Hosting My First Draw This In Your Style Challenge
Greetings. I have something exciting to share with you all, I am now hosting my first Draw This In Your Style (DTIYS) challenge! The in-progress ink and watercolour illustration I shared with you recently is now finished. After leaving her to sit overnight, and looking at her the next day I had a gut “you know what, let’s do this” feeling. By the end of the day I posted her as my first DTIYS.
The finished traditional illustration of my character Lady Isabella. Ink, watercolour, and colour pencil on hot pressed paper.
What is a Draw This In Your Style (DTIYS) challenge?
On social media platforms you may sometimes come across people participating in community art challenges. One such challenge is Draw This In Your Style, commonly shortened to DTIYS. The host artist creates a piece of art: a drawing, painting, or illustration. The artist then invites their community to make their own version of that art piece, thereby having other artists draw it in their own style.
The goal is not to create one-to-one copies. In fact, a lot of creative interpretation is involved! You will find a myriad of mediums, styles, and even reinterpretation of the subject. Depending on the rules the original artist sets, their community may re-pose the subject, change or re-emphasise elements of the design, and so on. Part of the fun of DTIYS challenges is the sheer variety in how we all express ourselves.
The elf character that I turned into my first DTIYS! Ink, watercolour, and colour pencil on hot pressed paper.
Hosting my first DTIYS challenge
Once I finished the elf illustration I felt the urge to turn her into my first DTIYS. I had no particular intention of making her into one when I came up with her, but I have had hosting a DTIYS in the back of my mind for a couple months. The start of 2025 felt like the “right” time to host my first, so I kept an eye on what I have been creating to figure out what to base my first challenge on. I was torn between doing something more character focused or animal focused (or both!), but I felt that for my first DTIYS a character would be more approachable to others. There’s always room for animals and creatures in the future!
The rules for my challenge are on the DTIYS post on my Instagram. I want to give people plenty of time, so I have set a deadline of 30th April 2025. Entries submitted before the deadline will be shared on my Instagram stories. After the deadline, three entries will be picked and turned into a collaboration post. That is a form of post which will show up on all the profiles of me and the three artists involved. The challenge will remain open for people to join after the deadline, but they will not be picked for the collaboration post.
I have already started seeing works in progress from artists participating. Below is a WIP sketch by the artist Lexi Is Artsy, who chose to reinterpret my design into a portrait. Check out her instagram here: Lexiisartsy. It’s so exciting to me to see how different artists express the character in their own vision. Again, a large part of the DTIYS challenge is to celebrate the variety in art! Here you can see how Lexi has chosen to emphasize the roses and fur-lining of the original design.
A digital WIP based on my DTIYS challenge, by the artist Lexi Is Artsy @lexi_is_artsy
How to host your own DTIYS challenge
You can host your own DTIYS challenge at any point in your art journey, but there are some things that will help. Namely building community and networking.
Some artists will host their challenges at various milestones in followers. In part this is as a community form of celebration, but it is also beneficial to have a community to participate in your challenge. Building your own community, no matter how large or small, gives you a base of potential participants.
Networking also has the potential to get more eyes on your challenge. Building a network of art friends and “mutuals” is incredibly rewarding in many ways. Often terrifying for new and introverted artists (been there, believe me), even a small stepping stone process of networking can build into a beautiful support web over time. When it comes to challenges specifically, having places you can share your challenge in (discord art servers, group forums, etc.) and knowing mutual artists who can share your challenge with their own communities puts new eyes on your challenge. Healthy and supportive networking goes both ways, give back to the artists you know as well!
Some more immediate things to consider are:
Where do you want to host the challenge?
Do you want to have a deadline?
Do you have a reward for participants?
What rules do you want to set?
What hashtag do you want people to use?
Rewards do not have to be physical, they can be as simple as sharing the entries with your community. A mutual form of give and take. This is the approach I am taking with my first challenge in two forms. By sharing entries on my Instagram stories before the deadline, and by creating a collaboration post with three entries at the end. You can also use digital or physical rewards too, such as offering a free ebook download or sending a physical painting to one winner. Make sure you check the rules for hosting competitions in your country and the platform you are hosting on though, especially if you are planning on giving out more tangible rewards.
And that’s all for now lovelies. Happy drawing!
