we all have our buttons to push

[egypturnash]

Lynx disses cartoonists in Meg's journal. Which is not a way to endear himself to her, because she's pretty cartoony herself.

[ addendum: it's a friends-only entry, so if you're not on dustmeat's friends list, you won't be able to see it. Sorry. ]

Notice he replied to the other two people but not to me. Maybe because he felt he'd just be reiterating what he said above, maybe because I pared it down to its barest essentials.

People implying that an artist is better simply because they're willing to do detail on detail on detail never fails to piss me off. I didn't want to rant in Meg's journal, and didn't really have time to rant, as I was at work.

sigh. Cartoonists get no respect. We slave over our stuff, paring a complex emotion down to five lines, and people pass our work over to fawn over someone else just because they obsessively paint every damned strand of unwashed fur. This is what we get for honing our craft to the point where it looks effortless and easy; people assume that we dash everything off in ten seconds.

(Also, because I'm quite sure someone will feel obligated to try and make points with one of the two artists Lynx mentions as examples by pointing them to this: I have no issues, personal or professional, with either. Their dedication to their craft is obvious. I'm just perpetually annoyed at the tendency in fantasy/sf art circles to enshrine fractal details done with a #000 brush as The Bestest Art Ever.)

Comments

^_^

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

Cartoonists get lots of respect, though you can't make everybody happy :^)

I would happily rant on the subject myself, but the post in question is curiously unavailable for my consumption; I am apparently not "authorized to view this protected entry"(!)

And if things like ^_^ and :^) mean anything to you, then the cartoon is quite alive and well. Don't let an outspoken, closed mind get you down. There'll always be somebody to disparage your creative efforts out of hand, no matter who you are, or what you do. It simply shows the limits of their own imaginations and an inability to appreciate the wide range of human expression.

Re: ^_^

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*nod* It was Meg pondering stuff she normally refrains from drawing, and Lynx made a big mis-speaking in some pondering of what's popular in furry circles right now.

Re: ^_^

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

I really cut way too many folks off my friend list, in reaction to all the scrolling I used to do. As for that thread, you are not missing much.

At the same time, looking over what art I've collected so far...

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

...most of it isn't the Dark Natasha-esque stuff, save one piece that was a true impulse buy for multiple personal reasons that the piece was affordable, and struck several chords with my beliefs that are hard to explain.

I've mostly got middle-of-the-road pictures, actually. Some detail in some, but most of them are towards the simpler side, even among those artists I've commissioned for artwork. Like the commission of oCeLoT was for her limited-colour non-antialiased digital stuff, though I also have a conbadge she and Dour traded for crash space one year with me and my mom.

But coming from a family with several artists, and having been there when my mom was going through art school for years on end, both for photography and various forms of painting and drafting, maybe I was brought up in an atmosphere to appreciate the dedication it takes to master that minimality, so I admit I may well be off the mark.

To my eye, what Dark Natasha does is purely patience. It literally is adding that hundred-thousand extra brush-strokes to a piece of art. Yes, it can generate 'realistic' looking fur patterns, but it is, at it's core, a less mind-grinding technique than making a minimal, cartoony piece of art that still carries the same weight, the same soul if you will. It's a more physically taxing, rather than mentally taxing, technique. And, unfortunately, physically-taxing things seem to get more respect than mentally-taxing ones, as they usually produce more immediately-noticable differences.

Oh, and yes, I AM still working on that reading for you...

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

Was feeling a little ill today, so crashed for... most of the day, getting up to eat copious amounts of Healthy Stuff and crash again mostly. :-) I'll see about finishing it up on my Palm during work tommorow at off-moments if I can, and post it in the evening.

Re: Oh, and yes, I AM still working on that reading for you...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

No rush. *grin*

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

Nuts, I can't look at Meg's journal so I can't let anyone have it. :D

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

Ah shoot, you USED to be on my friend list, I must have gotten scissor happy...

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

Nyar!

Lately, all I've been writing about is getting our &*#*&*# game done, which may or may not be of interest. :D

[higginsdragon.livejournal.com]

I think part of this attitude comes from the sheer number of amateur artists who mimic a cartoony style. It looks like rushed, un-thought out work most of the time. There's a much larger proliferation of bad cartoony artwork than there is bad realistic artwork. So when trained artists do cartoony stuff, it might be easily dismissed as part the larger whole of junk. It's just a matter of the critic not realizing what goes into the process.

It's like arguing that photography isn't as valid as painting. It's a moot point because both are different mediums and expressions.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*nod* I think all artists, these days, probably start out as cartoonists. Some stay with it because it's the way they prefer to see the world; others "graduate" from it to realism.

I think there's a lot more bad realistic artwork than people think; it's just that the badness is much more subtle, and harder for the untrained eye to notice, because it's distracted by all the photo-referenced detail.

[wolphyn.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that some people are really great with lines, but bad with 'finishing', while others are the opposite. Unfortunately for the first group, the second's skills seem to make up for poor lines more easily than good lines make up for poor coloring/detailing--to the common aesthetic sense, at least.

[arphalia.livejournal.com]

And then there are those of us out there who feel they can't argue for one side or another, cause they smash hyper-detail and line work together. *pout* I swear, if I get any more niche within niche within niche of the art world... x.x

Personally, I'd like to see people take the works as a whole and judge on that rather than based on uber-realism or uber-toonie. Not to mention I wouldn't mind seeing a few people come to realize that to compare the two is like apples and oranges. Both style-types have really good and really sucky art. And not just because its poorly done, but sometimes for the mere fact it lacks impact of emotion and feeling. And I see this flatness in both uber-realism and uber-cartoonie.

Or maybe I just like things with a twist. I like teh lemons.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Hey, if a particular area on the abstract/realistic/conceptual plane (see McCloud's 'Understanding Comics') works for you, then use it, mo matter what label it may fall under. But maybe I'm just saying this because I'm a slut for stark chiaroscuro.

Yeah, pictures can suck because they are very poorly done, and they can also suck because they have absolutely no soul. The latter, in fact, is one of the reasons I rarely do detailed work; I feel like all the extra stuff is weighing down and smothering the drawing. Plus I get easily bored unless I feel like I'm making real progress.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

I've done the strand by strand with a tiny brush thing, that doesn't make me better, that makes me fucking insane! In my experience, nothing sucks the fun out of drawing faster than that, but ehn, to each his own.

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

I can't see the comment, but I'm kind of surprised that you'd let one person's opinion, when not aimed at you, rattle you so much with the success and popularity you've had lately with the bus doodles and other posted work. I know it can be extra frustrating for cartoonists as it's a commonality in the world, not just furry, to dismiss cartoonists' craft and abilities. Still, there's a lot of folks out there, especially in the furry community that appreciate those slick lines, that capture of motion and emotion. And really, it could be argued that furry was based on cartoons and animation as that seems to be most of what was around for anthros when this all started.

Just be glad you're not doing abstracts. :"D

The other side of the coin is that this person isn't -wrong- when he says that cartoon/animation style drawings don't work for him; that's just his opinion. Likely, no amount of berating and slinging will change his mind about that.

However, wandering into someone's domain and basically insulting their work, -that's- just plain rude.

-T'

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Oh, it was more an observation that I have certain buttons which, if even vaguely pushed, will get me annoyed. If someone even comes close to suggesting that "realism is better than cartooning" I get pissed off. If they say "I like realism more" I have no problem; personal preference is personal preference. It's when people suggest that there's something inherently better about obsessive realism that I get pissy and want to bite off heads.

I refrained from ranting in Meg's journal, and I didn't really rant later in the evening when I posted this.

Just be glad you're not doing abstracts.
Yeah. I bet you get even more sneers. I think it's cool; I'm just rarely moved to do an ego-stroking comment on anyone's art.

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

Sneers? Well, mostly I don't get anything at all which can be worse. That makes it really hard for me to tell if I'm failing on the abstract front or as an artist altogether. Thanks for thinking it's cool. I did think the 'ego stroking comments' line bore some weight that perhaps you didn't intend? I couldn't help but feel that wanting of feedback was in some way a weakness.

Perhaps the easiest way to convince some detailophile of the difficulty of cartooning is to sit them down and make them try it themselves. I was doing some today, really simple little character stuff and even those weren't easy.

-T'

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*nod* Even a 'this suxxors' is better than... silence. Because you managed to move someone to say something.

I think 'ego stroking' might have been the wrong choice, yeah. I like it when people say nice things about my art too, it's part of why I keep doing it. I just feel reluctant to say 'Ooh! Cool!' unless something's mind-mashingly amazing... I should probably force myself to do that sort of thing more often, because I know even a simple appreciation like that helps my spirits sometimes.

As to making them try it themselves - yep! It looks easy when I do it, but I've been doing it for years!

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

Personally, I was not offended by Lynx's comment. To me it read as him having a preference.
When people think of toons, perhaps they are remembering the crappy ones, poorly drawn like Foxtrot or Cathy.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Hope you don't mind me pointing to it.

I was more interested in this because of how much it raised my ire; a sure way to rattle my cage is to claim that obsessive detail is superior to cartooning, without clarifying it with 'I think'.

And now I know that I'm gonna have people coming up to me at the Fur-B-Q and telling me this just to get me to start ranting. *grin*

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Meg, that's precisely what I meant. };)

[wolphyn.livejournal.com]

Just FYI, the problem was that you said "But talent is paying off now more than ever, as demonstrated by Goldenwolf and DarkNatasha", appearing to draw a direct correlation between highly-detailed work and talent.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Could you deny that (a) these artists are talented and (b) have received high bids for their work in recent convention art shows?

Objectively, therefore, the statement is true.

Yes, I generally like illustrative, well detailed art, but I freely acknowledge that high levels of detail in and of itself doesn't make art great. When I say they're talented artists, I mean they seem to have an exceptional command of media, backgrounds, compositions, characters, etc. They've got their art acts together.

I don't say they are the most talented artists, either. There are many talented artists around, who shine in various ways. But I single them out because they have demonstrated that people will pay large amounts of money for their art.

Where I showed my bias, per Megan's comment, is the line just before, about realism being the current trend. I approve of realism and artists who can demonstrate fine command of illustrative techniques in depicting such; therefore I'm happy to be able to point out that unlike the most popular offerings of years past, artists who have mastered wild life painting are becoming fiscally popular.

But that isn't the only value in art, nor the only kind of art that I like or appreciate, and the majority of my comment emphasized that there are many selling points for art.

[wolphyn.livejournal.com]

Very detailed work is in vogue right now. Cartoonistic endeavors are not. Therefore, simple talent is not necessarily paying off now more than ever; it only is regarding detailed work.

I'm just pointing out why you were originally misunderstood. :>

My Own Trigger Button

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

Liberty Meadows. What a hackney, humorless, Bloom County-wanna-be comic, with pointless titty girls and no original ideas. Well drawn however.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Actually, the reason I listed those two artists specifically in my first comment (Goldenwolf and DarkNatasha) is because those two artists were most notably financially successful at the past few Further Confusions. If I were listing artists I consider to be quite talented, there'd be a much, much longer list. Not necessarily made up completely of obsessively detailed artists, since I did name Pseudo-Manitou, but I would add Lela Dowling who has managed some very refined linework.

Tastes change. Years ago, a Chester self-gratification piece dragged home the most money. Now it's full-blown paintings raking in thousands. What will it be next year, or the year after?

I do dabble in cartoons as you can see, and I do appreciate the way that your style boils down things to essential shapes. Every art style has its own best uses and purposes. I suspect that illustrative art does better in art shows, followed by humorous cartoon art, but in a newspaper context, the cartoon art might be preferred over the lovingly detailed art, for eyeball-to-brain speed.

[synnabar.livejournal.com]

Well, I've said it a million times already - you know how much I admire cartoonists, for precisely this reason: "We slave over our stuff, paring a complex emotion down to five lines"

Yup, I know that! And I KNOW I'm not the only one who does. :)

I also admire people who have the patience for detail; I do not (and I know detail does not equal talent, if you've ever heard me rant about people who copy from photos all the time). So, my work falls somewhere in the middle. Good? Bad? It's just personal preference...

I will say that, regardless of being cartoony or detailed, it's originality, creativity and, uh, "soul" that catches MY eye more than anything else - and your work definitely has those qualities!