I think a mix of both is best. Actual life drawing whether that's IRL or from photos is important to learn how stuff actually works, but if you want your art to look a specific way, referencing the people whose work you love is what you should be doing. It's just remembering that the people you wanna steal from also most likely did anatomy studies and learned how to stylize that into their work. It's really complicated tbh lol. I'll use a bunch of IRL stuff for references on how I want a body to be shaped for a character or pose, and then use references of artists or things I like that are hand-drawn to figure out how I want to stylize that. Ultimately the answer is just draw more and steal more from places you like. Definitely rambled but there is no clear easy answer to this one lol.