Imitating another artist's style isn't a bad thing, people do it all the time. The important thing is that you aren't claiming it to be original *snicker* I've seen some people do that.

Practice is just practice :)

i have a friend that sounds like the borg some times when he sees a really neat art style(that is in person when hes watching them draw) he speaks loudly and says i mush asimilate your style. hes now got his own style wich is bits and pices of other things and well nothing is original anymore so remember that even batoven(sp) copyed other musicians works to gain the ability to know how to do it himself to creat a lot of really lovly musical artistic pices! rock on

I know, and many artists say that to draw from other artists is part of the process. I know this, but I also know that it was practice, I still have no love for this piece. I almost didn't even post it.