New School

On YokoFolio, pick the style New School and then your city, and widen the radius if you need to. This style lives off its energy, but composition is what saves it: look for pieces that stay readable despite the exaggeration, where your eye knows where to go. Then check the color: gradients smooth with no blotches, white highlights crisp, the outer outline steady. On healed work, look at the density of the fills: New School holds through its thick outlines and saturated color, and a weak fill shows up fast. When you contact the artist from their profile, bring your idea and a few references rather than a finished drawing, since the exaggeration is part of their hand, and ask how big the piece needs to be.

Characters first: cartoon heroes, anthropomorphic animals, funny monsters, aliens, everyday objects that come to life with a face and arms. A pet redrawn as a cartoon character works well, and so does a caricature of yourself. Pop tributes, from video games, movies or music, find their natural language here; on YokoFolio, a character from an existing work drawn this way is listed under both Anime & Pop Culture and New School. Pick a subject you'll want to see big and in color, because the style doesn't shrink: the distorted proportions, the 3D relief and the speed effects need room. Think thigh, full arm, calf or back rather than a wrist, and leave the artist free to push the exaggeration: that's where the humor comes from.

Yes, but weigh what you lose before you choose. The distortions, the dynamic outlines and the momentum all stay intact; the saturation, though, is part of the point of the style, and doing without it brings the result closer to a printed comic page. In black and grey, the 3D relief rests on smooth grey gradients and highlights left in bare skin, so contrast is what you judge in the artist's examples. In exchange, the piece fits more easily into an arm already in black and grey, and it ages more evenly, since the fluorescents are what softens fastest. Few artists show it, so ask before the appointment, and ask to see healed examples rather than fresh photos.

Neo-Traditional and New School both use rich color and volume, but Neo-Traditional stays elegant: proportions close to real life, lines that vary with restraint, a natural palette and ornament such as jewels or flowers. New School distorts everything: big eyes, caricatured bodies, outrageous perspective, strong 3D relief, candy colors with glossy white highlights, and a massive outer outline around very fine inner lines. Anime & Pop Culture isn't a drawing style but a subject: a character or universe you can name, from a show, a game, a comic or a film. When New School redraws such a character, with its big eyes and plastic shine, the piece gets both styles on YokoFolio; an invented creature stays New School alone. If the proportions are pushed to caricature and the colors shine like candy, it's New School.