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An open letter to the budding artists of the internet.
17 years ago
Maybe it's the change in the seasons. Maybe there's something hormonal that goes in a seasonal cycle for me. I don't know. Now it's time for me to do some talking again.
Has anyone else noticed the amount of shitty "art" that goes up around here? I made the mistake, today, of clicking the "browse" link on the main page to see if I could spot some new, undiscovered talent. I went through four pages before I found something (3d renders and photos notwithstanding) that didn't look like it was drawn by a six year old, holding a pencil clenched between their ass cheeks. What the fuck? I know there's some talent hereabouts but is the need to do mediocre, self-masturbatory pornographic shit so strong that you don't bother trying to learn your craft before inflicting it upon the rest of the world?
I am by no means saying I'm one of the best out there, but I paid my dues. I labored in obscurity for years, decades even, before I subjected the masses to my artistic offerings. Everything that is done in an artistic fashion is not necessarily ready for human consumption. You need to look at your art and compare it to that of some other artists. If yours doesn't compare to something you'd like to look at, maybe you aren't ready yet!
I'm not saying don't try. Not even close. Try, by all means, to get better. Post something every now and again but the fecal heap of "art" that splatters the so-called art communities is nothing short of shameful. When I was an infant, I shit myself. Regularly. My parents didn't post it on a bulletin board in the neighborhood so people could see how skilled I was at it. They never even thought to mention the situation to people until I got over that part of the experience and started using a damned toilet for my damnable excretions.
See, the point of that little diversion was to inject a moral to my high-handed rantings: When you're done producing shit for the public forum, feel free to start sharing your accomplishments with the rest of the world. If you can't stop shitting in public, perhaps you could try to contain it somewhere where the rest of us aren't subjected to it quite so readily. Perhaps shame for lack of ability or inability to grow as an artist should keep you suppressed until you have matured enough and developed both your skill and your talent to a point where others wish to share in the experience. Not everyone is good at everything and if you enjoy it you should continue to do it, that doesn't mean your mediocrity gets to share space with real artists who've paid their dues. I enjoy a good wank from time to time. This does not make me a porn star, so I don't sell videos of it.
If you have the urge to draw and a wish to get better, that's great. Find a mentor, find a friend who has some ability and share it with them but this, boys and girls, is not your mommy's refrigerator. We don't want to see digital equivalents of finger paintings of stick figures. Get your shit straight and then feel free to show us things of beauty. Perhaps if you can't create things of beauty, this is not your point of creative outlet and you should look into some other form of expression. Maybe you should just wring your thing out somewhere where I don't ever have to see it.
Thank you.
Has anyone else noticed the amount of shitty "art" that goes up around here? I made the mistake, today, of clicking the "browse" link on the main page to see if I could spot some new, undiscovered talent. I went through four pages before I found something (3d renders and photos notwithstanding) that didn't look like it was drawn by a six year old, holding a pencil clenched between their ass cheeks. What the fuck? I know there's some talent hereabouts but is the need to do mediocre, self-masturbatory pornographic shit so strong that you don't bother trying to learn your craft before inflicting it upon the rest of the world?
I am by no means saying I'm one of the best out there, but I paid my dues. I labored in obscurity for years, decades even, before I subjected the masses to my artistic offerings. Everything that is done in an artistic fashion is not necessarily ready for human consumption. You need to look at your art and compare it to that of some other artists. If yours doesn't compare to something you'd like to look at, maybe you aren't ready yet!
I'm not saying don't try. Not even close. Try, by all means, to get better. Post something every now and again but the fecal heap of "art" that splatters the so-called art communities is nothing short of shameful. When I was an infant, I shit myself. Regularly. My parents didn't post it on a bulletin board in the neighborhood so people could see how skilled I was at it. They never even thought to mention the situation to people until I got over that part of the experience and started using a damned toilet for my damnable excretions.
See, the point of that little diversion was to inject a moral to my high-handed rantings: When you're done producing shit for the public forum, feel free to start sharing your accomplishments with the rest of the world. If you can't stop shitting in public, perhaps you could try to contain it somewhere where the rest of us aren't subjected to it quite so readily. Perhaps shame for lack of ability or inability to grow as an artist should keep you suppressed until you have matured enough and developed both your skill and your talent to a point where others wish to share in the experience. Not everyone is good at everything and if you enjoy it you should continue to do it, that doesn't mean your mediocrity gets to share space with real artists who've paid their dues. I enjoy a good wank from time to time. This does not make me a porn star, so I don't sell videos of it.
If you have the urge to draw and a wish to get better, that's great. Find a mentor, find a friend who has some ability and share it with them but this, boys and girls, is not your mommy's refrigerator. We don't want to see digital equivalents of finger paintings of stick figures. Get your shit straight and then feel free to show us things of beauty. Perhaps if you can't create things of beauty, this is not your point of creative outlet and you should look into some other form of expression. Maybe you should just wring your thing out somewhere where I don't ever have to see it.
Thank you.
I won't, those, whose spirits are crushed so easily... Better get the hell out of the game now. Yes, Now.
Because if the gods honest Truth hurts, as its been laid down in this Letter from Pyro, then you should just stop because this little letter is rather tame compared to the Napalm based verbal/text attacks I have read by others..
So, You have a valid point and I commend you for it and I hope that someone will gleam a clue from this, put up a stiff up lip, and get back to reading those 'How to draw' books.
Its annoying how many people don't see this, their not encouraging a new artist by being nice, their hurting them by not being critical and honest.
Some people don't realize they're posting shit. Just because you like your own style doesn't mean that there aren't people way more talented than you who would readily claim that their wonderful creations make your art look like miserable shit. They would no doubt snub you so hard your ancestors would feel snubbed. There will ALWAYS be people more talented than us so the least we could do is tolerate all this shit mutually.
I never claimed to be the best but my stuff doesn't raise a feeling of pity from most people.
This isn't about art snobbery, it's about bare minimum levels of effort or quality. I'm not saying people need to give up and stop posting anything. I'm saying people need to realize that when they post seven or eight shitty pictures a day, maybe they could hold back and develop fewer pieces to a higher level of quality.
People don't take this child level art shit seriously and being associated with a site drowning in it brings the rest of us down.
In the end the flagfest got so annoying I couldn't submit anything myself, not even the pics I had really worked on. I just knew that somehow someone would find some reason to bitch about my stuff if only for shits and giggles.
With all that in mind, I wouldn't worry about these squiggly things "brining the rest of us down". I just don't think it's much of a problem because the current situation doesn't prevent us from posting our stuff. I really hope FA will never get as pretentious as Y-bother did. It would be really bothersome if this community turned into a silent portfolio site like ArtSpots.
The same people who submit low quality, minimum effort/skill images would be the ones going crazy with the quality flags too. My real point is, "Police yourself. Learn something. Don't plateau at mediocrity and then subject me to that. Don't make the entire community look like talentless hacks because you don't think you need to improve. If you're going to be an artist, be a good one and improve. If you can't improve or draw something that looks like you put some thought or effort into it, stop posting it."
This isn't about, "If I say you suck, you shouldn't be allowed to post art." Who the hell am I? An artist may not be able to tell when something they do is good, but they certainly can tell when it's bad. And if it's bad, they owe it to those of us seeing this shit to not post it all.
Should they keep their art off the net, no. They can open their own free hosting pages and post whatever. But they don't need to subject us, me especially, to their joyful, mediocre crap.
I think that in the end this is a question of highly subjective values. I personally can't say whether the stuff I draw is bad or good. At first I think it's good, but in a matter of days I usually think it's utter crap. I draw stuff on a daily basis. All the time. And even I can't tell whether I'm pretty good or the patron saint of mediocrities everywhere.
Because of my own confusion I try not to make any major assumptions about how other people feel about their art or whether they submit stuff because of their own ambitions, urge to vent, boredom or general need to interact with the community. One thing I'm sure is that these people are not posting stuff just to get on your nerves.
We must make assumptions about our fellow human beings because, short of science fiction, we never get the chance to actually be them. Every interaction between two living people is fraught with assumption. Once you get good at assembling assumptions, you've developed a skill for reading others. I'm not saying I'm right or you're wrong, but I am saying my experiences in life lead me to a certain type of thought and a certain sense of the aesthetic. To this end, I would like to see art that doesn't offend me.
If they were doing it to get on my nerves, I'd simply ignore them. I don't play the games others set before me. There's the tragedy of the whole thing. They do this with almost no awareness of others' opinions of their work because everyone is just too worried about hurting their feelings.
You're right with one's freedom to state one's opinions, I can't argue with that. Whether it really encourages people to stop posting crappy stuff or not is a different thing. I personally believe that people are more likely to follow one's advice when it's presented to them in a positive way. In other words; the carrot is worth more than the stick.
I might get someone to stop posting stick figures by slapping them in the face and telling them what kind of a failure they are, but I wouldn't sleep well after that. Art of all sort is a touchy matter and hurting someone's feelings is not worth the trouble - not for me anyway, especially when there are more subtle ways to do things.
Like the guy with the memo paper. I'm not sure if his working methods (or whatever I should call them) really ought to be my headache. He doesn't really bother me at all. I've learned to live with the fact that the world does not follow my sense of aesthetics... *sigh* Not after Duchamp's Urinal anyway. 9_9
Pyro, he has a point when he says that portfolio sites of only cool artists would be boring, but most of all, would be silent.
This is a lively community where people write, post, post, write find friends, watch me, you our galleries and become our friends (it is happening to me) - even if they have a lot to learn or simply can't draw . Some of them ask for advice too...!
I think it's the price for a really active community.
I am italian, I run a blog in a shitty site (Netlog is the name) in italian.
Netlog is not a blog site like Splinder or Blogger: it's a social network where you can put your photos, infos, favourite videos... and also, if you wish to, you can write a blog.
I love to write and a real blogger or writer shouldn't care about such social networks to run a blog, the logic suggests.
But my blog there is read by tons of people who don't even write and everytime I write something I get 60-80 comments!!
If I run my blog on Splinder i'd have 5 or 10... luckily. And the 60-80 comments are often interesting and cool, even from people who never writes but only show their pictures. They are common people, the one you meet walking, in the restaurant, in shops or so... this makes their opinion exactly the one I like to listen to.
Drawing or writing is something just like any other talent or skill. Must be done properly, with your personal style, touch, anything, but properly. And to define "properly" there are basic standards defining how a composition, a shot, an inked line, a shading, light and shadows, anathomy, dynamic posing of the character, acting and facial expression, background perspective, light and shading, rendering.... all of this things has "standards" you can't escape from.
I seem to understand Pyro here is talking about that. To me somebody who asks people to try to reach those standards before posting is not acting as an "art snob", he's giving some good advice for free. I should listen to that.
Oh of course you're right when you say that some people don't realize they're posting shit. But I learned that very often, especially when sex and fantasies are involved, as happens often with the furry fandom (but not exclusively), people just don't care if their art sucks: the only real thing they care about is represent their fantasies. To such people you can show the most wonderful artwork in the world, they'll say "uh, cute, nice" with slight interest, then show 2 stick men jointed by some strange alien tenctacle furry monster that seem drawn by a 4 years old child, but happens to represent their fantasies, so they'll scream "waaaah!!!!! this is real wonderful art!"
I swear, I've met so meny of those... O.o
Personal taste often gets you blind, and wins over talent, I've learned! :D
But yeah, I suppose that if you disregard the way he put it, there is a certain point there. I've often told this one guy here in FA that he should stop drawing on memo paper (the kind that has lines on it, you know?) because even though he really does draw pretty well, the drawings look horrible since they're not drawn on clean paper. One would think that a little thing like that would be easy to fix, but nooo... It's a shame that in some cases the paper really is a lot worse than the drawing.
The "shit" comments apply to me, frequently. I just see it for what it is and don't inflict it upon people.
The guy with the note paper is exactly the kind of guy who needs this kind of eye opener. Not saying his work is shit, but if he had enough people telling him it's crappy to do that, he'd probably stop.
And yet... An arrow streaking from a forgotten corner often strikes closer to center than one shot from in the center of attention.
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke. In this purely virtual forum, the only real action we can take is verbal, or textual, as it were. I would gladly endure a magnitude five shitstorm if it made enough people think about something that is too oft ignored.
If I didn't point out that the Emperor was naked, I wouldn't be me. It needed to be said and I didn't see anyone else saying it.
Regardless, I agree with you in general. I'm in no position to talk (have you ever seen me post any art? Yeah...), but I do think if you intend to anything seriously, you should learn to do it well. The reason you've seen nothing form me in so long is because I'm working on smoothing out the wrinkles (i.e. making it not shitty). People are sensitive though, so even if this was "nicely" written I don't think it would do much good, especially on the internet.
That being said, I'm not really bothered by the quality of the art here or in general. I may hit the "next" button too frequently, but for me, that's just the internet. In other words, I agree with you, although I agree with you, although I know you well enough (well, the you that you show online anyways) to know that harsh words out of truthfulness, not being a bastard.
Oh, and fetish porn is not a substitute for quality.
I know people are sensitive. I think that's why I go over the top. If people are going to be calling me an asshole because of what I say, I'd much rather have come off like an asshole first. Then if they can get over my 'tude and on to my meaning, we can avoid the secondary drama by having all the drama up front and getting the semantics out of the way of meaningful conversation.
For the record, I am a bastard who enjoys and thoroughly supports the truth.
And truly, if there ever will be a substitute for quality, it will not be fetish porn.