Board index » Present Evidence » Fanart

Page 1 of 2[ 42 posts ]
Go to page 1, 2  Next
 


Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

Just a couple of AA-related illustrations and comics from my dA gallery. Images ordered oldest to newest. Comments and critiques much appreciated.

YEAR 2011:

Phoenix and Sissel

Viejo Hombre Armando

Maya Fey Ink Portrait

Mia Fey Ink Portrait

Kick The Door Down

YEAR 2012:

Miego Double Objection

Gumshoe's Jimmies

Turnabout X-MEN 2
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.


Last edited by Cal Santiago on Wed May 16, 2012 3:02 am, edited 7 times in total.
Re: Some bits of Fan ArtTopic%20Title
User avatar

A beautiful world indeed.

Gender: Male

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:09 am

Posts: 1334

These are quite well done.

I love the Turnabout X-men one.
Re: Some bits of Fan ArtTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

neoswordmaster wrote:
These are quite well done.

I love the Turnabout X-men one.


That's one of my favorites, aye. XD

But I was slightly disturbed when someone pointed out that I had accidentally and unintentionally paired up Maya and Edgeworth in there, what with the whole Rogue-Gambit thing. O__o
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Re: Some bits of Fan ArtTopic%20Title
User avatar

Gender: Female

Location: Hazakurain

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon May 05, 2008 3:34 am

Posts: 1196

LightningfistCal wrote:
But I was slightly disturbed when someone pointed out that I had accidentally and unintentionally paired up Maya and Edgeworth in there, what with the whole Rogue-Gambit thing. O__o


Even though it was unintentional, I still gotta say that I love you forever.

*ships Edgeworth/Maya XD*
Re: Some bits of Fan ArtTopic%20Title
User avatar

Gender: Female

Location: Pittsburgh

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:50 pm

Posts: 405

Ahahahahaha I adore that Diego "kitten" one! You know he had it coming XD

You have such great, strong shading/lighting in your work, and I'm especially partial to the Investigations one. Beautiful job!
Re: Some bits of Fan ArtTopic%20Title
User avatar

Holy whack! Unlyrical lyrics Andre

Gender: Male

Location: North-East England

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2009 5:36 pm

Posts: 529

Theese are great!! I love the X-MEN one.
Image Image
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

TOPIC BUMP (after 3 freaking years!)

Phoenix and Sissel

Viejo Hombre Armando

Maya Fey Ink Portrait

Mia Fey Ink Portrait

Kick The Door Down
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

I'm digging the Kick the door down page :D Those two should investigate crime scenes together more often if it's going to be that awesome ^^
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Gettin' Old!

Gender: Male

Location: Scotland

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:30 pm

Posts: 14363

I really like old Armando it's such a nice touch.
Made by Chesu+Zombee
Image

You thought you could be safe in your courts, with your laws and attorneys to protect you. In this world only I am law, my word is fact, my power is absolute.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

Update for new stuff.

Miego Double Objection
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Gettin' Old!

Gender: Male

Location: Scotland

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:30 pm

Posts: 14363

LightningfistCal wrote:
Update for new stuff.

Miego Double Objection


Something seems off about Mia's face
Made by Chesu+Zombee
Image

You thought you could be safe in your courts, with your laws and attorneys to protect you. In this world only I am law, my word is fact, my power is absolute.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

There's nothing wrong. Her nose isn't petite in this like most would draw it, but it's not wrong. It is a more masculine shape.

Lightning- I can point out how to feminise it more if you want. It's a simple fix- I promise :)
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Gettin' Old!

Gender: Male

Location: Scotland

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:30 pm

Posts: 14363

Arkillian wrote:
There's nothing wrong. Her nose isn't petite in this like most would draw it, but it's not wrong. It is a more masculine shape.

Lightning- I can point out how to feminise it more if you want. It's a simple fix- I promise :)


Meh must just be a preference thing.
Made by Chesu+Zombee
Image

You thought you could be safe in your courts, with your laws and attorneys to protect you. In this world only I am law, my word is fact, my power is absolute.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

A little bit of both. Mia does have a petite nose in the official art. There's many nose shapes out there in the world though. Lightning might prefer it this way :) If that's the case then there's nothing to critique. If he wanted it to be petite and can't figure out how to fix it though, I have no problems helping out :)
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

Arkillian wrote:
A little bit of both. Mia does have a petite nose in the official art. There's many nose shapes out there in the world though. Lightning might prefer it this way :) If that's the case then there's nothing to critique. If he wanted it to be petite and can't figure out how to fix it though, I have no problems helping out :)


The thing is I'm trying to achieve a different style from the official art. You can see that in the way I drew Nick and Edgeworth in "Kick The Door Down". Personally, I think the official style is way too anime-ish for my preferences and I always thought the characters' noses were too uniform and boring. Also, the figure model I sketched for this had that particular nose, anyways.

And I can see that not everybody is fond of my style, but I've learned to not really give a shit about that anymore, haha. But thanks for the comments anyways.
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

I wondered if you meant to do that *nods* That's why I said that I didn't think it was wrong. Alot of people expect all ace attorney art to look like the official art. I get the same guff with my art- people telling me that I colour things wrong and stuff. Screw that. If I wanted to look at art that looked like official art, I'd look at official art XD I find the official art is less to my tastes after seeing fanart of it too. I think that there's ALOT of room for interpretation of the characters, and that the official style is too polite. The fancomic that I'm collaborating specifically has a wide range of art styles in it. All of them are completely valid way of drawing the characters. Not all styles are to everyones tastes of course (I get ALOT of anime fans take a look at my art at cons, turn around and walk away. Anime fans are HORRENDOUSLY rude actually), and as you said, the model that originally wore that nose was a real person.

You keep doing your thing, hon :) As long as it's not something that you want to change then I'm all approving of what you do :) I only piped up cause I wasn't sure if it was what you wanted. Some people draw stuff and stop when they can't figure out why something is wrong to them. There's all sorts of nose shapes all over the world and it's great to have some variation from the norm *nods* Mind if I see the reference picture? I'd like to see what the model looked like.

<edit> Actually, masculine and feminine is a bad way of describing it, sorry ^^; I couldn't think of a better way of describing it, and I still can't ^^; You get what I mean though, right? </edit>
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

True, I hate it when people (anime fans specifically) get all in-your-face just because the don't like a particular art style. To be fair, most anime style is pretty bad to begin with, in my opinion. I once wrote a blog about my art style and how I came to develop it; you might be interested in reading if you've the time.

And unfortunately I don't have a reference image for the model since I sketched her during a live session. Anyways, thanks for the comments, again.
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Heat Guy J

Gender: None specified

Location: Deutschland

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 4:32 am

Posts: 97

I wholeheartedly agree. Drawing fanart in the official style is boring, and at most, only an exercise. I prefer drawing fanart in my own style too because I'm always curious to know how they would look like if they were rendered in my style. Of course, that also means the standards are different--women actually have noses in realism. Not so much in anime.

I find it interesting how almost nobody really complains about normal women in real life with noses like that. In fact, I think they're considered attractive.
Pauca sed matura.

Image
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

To me, it's not the proportions that are beautiful in a person, but the personality to go with it. Sure, if someone has a horrific scar on their face you get a blinding flash of sympathy for them. That can't be helped, and I know people in that situation hate people doing it. IT's just human nature. I also know that if the person dresses badly or has bad hygiene it also leaves a stronger impression than their personality. If they dress right, and keep a good hygiene practice, then to me, it doesn't matter what shape everything is.

As for anime being ugly though, I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. There is some BEAUTIFUL anime styled art out there. What is wrong is that beginner artists go straight to anime style without learning how humans look unstylised (I think because it's so disproportionate or cause is so cool that it doesn't matter?). Art style to me is like lanuages. You can think that French is the language of lovers but really, any language can make you weak at the knees when it's said right.

Heh, sorry, I'm very neutral when it comes to the art style and medium argument. People seem to be passionately for or against both arguments. I hate it cause Digital and traditional are both just means to an end, just as much as eastern and western art styles are both valid forms of expression. I love GOOD ART. Art with heart, art with a story, and art with effort put into it. Not a specific style or medium. Admittedly though, you have to pull favourites onthe internet when you're swarmed with talent from all angles. That's where that OC versus fanart argument comes in :< How do people find your OCs if they don't know who they are? I LOVE OCs. The problem is weeding through the badly designed ones to find the actually good ones. :doodle:
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Heat Guy J

Gender: None specified

Location: Deutschland

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 4:32 am

Posts: 97

Well, whether or not a particular style is beautiful just depends on who's looking at it. Some people will like it, and other people will not. I don't think all anime is ugly (well, some of it is horrible), but there are some styles I know I just don't like, like the large eyes and no noses sort of thing because it makes all the characters look like children. I'm willing to admit that's purely just a matter of taste, and it says nothing about how well the artist actually draws. It's the same if people don't like my artwork. Not everyone is meant to like my style, even if it is unique.

But I agree too. Bad technique is really easy to pick out, and its horrendous. Even if it didn't look like anime, it would still be horrendous.

I also like OCs, provided they aren't rainbow haired or something. I'm kind of hoping to see something new and interesting by joining clubs specifically for OCs. The problem is that even there, there's a lot of OCs that look the same. I have better luck looking for OCs of a select few artists I like to watch.
Pauca sed matura.

Image
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

Oh- Rainbow hair can be done right- it's just when it's used to replace a personality that it's an issue ;) In the right world and situation, Rainbow hair is cool. It's the Mary Sue thing. Anything that's too super special for no reason and not balanced off makes a bland character.

I'm funny with chibi / Moe art styles. I think super deformed has it's place in comedic value. As the primary art style though it gives me a headache. I don't mind it for things like 4koma comics and gag panels. The artist should know how to draw more proportionally though IMHO. The problem with chibi / Moe artists is that's all they tend to draw, and if they do, they draw it cause it's popular. They never improve with their art cause they don't need to. That I can't stand. Not wanting to improve and try something new.
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Heat Guy J

Gender: None specified

Location: Deutschland

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 4:32 am

Posts: 97

Ja, that's the problem. Rainbow hair is too often overused. I realize that a lot of things that are commonly mistaken as Mary Sue traits can be done, if they're done properly; the problem is that most people often don't do a good job of it, which makes finding good OCs hard.

Same with chibis too I guess. I'm okay with them appearing once or twice in a panel for comedic effect, but not if it's the entire thing, but I was referring specifically to the anime style that involves large eyes and small noses and mouths. I guess overusing this just causes all the characters to look the same, as this doesn't tend to work so well on older characters.

I'm finding the people who typically don't want to improve art are either people who are full of themselves and have an ego the size of a balloon or they're people who only treat art as for fun. I'm not too sure how that works because I can't see why anyone wouldn't want to improve (and if it's fun, it's not work). I only ever take issue with them when they complain about a critique they're supposedly not supposed to care about in the first place.
Pauca sed matura.

Image
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

No see, that's the weird thing. They WANT to be pro artists, but they think that they can be pro as easily as tripping over a rock. You also get the flip side where people complain that they spend hours drawing lots of pictures, but cause they aren't learning correctly, (ie: drawing from something that exists rather than someone elses interpretation, or just as bad 'Only from memory') , they don't improve much. To me, you need to draw frequently, but you need to draw correctly when you do. If you don't, then you can't complain that you wish you were better.

Urgh- the drawing from 'memory' thing annoys me. There's such a taboo out there about admitting to using referances. An artist I follow on DA Aquasuxio did a tutorial on how to use references and got FLAMED because of it.I don't care how carefully he copied the original photo- he changes those images into completely unique pieced of art, and his watchers couldn't see that or respect it. In complelty related news, an artist uses the grid method to redraw a Final fantasy character in pencil as accurately as they can and they get praised for their efforts.

Sorry- I'll stop ranting. I could go on for HOURS about irks I have with art and artists. I wish everyone would quit their drama and just draw >.<
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Heat Guy J

Gender: None specified

Location: Deutschland

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 4:32 am

Posts: 97

Oh, I don't mind the rants. Discussions like these are fun. So long as Lightning doesn't mind that we're using his/her thread for it.

So you mean there aren't people that only do art for fun and don't care to improve? I'm sure there's a few people like that out there.

I'd actually be more interested in people's reactions to these realizations though. Because there are plenty of articles out there about drawing correctly, and to some people, it's a complete surprise, and their reactions can range from mildly surprised to flat denial.

I think part of the problem with references is that you'll see this thumbnail of something that looks to be really amazing, and after you see it, you assume that the person who drew it did it from memory or imagination, and when you find they used a reference, the amazement isn't nearly as strong because they didn't exactly do it by themselves. Conversely, the opposite problem is drawing an image that looks amazing, and not telling anyone you referenced it, so in the end, people will think it's amazing, and they will assume you didn't use any reference because there's no indication given at all that you used one. I actually find it peculiar that when such people are called out for using reference but not citing it (as this does happen on certain online art galleries), people are hostile to the idea that the person could actually have been using references at all. Interesting, isn't it?

I think the above cases usually happen when you reference something to the point where it's considered copying so the image resembles the original so much that almost nothing in your resulting image is considered new or different. Certainly, when I reference something, it's usually for something small and because I don't know how something looks like from a particular pose or angle; because they are so commonly occurring though, and because the referenced portion is so minimal, nobody really knows if I actually referenced it or not.

But I agree. There's nothing wrong with referencing something, so long as you learn something from it, and people who are complaining about it while praising a grid copy of official art of some fandom are being hypocritical.
Pauca sed matura.

Image
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

We can continue in my thread if Lightning doesn't want it ;) Frankly ANY movement in the art thread right now is great to me >.>

There ARE a minority of people that don't care how their art looks- they just want to share their scrap art with everyone. Most people given an environment like DA will whine that their art is no good even if they don't seek to improve it. Whining about it gives a common ground interest that other deviants can relate to... or that's my theory. All I can say is that it's self destructive. I have people that idolise my initiative to print my comics.

...

What? It's not hard to do. If I was at school at the time I got into comics, I would've saved all my pocket money and still done what I do today. I didn't know New Zealand even HAD comic stores till I was in my early 20s (say good by to all my money >.> ), and I wasn't earning alot of money.

Aquasixeo took poses, and movements from references- not whole images. Those images look NOTHING like the originals. THAT is the degree of anger that the world has for copying in ANY degree. I think it's because he actually sells art and is well known on DA. It seems to me that the flames increase in temperature depending on how pro you are but really, even the pros copy... even trace. For them, they're not interested in minor things like what shape the eyes are or what. They're working to a dollar, and the client doesn't care if it was referanced as long as the final product it beautiful. The less time they spend, the less they charge. It's all about what they DO with the base structure- not the structure its self. There's a romance with art for fun that just doesn't exist in commercial art, and it's hard to comprehend.

My biggest what I don't get is people that refuse to referance even for practice. Why? Cause it's 'CHEATING'. I hear that term alot for referancing. Cheating. I don't get it. I honestly don't. Referancing... even tracing have their place. I don't freak out about anything anymore. I found that unless someone isn't stealing art that it's not worth stressing over. IF they're just drawing for fun, let them be. They draw noses weird? Maybe they like it like that. Their subject content not to your liking? Move on. It's our privilege to view someone's art, not our right, just as much as it's our right to NOT have to look at art if we don't want to.
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Heat Guy J

Gender: None specified

Location: Deutschland

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 4:32 am

Posts: 97

Arkillian wrote:
We can continue in my thread if Lightning doesn't want it ;) Frankly ANY movement in the art thread right now is great to me >.>

There ARE a minority of people that don't care how their art looks- they just want to share their scrap art with everyone. Most people given an environment like DA will whine that their art is no good even if they don't seek to improve it. Whining about it gives a common ground interest that other deviants can relate to... or that's my theory. All I can say is that it's self destructive. I have people that idolise my initiative to print my comics.


I've heard that complaint too. That DA is just encouraging the mentality that anyone can be an artist by sharing around your crappy art. Unfortunately, critiquing is one of DA's weaker points. Because most people on DA are amateur artists just using the site to share their work, you don't get a lot of comments or helpful critiques unless you join a group, and most of them are not used to getting critiques the same way art students probably do. DA just doesn't encourage that kind of environment. It's probably a combination of this and the majority of users belonging to some very popular fanbase of some anime--the result? Tons of subpar quality fanart that people pass around, that get attention, and people dropping unhelpful comments. Almost all the original stuff gets ignored. I sometimes wonder if that lighting tutorial I posted would have gotten a DD or as many faves or comments as it did if I hadn't used a character from a somewhat popular anime as the test subject.

Quote:
...

What? It's not hard to do. If I was at school at the time I got into comics, I would've saved all my pocket money and still done what I do today. I didn't know New Zealand even HAD comic stores till I was in my early 20s (say good by to all my money >.> ), and I wasn't earning alot of money.


Are you referring to referencing? Ja, it's not hard to do, but I get the point of doing it. It's to help you figure out how something looks like from a particular pose or angle.

Quote:
Aquasixeo took poses, and movements from references- not whole images. Those images look NOTHING like the originals. THAT is the degree of anger that the world has for copying in ANY degree. I think it's because he actually sells art and is well known on DA. It seems to me that the flames increase in temperature depending on how pro you are but really, even the pros copy... even trace. For them, they're not interested in minor things like what shape the eyes are or what. They're working to a dollar, and the client doesn't care if it was referanced as long as the final product it beautiful. The less time they spend, the less they charge. It's all about what they DO with the base structure- not the structure its self. There's a romance with art for fun that just doesn't exist in commercial art, and it's hard to comprehend.


I think there's this theory or idea that nothing we draw is original anyways. We're always referencing something we've seen at some point in time; we're simply mixing and matching ideas that we've seen before, regardless of if we've copied it before or not. If they have a problem with copying because it's not "original", they're forgetting that people drawing from memory aren't being "original" either; they just don't have exactly what they see in front of them.
I guess life drawing is also another kind of referencing. It seems people forget the whole point of doing this. It's good practice, and it's to help you improve. If they don't see it, it's their loss, I guess. They can stay stuck with crappy symbolic art if that's what they'd rather prefer.
I guess I only have a problem with tracing because of the minimal amounts of effort that go into doing it. I suppose when amateur artists do it, the result is an uneven copy that looks very obviously like there was no effort put into it. There's a stigmatization that anyone can trace because you don't have to know anything about anatomy or any art techniques to do it, so it's like cheating. I can understand tracing your own artwork if you're animating frames or coloring your own or other people's pictures; at least then you'd actually have to know what you're doing and actually put in some effort, but if tracing means forgoing all the learning about art that everyone else who cares spends time on, and not asking the person who made the original for permission to use it, or even crediting them, it's just laziness at best. If it's for fun though, I can't see why people should call it art.

Quote:
My biggest what I don't get is people that refuse to referance even for practice. Why? Cause it's 'CHEATING'. I hear that term alot for referancing. Cheating. I don't get it. I honestly don't. Referancing... even tracing have their place. I don't freak out about anything anymore. I found that unless someone isn't stealing art that it's not worth stressing over. IF they're just drawing for fun, let them be. They draw noses weird? Maybe they like it like that. Their subject content not to your liking? Move on. It's our privilege to view someone's art, not our right, just as much as it's our right to NOT have to look at art if we don't want to.

I wonder if they think life drawing is cheating. Because that's actually what goes on in art schools. Even my university has a club that offers life drawing sessions to help interested students get better at drawing human figures.
I don't mind if people draw for fun though. It can sometimes be hard to pick out those people though because if they really are doing it for fun, any critique you give them won't matter to them; instead, some people cause drama over it and get upset. I rarely ever publicly complain about subject matter though, as that doesn't really help anyone. My tastes are nobody's business except my own. I'd love to give people critique if I could know for sure it's what they want. Again, it's just not easy to tell sometimes, so I often just don't say anything.
Pauca sed matura.

Image
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

While I don't necessarily approve of how my art thread suddenly turned into a debate thread, if you're going to engage in argument about the crappy art community in dA, at least let the original poster participate as well. Hehe. ;)

Jay wrote:
DA is just encouraging the mentality that anyone can be an artist by sharing around your crappy art. Unfortunately, critiquing is one of DA's weaker points. Because most people on DA are amateur artists just using the site to share their work, you don't get a lot of comments or helpful critiques unless you join a group, and most of them are not used to getting critiques the same way art students probably do. DA just doesn't encourage that kind of environment. It's probably a combination of this and the majority of users belonging to some very popular fanbase of some anime--the result? Tons of subpar quality fanart that people pass around, that get attention, and people dropping unhelpful comments. Almost all the original stuff gets ignored. I sometimes wonder if that lighting tutorial I posted would have gotten a DD or as many faves or comments as it did if I hadn't used a character from a somewhat popular anime as the test subject.


THIS. IS. SO. FUCKING. TRUE.

Hell, the only reason I stay on dA is because I've neither the time nor the money to come up with my own art site. If I did, I'd just stick to that.

I really HATE the fact that people have the NERVE to post their ugly-ass shitty drawings. I hate seeing those effortless "sketches" *cough*doodles*cough* on the front page of the site. I hate the never-ending dumping of unoriginal anime fan art. How many times have I logged on to see Naruto, Bleach, etc. on the front page? And stupid My Little Pony as well. Bleh. And don't even get me started on the Artistic Nudes section. But really, what pisses me off the most is when you work hard on something ORIGINAL, and people don't give a shit about it once you've posted it.

I've been a comic artist and illustrator for six years now, and a comics fan for twenty years. Ever since I came up with my original comic, "The LightningFist" (TLF) back in 2006, I've been working my hardest to make it successful. The characters, the stories, the universe... I can't even count how many times I've had to revise these just to ensure I could deliver a good story. In real life at comic conventions, yeah, there's a nice little community of aspiring artists with a lot of talent and you at least get trustworthy critiques from people who know where you're coming from. Not so much with dA. I only started getting noticed as a comic artist after I drew my Assassin's Creed fan comic trilogy. To be honest the first comic of this trilogy was half-assed and a rush job, since I didn't think anybody would take it seriously. I only did it for fun and because I liked the fan fiction that my partner wrote, and wanted to see what it would be like in comic form. I was really surprised when people started asking for a sequel, and when that was done they asked for ANOTHER sequel. Since those comics got a lot of positive reviews, I thought the same would happen for TLF. I posted all 30 pages of the first chapter of what I would consider my "baby", optimistic that it would garner the same amount of attentions as my Fans & Switchblades trilogy. Boy was I wrong. Barely anybody commented. I doubt my watchers even bothered to read it.

Now I recently graduated from University, and now that I've got more time on my hands I've been planning on making more comics for this year. I already finished a new original comic about Filipino martial arts, but now I don't know if I should even bother posting that on dA anymore. Why? Because immediately after that comic on my list is another fan comic of Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and that appears to be what my watchers are most excited about. See? It seems I've been reduced to nothing but fan comics because those are the ones that get attention. And that's a sad fact because all I do is work with these already-established characters with little room for improvement, while I'm forced to leave my OC's with tons of potential at the side because nobody cares about them. As much as I love Assassin's Creed, truth be told sometimes I do get sick of it.

BUT I'M STILL CONTINUING MY ORIGINAL COMICS. I'm not going to give up on them, and may even turn down fan comic requests in the future just so I can focus solely on my original series. There exists a theory known as the Mere Exposure Theory. Basically, it posits that the more exposure something has, the more likely people will be interested or accepting of that said thing. I'm applying this theory to my comics, and hopefully it'll work. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Quote:
I wonder if they think life drawing is cheating. Because that's actually what goes on in art schools. Even my university has a club that offers life drawing sessions to help interested students get better at drawing human figures.
I don't mind if people draw for fun though. It can sometimes be hard to pick out those people though because if they really are doing it for fun, any critique you give them won't matter to them; instead, some people cause drama over it and get upset. I rarely ever publicly complain about subject matter though, as that doesn't really help anyone. My tastes are nobody's business except my own. I'd love to give people critique if I could know for sure it's what they want. Again, it's just not easy to tell sometimes, so I often just don't say anything.


Another good point. This is another topic that that the idiots at dA greatly misunderstand.

There's nothing wrong with using references or life-drawing. I get references from GettyImages and other stock image sites all the time, and I practice sketching backgrounds and street life (cars, buildings, people in the marketplace, etc) when I'm actually outside. It IS a good practice. People only say that it's cheating because "the creation isn't your own". Uh, FYI, that's not true. Anything made tangible by your own hands is, in my book, your creation. Same case as with anything you conjure in your mind is your intellectual property. References aren't a bad thing. They're there to guide you, especially when it comes to backgrounds and perspective. Because if you don't use references, then how the hell do you expect to improve?

Just my two cents.

P.S. If you want to know a bit about why I decided to be a comic artist, you can read this if you have the time.

P.P.S. You can just call me "Cal" if you want. "Lightning" reminds me too much of that pink-haired chick from Final Fantasy, LOL.
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

Hmmm... Original story lines are one of those funny things that don't get popular simply cause you post them. I usually have to post ALOT of art of my character first before releasing a comic before they get a following. And posting comic all at once is no good either. 1 per week keeps watchers commenting and waiting for more. IT's all about anticipation.

In saying this, MAN it should be easier than that! XD Cool OCs should speak for themselves. If you have 100 active watchers, surely 50 of them will be reading / looking at art of OCs? How many comment? MUCH less. It's all to do with relevance of the viewer though. I wish I knew the formula, cause I don't, but some artists doe REALLY well with original comics. They need to be frequent, and consistent I've found. Comic dumps don't work I've noticed. You're right with that exposure thing. I believe it too- the more people that know of something, the easier it is for new people to understand it. I think humans communicate in more ways than we realise.

I wish there was a way of filtering out recolour + Frankenstein OCs from DA and leaving the ones with potential, or that are good. I actually like to watch a developing OC grow into a flower as much as I love developed ones. I can't be bothered with ones that wont progress.

Cal- you print your comics at all? I notice that they're in colour (EXPENSIVE! D: ) so I'm thinking that they're not (Unless the Philippines has awesome printers that don't charge the earth for CMYK like New Zealand does- Printing is SO expensive in my country T.T And it's not proportional to the dollar either. It's cheaper to print in America and ship it over than here.), but I noticed that a HUGE fandom of one of my comics came out of the woodwork when I sold my comic. People I didn't know existed purchased a copy for themselves and friends. IT was at that point that I realised that if you post a comic all at once, you'll never get a true idea of how popular it really is, cause people at that point will comment on the WHOLE comic rather than just page by page. It's faster.

Truth be spoken with Fandoms getting more attention though. I ALWAYS get more attention for my fancomics. That's ok though, as long as some stick around for my original stories too ;)
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Heat Guy J

Gender: None specified

Location: Deutschland

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 4:32 am

Posts: 97

LightningfistCal wrote:
THIS. IS. SO. FUCKING. TRUE.

Hell, the only reason I stay on dA is because I've neither the time nor the money to come up with my own art site. If I did, I'd just stick to that.


Ja, it's a nice place to post your art on, and hope that the occasional person who stops by is as interested and serious about art as you are, but I'm just not expecting much out of it. That's all.


Quote:
I really HATE the fact that people have the NERVE to post their ugly-ass shitty drawings. I hate seeing those effortless "sketches" *cough*doodles*cough* on the front page of the site. I hate the never-ending dumping of unoriginal anime fan art. How many times have I logged on to see Naruto, Bleach, etc. on the front page? And stupid My Little Pony as well. Bleh. And don't even get me started on the Artistic Nudes section. But really, what pisses me off the most is when you work hard on something ORIGINAL, and people don't give a shit about it once you've posted it.


I think you can change it so that it will only display popular works, which generally are quite good, but there is occasionally shit up there too.
People forget the scraps folder is there for a reason. Use it.
My theory about that is that people are selfish. They don't care about your artwork. They're only there to see what they want to see, which is characters they know and like. So they'll probably bias their searches towards those anime groups or using names of popular characters for art searches, and generally ignore everything else. It's sad that that's how people look at art, but we aren't going to tell people what they want to see.

Quote:
I've been a comic artist and illustrator for six years now, and a comics fan for twenty years. Ever since I came up with my original comic, "The LightningFist" (TLF) back in 2006, I've been working my hardest to make it successful. The characters, the stories, the universe... I can't even count how many times I've had to revise these just to ensure I could deliver a good story. In real life at comic conventions, yeah, there's a nice little community of aspiring artists with a lot of talent and you at least get trustworthy critiques from people who know where you're coming from. Not so much with dA. I only started getting noticed as a comic artist after I drew my Assassin's Creed fan comic trilogy. To be honest the first comic of this trilogy was half-assed and a rush job, since I didn't think anybody would take it seriously. I only did it for fun and because I liked the fan fiction that my partner wrote, and wanted to see what it would be like in comic form. I was really surprised when people started asking for a sequel, and when that was done they asked for ANOTHER sequel. Since those comics got a lot of positive reviews, I thought the same would happen for TLF. I posted all 30 pages of the first chapter of what I would consider my "baby", optimistic that it would garner the same amount of attentions as my Fans & Switchblades trilogy. Boy was I wrong. Barely anybody commented. I doubt my watchers even bothered to read it.


I can understand that frustration. What really bothers me most is that people will look at my older work, which sometimes does have fanart characters in them, and they will say how cool they think it is, and spend lots of their comments and faves on it. The problem is, I no longer feel like my older artwork represents my current skill, and I have much better artwork on display, and you didn't have to dig through my entire gallery to see it, and despite that, people would rather ignore it just so that they can look at the fanart, no matter how shitty I think it is. Of course, the simple solution is to just remove everything from your gallery that's older than a certain date, but I prefer to keep them there for evolution's sake, so that people can compare how I did then to how I did now.
I sometimes use fanart as a hook in the hopes that people will look at my original stuff, but there will always be people who won't care anyways.
This isn't actually so bad though. What's worse is people coming onto your page and demanding you draw certain subjects. I've had a few tactless people come by and ask for stuff like that.

Quote:
Now I recently graduated from University, and now that I've got more time on my hands I've been planning on making more comics for this year. I already finished a new original comic about Filipino martial arts, but now I don't know if I should even bother posting that on dA anymore. Why? Because immediately after that comic on my list is another fan comic of Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and that appears to be what my watchers are most excited about. See? It seems I've been reduced to nothing but fan comics because those are the ones that get attention. And that's a sad fact because all I do is work with these already-established characters with little room for improvement, while I'm forced to leave my OC's with tons of potential at the side because nobody cares about them. As much as I love Assassin's Creed, truth be told sometimes I do get sick of it.

BUT I'M STILL CONTINUING MY ORIGINAL COMICS. I'm not going to give up on them, and may even turn down fan comic requests in the future just so I can focus solely on my original series. There exists a theory known as the Mere Exposure Theory. Basically, it posits that the more exposure something has, the more likely people will be interested or accepting of that said thing. I'm applying this theory to my comics, and hopefully it'll work. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


Have you tried Smackjeeves? They let you host your comics. I suspect they're only for original comics, as I haven't seen too many fancomics on there, but if they're strictly for original comics, then they're helping encourage more originality by letting people post their comics.

Quote:
Another good point. This is another topic that that the idiots at dA greatly misunderstand.

There's nothing wrong with using references or life-drawing. I get references from GettyImages and other stock image sites all the time, and I practice sketching backgrounds and street life (cars, buildings, people in the marketplace, etc) when I'm actually outside. It IS a good practice. People only say that it's cheating because "the creation isn't your own". Uh, FYI, that's not true. Anything made tangible by your own hands is, in my book, your creation. Same case as with anything you conjure in your mind is your intellectual property. References aren't a bad thing. They're there to guide you, especially when it comes to backgrounds and perspective. Because if you don't use references, then how the hell do you expect to improve?

Just my two cents.


I think we're all in agreement here. We need references because that's how we're going to know how to draw something. I think the goal to have in mind is to use references to understand how something should look. Then when you get good enough, you won't have to use them so much.
To be honest, I haven't actually met any of these people who say references are bad; I've seen people trace entire works without giving credit, and they post these on DA and get away with it all the time. I wouldn't actually be bothered if they didn't make it seem like it was a polished masterpiece (it isn't) and all the people commenting aren't retarded enough to realize it was a trace or call the guy out on it, and instead just say it looks cool.

Arkillian wrote:
Hmmm... Original story lines are one of those funny things that don't get popular simply cause you post them. I usually have to post ALOT of art of my character first before releasing a comic before they get a following. And posting comic all at once is no good either. 1 per week keeps watchers commenting and waiting for more. IT's all about anticipation.


I think part of the problem with original stories is that people have to spend time reading them. So unless it draws them immediately, they'll consider it a waste of time. This is a bit different from just a picture or two, where you can just evaluate it in an instant by simply looking at it. I guess a comic format isn't too bad, because you can skim through it, and judge the style quickly, and have an idea of what sort of story it's going to be. Fanfiction doesn't have this problem because people are actually looking for fics about their favorite characters. I guess that's why it's better to post a few at a time. You'll get them excited enough about wanting to see what happens, and they'll have time for one page every week rather than a hundred pages on the spot.

Quote:
In saying this, MAN it should be easier than that! XD Cool OCs should speak for themselves. If you have 100 active watchers, surely 50 of them will be reading / looking at art of OCs? How many comment? MUCH less. It's all to do with relevance of the viewer though. I wish I knew the formula, cause I don't, but some artists doe REALLY well with original comics. They need to be frequent, and consistent I've found. Comic dumps don't work I've noticed. You're right with that exposure thing. I believe it too- the more people that know of something, the easier it is for new people to understand it. I think humans communicate in more ways than we realise.


If anyone knew that formula, they'd be rich.
Although I think the advent of the Internet has helped in terms of the communication thing. Before, you'd probably be sharing your drawings on paper or canvas with friends and family, and if you're lucky, the local gallery. Now you can share them with people all over the world by simply posting them on the Internet. The problem is they have to be willing to watch you, and they have to find you because the Internet is huge; I'm not the only person using it to share my artwork.

Quote:
I wish there was a way of filtering out recolour + Frankenstein OCs from DA and leaving the ones with potential, or that are good. I actually like to watch a developing OC grow into a flower as much as I love developed ones. I can't be bothered with ones that wont progress.


There are a few elite clubs for that. The only problem is that they don't exactly foster a learning environment for people who want to get there; it's only for people who are already there. But as for OC clubs, good ones are pretty hard to find. You'll either end up with large OC clubs with lots of crappy artwork, and nobody really cares because there's too many OCs flying around. Or you'll have on the other end, OC clubs that are intended for good OC development, but hardly anybody comes by. OC clubs that are just in between are not easy to find.
Pauca sed matura.

Image
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

Jay wrote:
I think part of the problem with original stories is that people have to spend time reading them. So unless it draws them immediately, they'll consider it a waste of time. This is a bit different from just a picture or two, where you can just evaluate it in an instant by simply looking at it. I guess a comic format isn't too bad, because you can skim through it, and judge the style quickly, and have an idea of what sort of story it's going to be. Fanfiction doesn't have this problem because people are actually looking for fics about their favorite characters. I guess that's why it's better to post a few at a time. You'll get them excited enough about wanting to see what happens, and they'll have time for one page every week rather than a hundred pages on the spot.


Yeah- I found that if I post a whole comic... even like... three pages at once, people will comment only on the last one. If someone visits my gallery for the first time and reads the whole comic at once? Bam- that's it. No more, right? Once a week? People have a reason to come back, and they can take it bit by bit :) I find it a great medium for advertising fanfics too. People like to read. They want to know that what they're reading is going to be interesting first though.

Jay wrote:
There are a few elite clubs for that. The only problem is that they don't exactly foster a learning environment for people who want to get there; it's only for people who are already there. But as for OC clubs, good ones are pretty hard to find. You'll either end up with large OC clubs with lots of crappy artwork, and nobody really cares because there's too many OCs flying around. Or you'll have on the other end, OC clubs that are intended for good OC development, but hardly anybody comes by. OC clubs that are just in between are not easy to find.


How do you rule what is a good OC and what isn't? Two different eye colours- you're gone. Sparkles? No way. Princess? Go find another castle. How do you rule that?
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

Arkillian wrote:
Cal- you print your comics at all? I notice that they're in colour (EXPENSIVE! D: ) so I'm thinking that they're not (Unless the Philippines has awesome printers that don't charge the earth for CMYK like New Zealand does- Printing is SO expensive in my country T.T And it's not proportional to the dollar either. It's cheaper to print in America and ship it over than here.), but I noticed that a HUGE fandom of one of my comics came out of the woodwork when I sold my comic. People I didn't know existed purchased a copy for themselves and friends. IT was at that point that I realised that if you post a comic all at once, you'll never get a true idea of how popular it really is, cause people at that point will comment on the WHOLE comic rather than just page by page. It's faster.


Yes I do in fact print my comics. I've been selling printed comics at conventions ever since 2008. The trick is to just convert all the colored pages into greyscale format and adjust the brightness-contrast curves from there. I get them photocopied for cheap and make a decent profit once I sell them. As for colored printing, coming from a visual arts school I know where all the good printing deals are. Some of my classmates even have family-run print studios, so I usually just go there if I wanted high-quality color prints for a lower price.

And I didn't post TLF Ch.1 all at once, I posted 3 pages a week, like I did with my previous Assassin's Creed fan comics. Like you said, it keeps people excited. Still didn't work exactly as I planned, though. See, my philosophy for posting my comics on dA is because I want both a local and international audience. For the Filipino audience I have my printed comics which I sell at Komikon. For the international audience I have the digital pages and e-book compilations. It's quite disheartening when nobody gives a damn about something you've worked really hard on, but like I already said, I'm relying on Mere Exposure Theory to help me out.

Jay wrote:
My theory about that is that people are selfish. They don't care about your artwork. They're only there to see what they want to see, which is characters they know and like. So they'll probably bias their searches towards those anime groups or using names of popular characters for art searches, and generally ignore everything else. It's sad that that's how people look at art, but we aren't going to tell people what they want to see.


This is pretty close to the truth, actually. There's another theory I know, called the Theory of Rational Ignorance. Basically, that says that people don't want to learn about something if the amount of time and effort required to learn that particular thing far outweighs the benefits. So I guess your typical dA member / browser just thinks that looking at new stuff is something not worth his time, and just prefers to view the mainstream stuff.

Quote:
I can understand that frustration. What really bothers me most is that people will look at my older work, which sometimes does have fanart characters in them, and they will say how cool they think it is, and spend lots of their comments and faves on it. The problem is, I no longer feel like my older artwork represents my current skill, and I have much better artwork on display, and you didn't have to dig through my entire gallery to see it, and despite that, people would rather ignore it just so that they can look at the fanart, no matter how shitty I think it is. Of course, the simple solution is to just remove everything from your gallery that's older than a certain date, but I prefer to keep them there for evolution's sake, so that people can compare how I did then to how I did now.
I sometimes use fanart as a hook in the hopes that people will look at my original stuff, but there will always be people who won't care anyways.


I can relate with that. Until now most of my watchers know me for my Fans & Switchblades trilogy, which, as I mentioned earlier, was something I just drew on a whim. It was a half-assed rush job with mediocre drawing because I just did it for fun. TLF and Arnisador Zal, my two original comics, have far better drawings and backgrounds, and yet people don't even bother looking at them because the characters they're familiar with aren't there anymore.

Sometimes I deliberately delete some of my older fan art on dA to make room for newer art of my OC's and my comics. Though I do realize the potential of using fan art to draw people in as well. But again, like you said, there will always ALWAYS be selfish people who only want to see art that they want to see and won't give a shit about anything else.

Quote:
Have you tried Smackjeeves? They let you host your comics. I suspect they're only for original comics, as I haven't seen too many fancomics on there, but if they're strictly for original comics, then they're helping encourage more originality by letting people post their comics.


No, I haven't tried that yet, but now that you mentioned it I probably will. I also previously tried to get my comic published on NeverHeardComics.com, but apparently it was a private group of komikeros only. I knew one of the editors-in-chief of that site personally, and he still wouldn't let my join. Ah well.

Really, what I want to do is open my own comic site. But my HTML / CSS / PHP / Java coding skills are amateur at best. :/
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title

Waiting on Godot...

Gender: Female

Location: New Zealand

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:23 am

Posts: 2404

That's funny- my best comic sales for printed is over seas. You offer printed copies for internationals in USD with freight included in the price? I've noticed that if you don't have Paypal, don't have prices in USD and the freight posted specifically listed then noone buys them. List them, and sales are so much healthier.

I don't like e-comics. I'll be honest there. You offer me your comic for $2 USD in digital and I'll look away. Offer it to me for $10 USD + freight or what ever for a printed version that looks great? I'd tap it. I have an e-book reader now, but I prefer my comics in print. Nothing beats it to me :) It's mostly cause my eyes are f@#$ed. I've got crap vision- I'm looking at getting surgery so I can buy frames again. My lenses are so thick that most frames can't fit my script. I have problems looking at computer screens and anything with low resolution. Printed pages have a much higher DPI and are alot easier for me to see cause I can go right up close and see it with my vision un aided by glasses (With a high index, this is a great thing. I don't have a great field of vision even up close.) Alot of people wont give it the respect it deserves in digital. If it was like... 10s of pages then maybe, but for 30 page comics? I donno. Maybe I don't get the market and they're moving in that direction, but that's how I see it.

I imagine it's cheaper there *sighs* I wish NZ was better priced. I'm sure I'd make better sales if I could give more for the dollar. I've found atleast that most don't mind the price cause they get it for the art usually. Hopefully they enjoy the story too >.>
ImageImageImageImage
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Heat Guy J

Gender: None specified

Location: Deutschland

Rank: Desk Jockey

Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2010 4:32 am

Posts: 97

Arkillian wrote:
Yeah- I found that if I post a whole comic... even like... three pages at once, people will comment only on the last one. If someone visits my gallery for the first time and reads the whole comic at once? Bam- that's it. No more, right? Once a week? People have a reason to come back, and they can take it bit by bit :) I find it a great medium for advertising fanfics too. People like to read. They want to know that what they're reading is going to be interesting first though.


That's why summaries are important. I've read various articles from people, saying they would actually turn down reading a fic (and by extension, comics as well) if the summary was poorly written. You could have a pretty good fic, and people could decide it's not worth their time, quite simply because you didn't take the time to write out a summary that would make potential readers interested; well they're there because they don't have the time to read your entire fic just to see if they're going to like it or not; they should be hooked first.

Quote:
How do you rule what is a good OC and what isn't? Two different eye colours- you're gone. Sparkles? No way. Princess? Go find another castle. How do you rule that?


Depends on what I'm looking at, I suppose. Your mileage may vary, but I do read details the author gives about certain OCs. Some OCs aren't even given any details about their background or personality, so I can't judge them on it, and only on what I'm given, which is often its design. I find a lot of the designs are rather unimpressive, mostly because the diversity in OCs is lacking. People always like to draw characters in the same age range, with about the same body types, and hardly anyone ever draws any OCs that aren't at least somewhat attractive, or the artist wants viewers to believe they are intended to look attractive, but they don't anyways because the art isn't so good (I see this a lot). That's probably not a reason alone to say any attractive OC is bad just because they're attractive. I just think it's overdone; that's all. It seems people are making OCs attractive just for the sake of it, and not because there was a good reason for it (an attractive guy who gets all the girls and owns a shiny porsche, for example, would make for a good antagonist. As a protagonist? Unless he has his own personal problems, and it has to do with him being attractive, and it's not a good thing, then maybe. But that's not easy to write.) A lot of these details related to background and personality are just not that well thought out. They just seem to be added randomly at the artist's whim, or because it matched their idea of a character that would end up being a Mary Sue. I like characters to be well thought out. I prefer that their design has a purpose (are they terrible at color matching? Maybe the color of their clothes reflects that), and not simply to want an OC to be aesthetically appealing just for the sake of it.
I pretty much read through a lot of character profiles for vampire OCs when I was doing a bit of research on what I wanted my character, Friederich to be like, and a lot of them were unimpressive. There were only a few vampire OCs that stood out to me as having some potential in being really good characters; the rest of them either had too many Mary Sue traits (personality wise as well), or resembled too much of the modern interpretation of vampires that make them less scary and too human.
Now I'm not saying this because I think the concept of original art sucks to begin with; on the contrary, I love it. The problem seems to be that people are using it as a soapbox for their inner fantasies (Twilight is basically one of the worst examples of this) without considering the necessary elements that make stories and art good. You shouldn't forgo thinking about good structure in a story or well rounded, plausible characters just because you have fantasies of characters, or thinking about the design of a character in relation to what your character is intended to do in a given setting. It just seems people don't give it that much thought anymore; people just seem to like having OCs for the sake of having them.

LightningfistCal wrote:
This is pretty close to the truth, actually. There's another theory I know, called the Theory of Rational Ignorance. Basically, that says that people don't want to learn about something if the amount of time and effort required to learn that particular thing far outweighs the benefits. So I guess your typical dA member / browser just thinks that looking at new stuff is something not worth his time, and just prefers to view the mainstream stuff.


That's actually something similar to an idea I called the "theory of success", which is that you only do the things you are sure will benefit you because you have only a limited amount of time to explore every option; if you spend too much time with stuff that most likely won't get you results, it will be considered a waste. It's of course not impossible to find good stuff among the things you typically consider to be "bad"; the problem is that it's very unlikely. So for example, you are sure that looking at fanart will get you many success "hits" (lots of fanart, any fanart, so long as it's of a character you know and like). You are not so sure that looking at original art will get you any success hits because you are unsure if you will enjoy it or not. It's not a bad model, but conversely, they shouldn't be too surprised if they go through the same thing and wonder why artwork of their original characters doesn't get any attention.

Quote:
I can relate with that. Until now most of my watchers know me for my Fans & Switchblades trilogy, which, as I mentioned earlier, was something I just drew on a whim. It was a half-assed rush job with mediocre drawing because I just did it for fun. TLF and Arnisador Zal, my two original comics, have far better drawings and backgrounds, and yet people don't even bother looking at them because the characters they're familiar with aren't there anymore.


Actually, I just realized something. There are people who do care about your original artwork, and won't like you for the fanart--art teachers. Basically, if you're applying for art school, they will want to see some sort of portfolio from you, and if your work is original, they will most likely be more willing to consider your application than if you only did fanart. They might not comment on it, but being accepted means they at least thought your work was good enough for them.

Quote:
Sometimes I deliberately delete some of my older fan art on dA to make room for newer art of my OC's and my comics. Though I do realize the potential of using fan art to draw people in as well. But again, like you said, there will always ALWAYS be selfish people who only want to see art that they want to see and won't give a shit about anything else.


I'm the kind of artist who only draws something if it interests me. So if people come up to me with commissions, I reject them. Sure, I could be paid for drawing something, but I may not like it, and I don't want to give them something shitty in return for money, and I only do requests if it motivates me. Since it's my art, I get to decide if I want to draw it or not. If people don't like it, that's their problem. I don't care if I could be more popular for drawing stuff they want to see; bottom line is, if I don't feel like it, it won't look good, and I won't do it.
I'd rather get attention because people liked the stuff I wanted to draw, and it was good than to get attention just because I drew some fanart, even if it completely sucked.

Quote:
No, I haven't tried that yet, but now that you mentioned it I probably will. I also previously tried to get my comic published on NeverHeardComics.com, but apparently it was a private group of komikeros only. I knew one of the editors-in-chief of that site personally, and he still wouldn't let my join. Ah well.

Really, what I want to do is open my own comic site. But my HTML / CSS / PHP / Java coding skills are amateur at best. :/


I think there are a few sites that also offer options for posting comics. Pixiv does this, but I think it's some sort of manga format, and you'll either have to wait until the English site gets translated or just put up with whatever they have now in Japanese and sort of English. Animexx is also another site that lets you host comics too, although again, because they're Anime oriented, they're probably also mangas. Animexx is actually from Germany, but I think they also have an English version of their site. Not sure what you can and can't do with the English site, but you may have problems with interacting with users, especially on Pixiv because they will often be typing in German or Japanese respectively.
Drunkduck and Paperdemon also offer comic hosting in English. I think for most of these sites, you won't actually need to know any HTML or CSS; that's mostly just for designing the theme, and that's optional.
Pauca sed matura.

Image
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

Update: Gumshoe's Jimmies
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

Update: Turnabout X-MEN 2

Been wanting to redraw that for a long time.
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Gettin' Old!

Gender: Male

Location: Scotland

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:30 pm

Posts: 14363

It's real nice but you are missing a Jubilee....

Though I can't think of a main one for it...
Maybe Maggey Birde? I'd have pegged Pearl but she's taken.

Also imagine if you could do a Brotherhood of Mutants version.
Made by Chesu+Zombee
Image

You thought you could be safe in your courts, with your laws and attorneys to protect you. In this world only I am law, my word is fact, my power is absolute.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

Pierre wrote:
It's real nice but you are missing a Jubilee....

Though I can't think of a main one for it...
Maybe Maggey Birde? I'd have pegged Pearl but she's taken.

Also imagine if you could do a Brotherhood of Mutants version.


In the 2009 version of that illustration I had Pearl be Jubilee in the initial sketches, but she ended up being Shadowcat in the final version. So I just stuck with the same formula for the remade drawing.

And yes, I was planning a Brotherhood of Mutants version as well, with von Karma as Magneto, Gant as Juggernaut, Tigre as Sabretooth, etc. Saving those ideas for a future illustration. I also planned a First Class version, but I can't even remotely think of what the Judge and co. look like young.
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Deputy of Self-Esteem

Gender: Male

Location: Connecticut

Rank: Admin

Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:36 pm

Posts: 3449

FLASHBACK

A screaming mother. An anxious father. The nurse sitting below ready to catch. Another contraction and a forehead emerges. Another and - what's this? A baby born with facial hair?! The most manly baby had been born with a illustrious beard. From that moment his fate was sealed. Children would forever tease him of his youthful baldness. His hair: forever grey. But he knew one day, his calling would be there waiting for him.

He would become,

The poker head of the courtroom.
Image
Bump - bump - bump - bump - bump - bump - bump
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Gettin' Old!

Gender: Male

Location: Scotland

Rank: Ace Attorney

Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:30 pm

Posts: 14363

LightningfistCal wrote:
Pierre wrote:
It's real nice but you are missing a Jubilee....

Though I can't think of a main one for it...
Maybe Maggey Birde? I'd have pegged Pearl but she's taken.

Also imagine if you could do a Brotherhood of Mutants version.


In the 2009 version of that illustration I had Pearl be Jubilee in the initial sketches, but she ended up being Shadowcat in the final version. So I just stuck with the same formula for the remade drawing.

And yes, I was planning a Brotherhood of Mutants version as well, with von Karma as Magneto, Gant as Juggernaut, Tigre as Sabretooth, etc. Saving those ideas for a future illustration. I also planned a First Class version, but I can't even remotely think of what the Judge and co. look like young.


Hmm for some reason I'd pegged Gant as Magneto he has more charm to him than Karma but both are viable candidates.
Made by Chesu+Zombee
Image

You thought you could be safe in your courts, with your laws and attorneys to protect you. In this world only I am law, my word is fact, my power is absolute.
Re: Illustrations by LightningfistCalTopic%20Title
User avatar

Komikero

Gender: Male

Location: Las Islas Filipinas

Rank: Medium-in-training

Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:56 am

Posts: 493

Pierre wrote:
Hmm for some reason I'd pegged Gant as Magneto he has more charm to him than Karma but both are viable candidates.


Huh. True. Ah well, I guess von Karma can always be Mr. Sinister or something.
Image

I'm a professional comic artist and illustrator. Click on the above logo to visit my official website.
Page 1 of 2 [ 42 posts ] 
Go to page 1, 2  Next
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  

 Board index » Present Evidence » Fanart

Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum
Jump to:  
News News Site map Site map SitemapIndex SitemapIndex RSS Feed RSS Feed Channel list Channel list
Powered by phpBB

phpBB SEO