FA+
Shop
Hey quick question. (But it's also long and needs a tl;dr...
a year ago
A friend of mine wanted to know how much, when it comes to Vgcats lewds, does being 'on-model' matter to you?
This friend of mine was looking at my art, and while they thought it was the greatest pieces of media they'd ever seen of all time anywhere ever, they asked me why I didn't draw the characters with proportions and style closer to the comic versions.
I told my friend, who is very much the one who asked this question and we hang out all the time, that "well, it's kinda sexier with a bit of diversion from the 'on-model', you can also exaggerate, accentuate, and manipulate a bit easier."
"Plus," I said to my real friend. "You have changes in what is 'on-model' over the course of the series, so a person would have to go through each comic and roughly mark when the models changed to be distinctly different. And if you're doing that you should label them for posterity and ease of file-ment."
I continued speaking to this friend of mine who went to a different school, "But a person doing that would have to be a bit weird and have to have demonstrable signs of those changes. And lets be honest anyone doing that for an old, highly subjective, occasionally edgy, somewhat controversial, early 2000s webcomic about some cartoon cats with a majority focus on the pink one--well that person would have to be tweaked out on Adderall to hyper focus on such a ridiculous thing! And so, what is 'on-model' is basically a choice between say five-ish 'models', and at that point you might as well just do what fits your own art and vision best."
My living existing friend then said "Well, but isn't there some appeal in seeing those characters in the most similar way to what they originally fell in love with?"
"Love is a bit strong dont you think?"
"Liked. Had affection for. Attracted to. Enjoyed. whatever! You know what I mean." My friend said while they rolled their eyes. their uh blue eyes. Yeah they totally have eyes. And they're blue!
"I mean I guess there's appeal there sure. but you'd HAVE to make some artistic liberties....plus their heads are real big, like it's 1/3 of their height...Looks good with clothes and context, but naked?! now that might look weird and unsexy! Which is the whole point. Drawing leeewds, remember?!"
"But people might like that and you don't have to do that all the time!"
"I'm not doing anything!" I said to my friend. (Did i mention they thought I was incredible, and real sexy? Just like they're real alive)
"Hypothetically! if you did!"
"Im not!"
"IIIIF!~!!"
"IF I DID...sure I'd do it why not? Well besides people not liking it. If people don't like the art I do that means they don't like ME and I really need constant affirmation..."
"Yeah..."
"Yeah..."
TL;DR
Subjectively, how important, or fun, or appealing, or desired, are 'on-model'(nearly) vgc lewds? Where you could point to any canonical appearance and say "that's hawt draw that! >o<" .... With some..."artistic liberties" taken to 'clean it up a bit' ...
Should that be a thing-thing, or just an occasional, or common, or rare, or never thing?
(also applies to other characters from other series.)
I want to know how much the community desires--leaving style aside for now--accurate as I can manage pics with on-model things like body proportions or character designs (such as from specific pages).
Is the novelty of doing mostly accurate on-model pics worth the time to invest in?
My friend wants to be clear that their question has no additional motive, or anything like that. Nope. Nothing is actually going to happen. They want to insist. Not at all.
I mean we cant say never, but that's a negative, Control.
If something was going to happen there would be an announcement. And this isn't an announcement. just a question.
-dpc
This friend of mine was looking at my art, and while they thought it was the greatest pieces of media they'd ever seen of all time anywhere ever, they asked me why I didn't draw the characters with proportions and style closer to the comic versions.
I told my friend, who is very much the one who asked this question and we hang out all the time, that "well, it's kinda sexier with a bit of diversion from the 'on-model', you can also exaggerate, accentuate, and manipulate a bit easier."
"Plus," I said to my real friend. "You have changes in what is 'on-model' over the course of the series, so a person would have to go through each comic and roughly mark when the models changed to be distinctly different. And if you're doing that you should label them for posterity and ease of file-ment."
I continued speaking to this friend of mine who went to a different school, "But a person doing that would have to be a bit weird and have to have demonstrable signs of those changes. And lets be honest anyone doing that for an old, highly subjective, occasionally edgy, somewhat controversial, early 2000s webcomic about some cartoon cats with a majority focus on the pink one--well that person would have to be tweaked out on Adderall to hyper focus on such a ridiculous thing! And so, what is 'on-model' is basically a choice between say five-ish 'models', and at that point you might as well just do what fits your own art and vision best."
My living existing friend then said "Well, but isn't there some appeal in seeing those characters in the most similar way to what they originally fell in love with?"
"Love is a bit strong dont you think?"
"Liked. Had affection for. Attracted to. Enjoyed. whatever! You know what I mean." My friend said while they rolled their eyes. their uh blue eyes. Yeah they totally have eyes. And they're blue!
"I mean I guess there's appeal there sure. but you'd HAVE to make some artistic liberties....plus their heads are real big, like it's 1/3 of their height...Looks good with clothes and context, but naked?! now that might look weird and unsexy! Which is the whole point. Drawing leeewds, remember?!"
"But people might like that and you don't have to do that all the time!"
"I'm not doing anything!" I said to my friend. (Did i mention they thought I was incredible, and real sexy? Just like they're real alive)
"Hypothetically! if you did!"
"Im not!"
"IIIIF!~!!"
"IF I DID...sure I'd do it why not? Well besides people not liking it. If people don't like the art I do that means they don't like ME and I really need constant affirmation..."
"Yeah..."
"Yeah..."
TL;DR
Subjectively, how important, or fun, or appealing, or desired, are 'on-model'(nearly) vgc lewds? Where you could point to any canonical appearance and say "that's hawt draw that! >o<" .... With some..."artistic liberties" taken to 'clean it up a bit' ...
Should that be a thing-thing, or just an occasional, or common, or rare, or never thing?
(also applies to other characters from other series.)
I want to know how much the community desires--leaving style aside for now--accurate as I can manage pics with on-model things like body proportions or character designs (such as from specific pages).
Is the novelty of doing mostly accurate on-model pics worth the time to invest in?
My friend wants to be clear that their question has no additional motive, or anything like that. Nope. Nothing is actually going to happen. They want to insist. Not at all.
I mean we cant say never, but that's a negative, Control.
If something was going to happen there would be an announcement. And this isn't an announcement. just a question.
-dpc
Of course if the client/person giving the examples has a preferred style or artwork example like "I like this style in this scene!" then probably trying to make it as appealing in roughly the same style as example would be good.
If you're doing "anything goes" however then heck yeah, artistic liberties as long as you think it looks good.
But I guess I'm trying to see if the community has a need/desire to see any of the character's designs being as accurate as possible to which ever design they had. Say Aeris from like...comic 4 or Leo from...idk comic 223
Is the novelty of doing a mostly accurate version worth my time being invested in and made at some point?
you do good stuff :-D
Truth be told Scott has not assisted with this whatsoever as his own consistency is chaotic. They vary over the years, like you said. His latest ref sheets of the characters, by a comedic miracle, even had conflicting shots of the same thing in the same page. It's one of the upsets I have already accepted that I'll be taking into the grave.
Overall I personally still check artwork here and there, and one of the earlier Aeris ref sheets (the one with the stat blocks) is my measurement for fidelity usually. The closer it is, the more impressed I am, usually, both because I find it pleasing and because it is rare.
But, that's kinda where I was feeling things too, and something I've (loosely) tried to match compared to other depictions--though, looking back at these I could've done better in a few of them. And yeah, it seems like a fair portion of her pics, on here at least, are on a fetishstic path--some rather specific paths--that veer way off my own preferences. (which is whatever, people can like what they like).
My thoughts on this however have been wondering if I'm in the minority. Maybe I'm the odd-one-out, because there's just.so.much. of that other stuff; and it's getting a lot more attention. And I'm not only talking about the extreme examples.
For popular Aeris pics--90% of them at the very least give her huuuge tiddies. (though I know there's at least 3 other factors I can think of off the top of my head that can influence that.) And while I'll personally never draw some of these, from what I'm seeing, the large majority of people like BFTs on curvy ladies.
(And as an aside just so I'm clear to whoever may be reading: I know it's not a popularity contest, but this is my job and I need to consider these things. So, when I see what's getting attention and working, I start wondering if I need to change things.)
Anyway. Um...oh right! I have those sheets(SD only) from VGLewds, I'm not sure which you're talking about though. I was giving them a closer look the other day they're...certainly an attempt. Those first ones especially. I was actually looking forward to the most recent pics, the one with the laundromat, I thought that design was pretty cute. Just a bad situation all around sadly.
I do have that stat block one I believe. From the 'volume 1' book, right? I dont have the book, but I did find a scan of those statblocks!
I have actually gone through the series and marked out and labeled blocks of pages that I consider different 'eras', so I can make a fairly accurate depiction of each design. That design you like is from what I've subjectively named the 'Silver Era'. With this system I can easily find reference pics, but that was also part of my wanting to see what people thought
These character designs are a niche, virtually nobody reads VGCats nowadays and have zero attachment. Non-conforming depictions of them to us are often in fact conformant outside the niche. A larger audience can see the immediate appeal in chest torpedo tits and nuclear icebreaker cheeks under razor thin waists, they don't need context. Larger appeal, larger gains. I know I draw her here and there favoring the niche and the work simply does not travel organically (unlike my parody pieces of more popular things). It is what it is, at least economically.
Anyhow, our niche is insanely small. If you're worried about return on investment then I cannot in good faith say that sticking to canon and appealing to the niche will bring you much fortune, though it would make you "based".