# How big is your reference folder?



## Tigercougar (Oct 1, 2012)

How many pictures have you downloaded from the internet that you use as artistic reference? I have about 1000 collected over the course of a year of animals, people, objects, whatever. I hope to collect 1000 more!


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## RTDragon (Oct 1, 2012)

I've never though about a reference folder before how do those work?


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Oct 1, 2012)

My porn folder is quite large.


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## zhuria (Oct 1, 2012)

9454 and growing...


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## Arshes Nei (Oct 1, 2012)

Mine is a lot larger than a 1000 pictures but it contains the following.

Old Art Masters which is great for reference and inspiration - my Alphonse Much collection is huge. I have quite a bit of Sargent, Anders Zorn and others
Current Concept Art - artwork I find inspiring and also looking at methods. Nathan Fowkes, Android Jones, and many others
Poses collection - Many pictures of poses and life drawing references. Includes animals, people etc...
Textures - Textures I've downloaded or taken myself for use of brushes or backgrounds.
Brushes - Brush sets I've created or downloaded for various programs


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## Tigercougar (Oct 1, 2012)

Is it hard to sort through all that? Edit: in reply to zhuria.


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## Taralack (Oct 1, 2012)

My art reference folder:


> 7.15 GB (7,682,326,528 bytes)
> 14,569 Files, 164 Folders


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## HipsterCoyote (Oct 1, 2012)

Oh, the folder I used to have before I was forced to reformat :C.  My reference folder is largely geared towards my comic project now.

- Hands holding various small props 
- Cars cars and cars
- Downtown Moscow streetviews categorized by street
- Interiors categorized by room like we're playing The Sims here.  For some reason I still have a shitload of soviet apartment layouts. They're so depressing. 
- Uniforms and insignia for military and the police plus documentation like passports
- Girls making idiotic myspace duckfaces and other stupid expressions because, ... I don't know why.  But apparently I feel a need to save them.  
- A shitload of brickabrack, again, I don't know why.  I guess I felt like I'd forget what MILK CARTONS AND SODA CANS look like (Aaactually I probably would) 
- A hilarious amount of fashion notes sorted by decade/gender.


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## Arshes Nei (Oct 1, 2012)

Toraneko said:


> My art reference folder:



Mine is probably triple that x.x;;; I had collected a lot of high res images from Art Renwal before thy did the blocking.

I also have backup DVDs of movies that had pose references that were turnarounds in quicktime 

I have to go through and re-organize because I had some hard drive failures so when I was doing backups I spanned it across multiple drives.


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## Taralack (Oct 1, 2012)

Arshes Nei said:


> Mine is probably triple that x.x;;; I had collected a lot of high res images from Art Renwal before thy did the blocking.
> 
> I also have backup DVDs of movies that had pose references that were turnarounds in quicktime
> 
> I have to go through and re-organize because I had some hard drive failures so when I was doing backups I spanned it across multiple drives.



Yeah I should probably have more. It's quite lacking in classical stuff, and I have a couple of artbooks that are stored in another directory. 

Thankfully I've only had a hard drive die on me once in my lifetime, and it was full of videos, but regardless I still keep a separate backup drive.


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## Zenia (Oct 1, 2012)

Only 243Mb. XD It has 641 files.


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## Oly (Oct 1, 2012)

I don't.

I do an internet search if I need ref. I don't bother saving it.

I do reference some of my comics or other books with photos or art in, however at the moment my books are in Ontario and I'm in BC, except for Johnny The Homicidal Maniac, Three Word Phrase, Nascar Shoes and Mt. Pleasant Journal Comics. So, not a great reference library there. :U


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## Zenia (Oct 1, 2012)

Oly said:


> I do an internet search if I need ref. I don't bother saving it.


Mine is just full of "Oh, that is an interesting pose. I might want to draw something similar one day. *save*" pics that I see. XD


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## zhuria (Oct 1, 2012)

Tigercougar said:


> Is it hard to sort through all that? Edit: in reply to zhuria.


I have most of the stuff sorted, though thereÂ´s one folder specifically (female anatomy and poses) that is a real mess ^^U


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## FireFeathers (Oct 2, 2012)

Dang. I thought I had a big reference collection but you guys ain't messin' around. Though i have copious amounts of reference books-- like...a  giant bookcase of them.


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## mapdark (Oct 3, 2012)

I just look up pictures on the internet on the go , to be honest.

It's already hard to look through MY pictures , I don't want to go through a whole library of downloaded pics , so I just look up whatever I need.


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## Arshes Nei (Oct 3, 2012)

FireFeathers said:


> Dang. I thought I had a big reference collection but you guys ain't messin' around. Though i have copious amounts of reference books-- like...a  giant bookcase of them.



I got that too, I miss Borders because they had a fantastic bargain bin that worked so well with coupons. I prefer them over Barnes and Nobles because you didn't have to pay for a membership to get discounts. (That's not saving money). 

The reason I don't depend on internet all the time while it can save space is because sites can go down and references you were looking for can get lost. It's not that hard for me to sort and honestly you should see some desks of professionals which have drawers full of references. 

Also people get lazy and use the references easily found in google. Like hmm "need reference for scared girl"

Thanks Google, time to publish a comic!

That's why I treasure my Mucha Collection and other historical artists.

One rare fined was finding Ume Ommer's books on Black Ladies (still looking for his other book) because finding dark skinned Black women is actually a lot harder. Most people default to pale skin, or Asian girls in fantasy. 

[yt]aIUbGJuAxTY[/yt]


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## Lhune (Oct 3, 2012)

518MB, 784 files. I don't save entire collections or random images from anywhere though; I really pick and choose what is useful to me and save that. Mostly images that will serve me well in the long run; if I need a reference for a certain part of an image I'll usually look for it online instead.

My organisation (works quite well for me):

Animals (main)
- Aquatic
- Birds
- Canines
- Dinosaurs
- Equines
- Felines
- Mythical
- Other

Environmental (main)
- Environments
- Skies
- Various

Guides & Tutorials (main)
- no subs, mostly pages from books.

Humans (main)
- Anatomy
- Separate body parts
- Photo refs
- Portraits

Inspirational (main)
- no subs, mostly master's works

Mechanical (main)
- Mechs (robots)
- Cars
- Other

Textures (main)
- Dirt
- Fabric
- Metal
- Nature
- Other
- Paper
- Rock
- Skies (no panoramics, just clouds and so on)

And that's it :>. I like to keep my stuff where I can find it.


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## Taralack (Oct 4, 2012)

Arshes Nei said:


> The reason I don't depend on internet all the time while it can save space is because sites can go down and references you were looking for can get lost. It's not that hard for me to sort and honestly you should see some desks of professionals which have drawers full of references.



Yes, this. I've learned the hard way not to take anything on the internet for granted and if I see something worthwhile, my first reaction is right click > Save. Sure, you can go through Google cache and way back machine and other such services, but at that point it's just a waste of time.


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## pudgeyredfox (Oct 5, 2012)

quite big, I always save images i like to my computer because you never know when some artist is gunna ragequit and delete all their submissions.


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## chaotikat (Oct 19, 2012)

If I find a pose I want to use, I use it then and there or within a few days. If I save it in a file, it'll just sit there until the end of time. Google is my reference folder. So is my mind. I remember seeing works of art in person, beautiful scenery, faces, animals, colors. I suppose that explains why I have such a hard time remembering numbers, my brain is filled with visuals.


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## Thaily (Oct 19, 2012)

I have about 1300+ photos of human women alone.



pudgeyredfox said:


> quite big, I always save images i like to my computer because you never know when some artist is gunna ragequit and delete all their submissions.



That's not "reference", that's "pictures I like".
Reference is used to create art, not just to look at.


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## Tigercougar (Oct 19, 2012)

Thaily said:


> I have about 1300+ photos of human women alone.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, any artwork I save to my computer because I like it I can (and have) used for reference. Usually for shading/highlighting, or character design in the case of fanart pictures.


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## chaotikat (Oct 19, 2012)

I get what you're saying, Tigercougar. I too have 'faved' pictures just for the technique used, or even because I liked the way the person drew knees *laugh*. You can find things to learn everywhere.


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## Toshabi (Oct 20, 2012)

I have books, though, generally I just use google. It's more easier for me that way and it saves me the time of having to autistically organize and sort all those refs.


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## Thaily (Oct 20, 2012)

Tigercougar said:


> Well, any artwork I save to my computer because I like it I can (and have) used for reference. Usually for shading/highlighting, or character design in the case of fanart pictures.



You should learn your shading/highlighting from photos/real studies, because if you reference that sort of thing from other artists you're just copying their mistakes.


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## Fallowfox (Oct 20, 2012)

I don't have one. If I want to use a photographic reference I take the photos myself or find images in books, the rest of the time I try to find things in real life to look at.


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## davimink (Oct 23, 2012)

I don't really do reference folders, it gets confusing at the end.


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## Zaraphayx (Oct 23, 2012)

It's huge.

If you catch my meaning. 

;]


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## NorticRu (Oct 26, 2012)

To be honest, I don't have one. A lot of the stuff I draw comes out of my head. I do look at a lot of different kinds of art to keep it moving and shifting but I don't keep a folder of things i enjoy most so i won't dwell on them artistically <3


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## Taralack (Oct 27, 2012)

NorticRu said:


> To be honest, I don't have one. A lot of the stuff I draw comes out of my head. I do look at a lot of different kinds of art to keep it moving and shifting but I don't keep a folder of things i enjoy most so i won't dwell on them artistically <3



You should start keeping one. Every good artist uses references from life, regardless of their subject matter. For example, I see you draw a lot of dragons. You can study snakes, lizards, etc. Good art often has grounding in real life elements. 

PS. Your pawprint link is broken. Don't copy the whole URL, just your username. The forum automates the rest of the URL to link it.


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