I've been drawing for around 6 years now and over that time I've realized I've collected tons of reference images. I never really considered it as like a special interest but yeah it's kinda extreme, my pinterest says I have over 12,000 pins plus some in my secret boards lol.
Do you guys also hoard reference images in similar ways and if so what sorts of images are you drawn to? Some of my favorite boards to look back through are
"Spooks"- my horror board, it ranges from anything slightly unnerving to like monster designs, fake gore, uncanny valley type stuff.
"Dream"
"Mood"
and "Story inspiration"
these are all kind of similar, I tend to really like images that have interesting vibes to them, "dream" is for dreamlike, surreal, liminal space type things. "Mood" is dumping ground for things I like the feel of but don't really know how to categorize, and a lot of them are art of mundane everyday life type scenarios. I guess slice of life-y. "Story inspiration" is what is sounds like pretty much, they're images that when I look at them they make me think of the narratives behind them. They're images that seem cinematic like they're cut from scenes playing out. I really like them lol.
And a lot of my other boards are more straight forward reference boards, ie; a board for cool character designs, a couple boards for poses, one for expressions, one for buildings, one for mechanical designs, animals, clothes, etc.
If you guys have saved stacks of images you can share I'd like to look through them too! My own Pinterest is just @JKKH9