bus doodles and Epilogue stupidity

[egypturnash]

I just looked at my stats on Epilogue, and discovered that "Everything Merges With The Night" is not approved:" composition needs work". What the hell? The composition is one of the strongest things about that image; it draws you in through the tiny window of your browser!

Epilogue is so staid. I think I'm going to go be boggled about this on their forum.

Anyway. Here's some bus doodles. Yes, the paper in this little sketchbook really is that livid.






(Do I post too many bus doodles? I'm never really sure.)

Comments

[maggock.livejournal.com]

Aw, I think it was rejected because it's different, and IMHO, creative. It's the first piece of art I think I've ever seen that was actually *designed* to be viewed within a browser, and not have to work around the seemingly restrictive monitor space and dimensions. I like it, anyway.

Also, I don't think the editors of Epilogue appreciate vector art as much as traditionally painted art. This might be a case where the 'it's my style!' phrase is actually valid. ;)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*nod* The one response my polite 'WTF?!?' on the 'Wah Epilogue bounced my art' forum is telling. <snark>(Especially with the .sig admonition to open your mind.)</snark> It'll be interesting to see what other responses it gets.

I do feel very out of place there; I've done three modelled, painted-looking pieces in my adult life, one of which is not shown around much because it's blatantly pornographic, one of which was not accepted on Epilogue. It just ain't my thing.

Oh, if you like the way that image makes you interact with the browser, you might want to check out "When I Am King" - it starts out requiring you to scroll horizontally, and later gets into forcing you to move vertically in a small space, as well. Very nifty. It was one of my inspirations in deciding to crop that piece this way.

[cobaltie.livejournal.com]

Though to be fair, the When I am King story is just so horribly, utterly messed up. I love it. :-P

[mattlazycat.livejournal.com]

For When I am King, I love you dearly. It's brilliant!

I love how, in the Epilogue forum, everyone seems to be coming up with reasons that don't match the verdict of "poor composition" like, "Oh I don't like it" (since when does that matter?), "oh it's not sci-fi/horror/fantasy" (huh?! given a similar viewpoint, neither is this (http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=26020&genre=2)) "oh, it won't work in print" (didn't realise it was Epilogue The Magazine), "where is this tension of which you make mention?" (buh.. whatever). Only one person so far has mentioned your composition at all.

My advice to you is to get screaming drunk, and submit a totally cynical pic of, say, a huge pair of boobs, and a gun, and a unicorn.

Actually, could you do that anyway? ;)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

No body for those boobs to be attatched to. Just boobs. Hmmm!

(I also can't be bothered to care too much about whether or not a piece of mine gets on a gallery that munges all the JPEGs so that all my browsers refuse to display them - that one you point to, like every other image I look at on Epilogue, is just so much brightly polychromatic garbage!)

I think the unspoken ideal for Epilogue is "art that graces the cover of Dragon magazine". Which... um... the closest that category's ever come to me is the one or two times Phil Foglio did a humorous cover painting.

[mattlazycat.livejournal.com]

Don't forget to be bland and uncontroversial in composition and style. I recommend coloured pencils, and a 4:3 aspect ratio. Our review process disapproves of such outlandishness as creativity, or experimentation, after all the subject areas of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror are unchanging — nay, immutable. *shakes fist*

Impressive picture error there. Does Safari have the same explosive JPEG issue? I've never noticed it before, though admittedly while I have FireFox and Camino on my powerbook, I don't usually use them for anything more than testing (out of habit more than anything else :)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Epilogue's images break exactly the same way on Safari, for me at least. It just started happening one day. And it only happens on Epilogue... very weird. Thumbnails and full images alike.

Another reason why I feel no community ties with the place.

Oh. I just checked, and found out why. It's gone if I turn off Privoxy. Huh. I guess I'll have to poke at its settings. Or not. It's not as if I feel much connection to Epilogue.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

"No body for those boobs to be attatched to. Just boobs. Hmmm!"

Just boobs wearing jetpacks? :)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Nah. Just floating there on the power of their boobieness.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

"We have evolved beyond the need for jetpacks."

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

good luck with the flailing at Other People's Whimsy.
i would only agree with the assessment (in the reply to your post there) that the picture could be narrower. aside from that, it's more lovely work from Peggy, yes. so.. at least one vote for and at least one vote against. what's that mean again?

more bus doodles plz, i never tire of them; it's a constant whip to Loosen Up More, myself.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

good luck with the flailing at Other People's Whimsy

Hee. It helps a lot that I really don't care about Epilogue's artistic authority at all. I'm vaguely surprised every single time I submit a piece there and it's not bounced for being insufficiently sf/fantasy or for being 'unrefined'.

Also, the piece in question was more a casual exercise in skill, done to keep myself from thinking too hard about stuff that needed to stew in the underside of my mind. It's only a little above a doodle for me.

After a little more time to see if anyone else replies, I will probably comment that one way I've thought of presenting it in a gallery is on a windowshade - force the viewer to interact by pulling it into view, and snap back the instant they relax! Now that's art. n.n

[frostedelves.livejournal.com]

I really liked that piece, and was surprised to see the Epilogue forum goon being a cock about it. That's a rather elitist view they seem to have going about their value system/criteria, there, if forum lad is representative.

And I enjoy the bus doodles, so I'd say post as many as you fancy. They're politely LJ-cut and I for one think it's neat to see how others work, especially when it's someone whose style I enjoy-- which definitely includes you.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Not said in my reply: "I will take the critical opinions of someone named Wren Sharpbeak with all the careful consideration they clearly deserve." After all, I'm not sure someone who varyingly signs her art as "Peganthyrus" or "Egypt Urnash" has much room to mock a Ms. Sharpbeak. I will mock her refusal to capitalize 'I' mid-sentence, however, as I stopped doing that when I was about, um, seventeen?

It's perilously close to "WAH BUT ITS MY STYLEEEEE", but I really suspect the main reason both were booted was "too abstract, too minimal, where's the obsessive rendering of texture".

Or, judging from the responses I'm getting on their forum, "I hate having to scroll to see the picture". Oh well.

[uhusted.livejournal.com]

Darned if I know. They rejected http://www.apocalyptictangerine.com/printoids/johnhenry.jpg for (paper plate print- 4 color transfer on rag paper) for the same reason and I still can't grok it.

[ghostangel.livejournal.com]

Epilogue=bunch of elitist art wanks. Whatever happened to "Art for Arts sake"?

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Allow me to lodge my vote for "Naah, you don't post too many bus doodles" too.

Heh, and I like the windowshade idea.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

You don't put up too many bus doodles and I like the way the piece works.
it reminds me a bit of The Most Annoying Webpage in the World (How can you not click on that link? :)

Not so much in tone but in concept.

FEH

[glassowater.livejournal.com]

is my response to the forum criticism based on its tallness. Is it that torturous to twiddle a scrollbar or mouse wheel for a few seconds? It's not like we're talking about UI design for an application people are going to have to use for countless 8-hour days. Oh, and FEH again to the complaint that the image wouldn't work on a wall. Yes, but it isn't hanging on a wall, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it was designed with that purpose in mind. Medium and context are relevant, and the browser-centricity of the composition, taken as an integral part of the piece, works in its favor.
Eh, I know criticism is important to an artist, but this time I really feel like the critics are slamming a toaster for making a lousy dishwasher. "Yes, I know they're both kitchen appliances, and yes, I'm sorry your plates keep cracking, but if you'd just put some bread in there, I think you might be pleasantly surprised!"

Re: FEH

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*nod* At times, these juried internet galleries just seem like the blind leading the blind. Epilogue, like its cousin Elfwood, always gives me the impression that its highest accolade is secretly 'would look great on the cover of Dragon.' Which is not a bad thing, but not something my brand of illustration really fits into.

I really need to make an attempt to put my stuff in real-world galleries someday...

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

I like your work, Peggy.. your experimetnal compositions, the tension, the vectors. (We share a common love for vectors). I'll just scratch my head. The other thing I'm scratching my head at are comments like 'I can't see the cigarette se's supposedly holding'. Aigh :D They seem to be biased against designery pieces or pieces not intended to be hanging up on a wall.

I recently had a piece rejected under 'Composition Needs Work' as well, it was the collage (Of which there's a snippet in my icon here). The piece is a little symmetrical and bottom heavy, but I cropped it to add balance. I guess I have to add some text to it to make it work, because the illustration was created with text being added in mind. I deleted it from my list because It's a collage. I really can't do anything to change the composition, I'm happy with it. The rejection makes me scratch my head, if anything I thought it wasn't going to get rejected for 'not being appropriate' rather than a compositional glitch.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

Of course, I forgot to change the Icon. This is the collage snippet :P

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Vectors are so sexy.

*looks at icon* Oh, yeah, that is so not what I get the impression people are looking for on Epilogue.

I leave the rejected pieces in the system to remind me to not take their judgement seriously. The first one that was rejected kinda hurt, but the other two? I just kinda laugh. And scratch my head.

I don't even think about trying to alter them to make Epilogue's editors happy. When they're done, they're done, and I'm not going to tweak them, unless it's for, like, money - the only other web gallery that's ever given me a single bit of hassle is Yerf, when my 'minimal vixen' abstract piece caused whining in the forums, and the semi-official declaration of the "No Pure Abstraction" rule (which I really wish they'd add to the rules).

One of these days I'd like to actually have something rejected from there for being "off theme". Really. Maybe if I ever finish this. Barely "sci-fi" at best. (image hosted on my own machine, which goes to sleep while I'm at work, so look quick!)

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my collage is an abstracted artistic cyborg of sorts, so I had it in as SF. I'm wishing they'd have nuked it for being of theme.

For the record, I loved minimalist vixen, I don't think yerf is ready for stuff like that, but it's something I'd put on my wall for people to go 'huh?' at.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

*checks out the linked image* I missed it yesterday.

Your stuff reminds me of an artist that does a lot of work for magazines up here in Canada. Slick, illustrator work.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*nod* There seems to be a few people doing similar stuff in magazine illustrations. I really should look into trying to do that. Though first I need to learn how to finish stuff up in a timely fashion!

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

The only logical explanation I can think of is that since epilogue's system automatically resizes a piece to a maximum size, maybe after it had throttled the image down to 750 pixels high or whatever, it was so narrow you couldn't see the image hardly at all. I think that part might be automated, but I couldn't tell you for sure.

Weird, though.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Nah. They only size based on width; it's going to be 700px wide at most (and yeah, it's auto-scaling). I render out an Epilogue/Illustratorworld version of an image with that constraint, and let the height fall where it may; it's only programmatically biased against wide pieces. Minor details of web design decisions aside, this is precisely what you would've seen on Epilogue - IW bought their backend off of Epi.

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

Well, there went my attempt at a logical explanation...

[xiombarg.livejournal.com]

This isn't the first time I've heard this sort of complaint about them. My impression is that the reason given for rejection rarely, if ever, has anything to do with the actual reason it was rejected.

And "my finger twitched" is probably not the sort of reason they actually want to list, but I suspect is the reason for some rejections...

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

1)Post all the doodles you like. Folks obviously pay attention, you get feedback, everyone's happy, yes? :"D

2)What does "composition needs work" mean? And in fact, what's the point of telling someone that if you're not going to explain? I had someone tell me the same thing for one of my Yerf application pieces and, without explaining themselves, it only made me laugh.

I didn't go read the thread you linked (on vacation, must leave house) but it seems to me that if there's an "art" board that can't be bothered to teach or explain itself, it's not of so great a use.

-T'

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I worry that posting the doodles is too egotistical or something. Look, here's my FRAGMENTARY UNFINISHED CRAP, enjoy it! But on the other hand, this is a journal, and if I kept a physical journal, I'd be constantly doodling in it. And yeah, people seem to like 'em; it's not as if I routinely post the ones that fail to work on every possible level!

Epilogue works like Elfwood - every image you throw onto it has to be approved by human eyes. I gather the moderators have some kind of interface where they see the image and the description and who knows what other stats about it and the artist, and a bunch of buttons to accept it (possibly with a comment), or to reject it for a number of reasons.

So every piece has to submit to the changing whims of one of several detail-lovers. (I'm not flaming their work; I just went and looked at all their linked pages, and they're all well into 'pro' - but they're also working from very different views of art than I do, enough that it vaguely surprises me every time an image is accepted there!)

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

I think I speak for myself and Postvixen when I say, we're all about the bus doodles.

[tabriscoonz.livejournal.com]

I wish my sketchbook doodles were as lively. :P Meh, 2 pages in my hyooman book... only 2. I love your doodles.

Epiloque, although I've never applied sounds very... unpredictable. I've seen their anime section and they seem to let any piece of crap in there, yet are overly strict in other galleries. I don't think the reviewers "got it", most people on LJ "got it" and instead of saying "composition needs work" they should have just said ";_; It made me scroll, I hate scrolling" cause the former is too vague.

[tabriscoonz.livejournal.com]

Ok, I read the forum responces. Wow, I wonder if they know they can give criticism without sounding like complete assholes...

[holohedron.livejournal.com]

You used to be Vaughn Bode? :D

Twin's expressions (first and third) make me smile.

[radd.livejournal.com]

...once upon a time at 2:30 in the afternoon there lived a wise and benevolent wizard that went by the handle Peggy Wizard.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*puts on a really, really big hat and walks around with no pants*