I’m still trying to find my art style, but I really enjoy painting mystical places. My ideas are usually about a young girl. Sometimes the girl lives in the enchanted place, or the girl discovers the place, or something magical finds her in a not enchanted place. I’m not drawing the same character every time but I feel like I’m connected to these characters. I want to improve my figure drawing skills because my paintings are not realistic-looking as I want them to be. But I’m also shy to ask people if I can take a photograph of them and do certain poses for me for my reference, so I just do self-photography and use myself as reference.

The idea of this being a narcissistic thing doesn’t make me feel comfortable though. I feel ashamed to use myself as reference for characters that feels like different versions of myself - if not just characters I relate to - in alternate worlds. This prevents me from making art, so my ideas just remain as ideas. Not sure if this is the right subreddit to ask this but does anyone do this or feel this way too?