Motivational Poster
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
For those in the loop, you would already be aware of the fight Ryan, some of his other friends, and I have found myself in. Theres this douche bag on deviant art who thought he would do the righteous thing and preach us (fan artists and cartoon lovers) in the depressing ways of horrible sculptures and Military Buttsecks. Of course I couldn't sit back and allow him to just mow over this poor girl trying to bring happiness into this world with her colourful art, so I faught back along with the others to teach this guy a lesson in Deviant Art PAIN! ><
Aaaaanyways, He was claiming that FanArt is illegal. Which was his first mistake and I quite happy to inform him of his aweful misunderstanding of the law. And he was also claiming that FanArt is the worst kind of cartoon Art.
This got me thinking. When a company makes a cartoon. There's someone making up the characters, and then about 50 other people copying this character over and over again to breathe life into him. So essentially what he thought was an original cartoon, was in reality ONE person's imagination and 1,000,000's of fan art pictures crammed together. Which when you put it that way sounds horrible, and when you look deep inside your cartoon soul you know this not to be true. There is nothing wrong with FanArt, and in some cases, people put alot more time and effort into FanArt than some of the original drawings. It's essentially an essence of creativity and wonderful imagination coming together from the minds and hearts of 100's of people to create a world away from reality. Where anything is possible. Of course, creating your own characters is much more fun and adventurous.
So the question I leave you all with today is. What are your thoughts on FanArt and what are your thoughts on Longun
Labels: Philosophy
8 comments:
It all comes down to event Vs process.
If the fan art is just for the sake of saying, I can do that too. Or to create a final product that is a copy then poo poo on the artist. Stretch your brain and come up with something new!
However, if the piece in question forms part of a learning PROCESS for the artist, is a step in a journey towards a better understanding of the craft then go for it. I don't visit Diviant Art that often, but get the feeling it works kind of like a diary for many contributors. Not a collection of ultimate creations, but a record of the artist developing interests and skills. In those cases, copying is one of many kinds of learning and is A OK with me.
Balance is required though. You can't create the illusion of life if you don't have one of your own (paraphrasing Brad Bird). So all artist should be encouraged to get out there and draw whats happening around them in the real world too. Maybe thats the problem some see, I would guess you get some fans who are so obsessed that all they ever do is fan art. That would not be good.
I'd have to agree completely with that Ian. For me it was a learning curb. I remember when I was around 6 or so, trying to copy the lion king. ^_^. But yes, there are those who do nothing BUT FanArt, and that really does give me the shits.
To be honest I rarely use DeviantArt anymore, but it is a REALLY good site for meeting people with similar interests. (It's not like there are many other Art websites out there that get over 300,000 views a day ^_^ if not more)
And you can learn alot from what alot of people can produce on that site. It has it's bad eggs, like every large gathering of people is bound to have and others really can't judge a site based on a mass group of 14 year old girls who made characters with MASSIVE eyes and TINY bodies and put "DESU" on the end of everything. There are generally some really talented people on dA. I've found some really insparational stuff on there. But alas, dA isn't for animators, it is designed for illustrators. And if I want to be a good animator I'm going to have focus on the movment instead of how many different light sources are going to reflect off my hardcore sword wielding hero's hair, and whether or not he has one knot or a double knot through his shoelaces.
If only there was a Deviant Animation website. That'll be the day. A mega website where you can just surf from page to page and see how other people make things move. If any really talented Web Designers are out there, and readign this comment, you should give this idea a go.
Remember this conversation through in the year when Jane is trying to get you to experiment with different aproaches to your drawing. The reason she does this (or one reason) is to get students to take the next step beyond copying and start to discover their own path. You would be amazed how many students resist. In those classes have a look around the room and see how many are determined to stay within the safty of their copied style, or at least seem unable to change. This is perhaps the negative side of fan art, when someone gets so locked in that they can't change the way they do things. There arn't many jobs out there for one trick horses.
As with all things balance is the key. Pull apart the way someone you respect does something and put it back together if it helps you understand. But also challence yourself to find something from outside of popular culture and copy that too. Billy Conolly defines a nerd as someone who has narowed all there interests down to one thing, thats not the kind of person I want as a coworker.
I've been to Deviant art a couple of times, but found there was such a concentration of "unbalanced" people who quite obviously were "nerds" that I was a little put off. Maybe thats what inspired the nasty commentor, but he/she was generalising about fan art which is not on. It has some value, it inspires people to draw.
This artist was creating fan art in her own style. The piece in question was actually a commision piece. somebody had asked her to draw her favorite character in her style. And even though this girl had a gallery full of really stunning individual pieces 'Longun' decided to pick on this one piece and told the girl that she was incapable of individual thought and that his artwork was far superior.
ass.
I personally like some fan art, cause it's just plain pretty but i get REALLY sick of seeing it *coughNARUTOcough* but if the person is just using it as a learning curb then i say go for it! I do this constantly. I think it's fun trying new styles, in fact my biggest problem is sticking to one >___>
As for the dude on DA, he needs a life! Some people can get really big heads by becoming popular on that website.
It's times like this when im happy im not popular =D
And you were 6 when you started drawing? God I only started in grade 7 >___> And the only thing i drew was dragon ball z :p
Yeah, You really have to dig deep inside yourself to bring forth clean original artwork. Will Jane be making us make original cartoons. Or more contemporary surreal stuff?
Because I've done this before. and it's never easy. It's like, finding your inner child, and asking it, how it sees the picture in its head. And then giving that child 14 years of illustrating talent, but not taking over yourself. You gotta let him draw it himself.
Back in the days when it wasn't about trying to be the next walt disney. It was just about trying to be better than the kid sitting next to you, by drawing 6 fingers instead of 5, and TWO heads. And then 'accidentally' spilling poster paint of his picture whilst reaching out of the bottle of glue. Smug little rich 5 year old bastard didn't see it coming. And neither will Jane. Muhahaha.
God, trying to find something totally original is like trying to find my brain after using Maya for a while, nearly impossible.
At this point in time, my inner child is telling me that I really need to draw something but nothing is coming out ;___;. Hmmm, this smells like an art block!
And are you holding something against a little kid in your childhood?
I don't know what Jane will teach in detail, but I think you will find its about drawing what you see around you instead of how other artists have already interpreted it.
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