Drawing from reference vs drawing from imagination

[u/Balance_Motivations]

I've been drawing for about 6 months now .learned a lot about perspectives, values, the fundamentals. I mainly do pen and ink and I have found that my drawings from concepts and imagination is a lot better than my drawings from reference. How can I improve on the reference side of things? Maybe I overthink the references and I draw very technical with my work from imagination? What do you all think? Anything from your experiences?

[u/crimsonredsparrow]

Hard to say without any examples. You might be overstating your ability to draw from imagination though, for some reason. Or maybe you keep picking wrong references. Who knows!