, often by trying to emulate it.
This process is the most natural thing in the world. It’s impossible to NOT be inspired by other artists, and it’s been that way since the dawn of art. Frankly, it’s a lot harder to try and 100% copy another artist’s style, line-for-line, which I think is your concern.
The way it was worded was honestly poor. There are different ways to improve other than simply copying a style. I don’t like the idea of “copying a style” even if it is the most basic and natural thing to do (how to draw books enforce this use of stylization copy). Copying someone’s style allows their mistakes to fly over your head, especially if you’re looking to change your own style and improve.
Instead:
Draw from life, be it still or not. Draw rooms, groups, people, animals, buildings, whatever. Draw with scribbles or just lines. It doesn’t have to be 100% accurate at all. It is just practice after all.
Use references. Stock photos, general photography, life drawing sessions, yourself, character sheets, conceptual artwork. They’re all there, you just need to use them and draw what you see.
Emulate. Take elements of a style you like, or several but not the entire style. Otherwise it’s more likely to be considered theft and can potentially lessen your interest in a user who inspired you that uses that said style. This part here is what I’m going to guess that you meant, but again the wording was relatively poor so it was subject to literally mean copy/trace.
Actually copying entire style so that something you drew looks like something someone ELSE drew is a very advanced practice, but it does exist. The problem, like originally, is in ethics: if you claim it’s yours, it’s wrong, if you don’t, it can be alright (like “this picture is my attempt to draw in same style as artist X, works of whom you can see at [link]” for the latter).
Oh, and it’s advanced because one has to understand how and why it was done specifically like that, including knowing what the errors are and consciously committing them to match the original, instead of copying without understanding.
I honestly do not care if it’s advanced or not. Some people will just do that “advanced” thing without caring for mistakes made by the original illustrator and that is a really big flaw when it comes to, you know, improving. There are so many better ways to improve than simply copying a style you really like. Thanks to deviantfart, I’ve already seen enough people “copying” from others to get “better” without crediting and without giving a single care in the world about the mistakes made by the original artist.
Anyways…The original answer in this entire thing just said copy a style of your favourite artist and practice. That was literally it. They could have listed more things was what I was trying to get at with my first response, though it didn’t even post my first response the first time and my message from my initial response did not copy all the way.