Sta.sh
Today on Shrinemaiden.org, I was talking with a gentleman who was having trouble making progress with his art. That is, he was stagnating--drawing every day, yet not getting better. I guessed--correctly, as it turns out--that his problem was sameness. Line drawing, anime style, #2 pencil, day in, day out. How did I know? Because that used to be me.
Some artists can put pen to paper and draw from nothing, just put down a couple eyes and scrit-scrit-scrit, next thing you know, there's a cute girl where once there was naught but white space. That's not how I operate, and in my view it's not how beginners should learn.
We've all fantasized about being able to beam images straight from our mind onto paper. But if we could, we'd quickly find out that our mental images aren't as precise as we give them credit for. Why? Because our brains are wired to retain only enough information about an object to recognize it when we see it. From an evolutionary standpoint, this makes sense; 99.9% of individuals will never need to know more about a hand than 'it's got five fingers on it', and any extraneous information about the makeup of a hand is wasted brain storage.
For the other 0.1% of us, though, our task as growing artists is to train up our mental images. That's why we must start from fruits and tables and simple shapes that are actually in front of us--because it's shapes that make up the things we see. Experienced artists can draw without a sketch, can skip the steps I'm about to show you, precisely because they already have a profound understanding of fundamentals, how a given configuration of shapes will look from a given perspective in given lighting. Or consider Galileo, a trained classical artist--and it's likely that artist's understanding of light and shadow helped him discover the mountains and valleys of the Moon. That's what is meant by the artist's eye.
All that to say that this is the first half of my drawing process, from concept to lines, as I showed said gentleman today. It relies on a buildup of shapes because I don't have the artist's eye yet--but I post it in hopes that it helps some of you who don't have that mastery either.
What is meant by grasping the fundamentals is to see a cute girl, or a dinosaur, or a house not as a collection of lines, but as an amalgam of simpler shapes. Although a drawing is made of lines, it's not the lines that you're drawing. As the above linked shadow exercise shows, sometimes you can do away with lines entirely--because it's ultimately volume that you're trying to show, the peaks where light gathers and the valleys where light can't get in. As an illustrative example, and these links are slightly NSFW:
I start with a basic stick figure to get the pose down. At this point I'm not worried about details at all, as long as the joints are in the right places and proportions are about correct (torso and arms 2 heads long, each half of the leg a little less). For further guidance, I draw in a ball and plane for the head, a cut-off egg for the rib cage, and a couple angled ovals at crotch level to represent the pelvic bones.
Second, I start adding volume to my stick figure. In this, art books provide useful practice - these studies come from Loomis's Figure Drawing for All It's Worth.
Only here, with the underlying form, pose and shapes laid out, do I concern myself with hair and eyes and other details.
e: Finished product.
(And yes, I'll post that picture--later, when the alternate version is done. Simul-post on dA and Pixiv, watch out for it.)
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Sure you say you put a lot of time and effort into your art, and I honestly believe that you really do. But do the *ahem* questionable nature of your drawings, browsing through your gallery reveals that even though they're often drawn in a viewpoint from different angles, the poses in your art are more or less always the same, "hands tied behind the back, knees bent, mouth obscured by a gag, big kawaii-uguu Animu eyes with a timid, frightened expression." etc. etc. etc. Over and over and over.
I've read through the entire journal, and I do believe there were some very solid points of advice in here for learning artists. However, given my preconceived notions of the source of this advice, I have a very hard time taking it seriously.
I apologize if this critique on your journal was in any way hurtful or offensive to you, and I know I've unintentionally raised all kinds of hell for other Kourindou Admins in a fashion quite similar to this. However, I'm not what to hold back my viewpoint on matters such as these. When I see a spade, I call it a spade. Simple as that.
I'm simply saying that, due to my preconceived notions of you as an artist based on the content of the images you draw, I find it difficult to accept any sort of advice from you. (geez, that sounded a lot more hurtful in the post than it did in my head.)
It's actually kind of sad when you think about it, but these preconceived notions are keeping me from accepting the validity of your advice. You always struck me as (please forgive me, this is inevitably going to sound horrendously rude) a "creep" (and still do, in fact) due to the nature of the content of many of your images that I find objectionable.
The fact that I'm a very obsessive "equal rights" feminist doesn't help in the slightest, as to me it always looks like you're trying to portray a bright, cheery, colorful adaption of imminent sexual assault. (Which in my mind, is a direct contradiction.)
I guess what we're learning here is you can have all the artistic talent, practice, and experience in the world, but people are still going to disapprove of your artwork if the content could potentially be perceived as distasteful, objectionable, or offensive. I also happen to be the type who judges artwork on content and the perceived message it carries as opposed to the neatness, finish, and overall quality of the drawing, which I perceive to be secondary for my enjoyment of the finished product. (I actually discovered your gallery back in January or February of 2010 and have been avoiding it like the plague for this very reason ever since.)
I guess I also found the "sameness" term ironic since I really haven't seen you draw anything other than different variations on bondage pics, but that was really the only gripe I had with the actual validity of this journal, and even that falls back into the fold of "I find the objectification of my gender in this manner to be extremely upsetting and distasteful" in a way. I guess you could say that bondage, in just about any depiction "just pisses me off."
I can see why you would read my work that way, and I'm sorry it keeps you from taking my thoughts seriously. You mentioned #touhou-kourindou earlier, so let's talk about that for a moment.
I am always honored and humbled to serve Kourindou as a moderator, and I take that position very seriously. Whenever I have time--and I admit that's not often these days--I do my utmost to give targeted advice, encouragement, anything I can do to help applicants get to where they need to be. It's the least I can do for a group so singularly focused on the advancement of Touhou fanart.
Now the thing is, not one of them--not even your friend TheOmegaGod--has been choosy about who they take their advice from. And why should they? I've always believed that everyone has something to teach me. If I didn't believe that--if I wasn't willing to look to sources from Loomis to Nanao for my inspiration; to pick nuggets of truth from shitheaps of invective on the 'chans; to exchange viewpoints much like I'm doing with you now--I'd still be back in my early-'00s stone age, and my art would still be offensive but without the polish and cheer.
You're free to think I'm creepy; you're free to think I'm a bad person; you're free to think I'm a hypocrite. But as long as you can't say I'm wrong, then I'm satisfied.
Since you brought it up however, I'll indulge you I suppose.
If you think my friend Omega willingly goes to you guys for advice, well then you certainly don't know him like I do. He complains to me constantly about how he thinks you guys want to get him to conform to their views or whatnot, and he certainly doesn't seem to take the advice of other Kourindou mods in much stride, I'm sorry to say.
To be honest, even though I practice my drawing, I can never make a drawing I'm entirely happy with, even though I should be fairly well-practiced by now seeing as I've been drawing since Junior High School back in the early 00's. This lack of satisfaction of my own work is why I don't upload my drawings to DA.
To be honest though, even if I could make a drawing and uploaded it and you guys found that it fit your club standards, I still would not want it submitted to your club. This is my own opinion, but I basically perceive Kourindou to be overrated, not so much "the elite" of Touhou Artists on DA as much as it is a close-knit group of friends who like to put themselves above everyone else and aren't entirely keen to let others into their group.
Also, being included in Kourindou simply wouldn't grant me the audience I'm hoping to achieve, seeing as my work would probably be next to Reisen Udonge Inaba tied up in her underthings and gagged with a ball gag in a club with a founder who's notorious for throwing temper-tantrums when his judgement is brought into question by others. (Not that Nicksilver isn't a talented artist, he can just be a real jerk at times.)
Part of this opinion stems from the belief that, as I've said before, artistic quality is secondary, and as such, I find that an art club founded on "artistic quality" for it's submission guidelines to be highly insubstantial, even with your currently revised guidelines. (I confess it's come a long way from what it used to be, but I still don't think it's enough.)
I also think it stems from the fact that I find artistic quality of a particular piece to be much more of a matter of opinion than anything else. Someone can look at a picture and say "This is a beautiful work of art." but a completely different person can look at that exact same picture and say "This is complete garbage." I think "The Primavera" by Sandro Botticelli is one of the most intriguing works of the Renaissance Period. My little sister however, who tends to run with a more "French Impressionist" crowd, doesn't think "The Primavera" isn't nearly all that it's hyped up to be, and is much happier with her book of Degas paintings, which I myself don't really see the enjoyment in.
(Another good example of this was, as was my initial point that I was trying to make before the topic seemed to have jumped away, was that I fail to see any sort of artistic value in depictions of terrified-looking women and girls bound and gagged no matter how well drawn they are.)
Because of this belief, that quality of art is based on opinion of an individual rather than a list of structures that must be adhered to, I do believe it's rather impossible to create an accurate system of guidelines for a club based on drawings of a particular artistic quality.
As a result, if you start a club with this as your lone guideline, you are inevitably going to make lots and lots of enemies who will come to think that you're just full of yourself. (Especially if you've got a temper like Nicksilver does.)
I'm a moderator of my own club which I'm quite proud of that specializes in edgy and disturbing "Grimdarksokyo" Touhou Depictions.
As for your claims concerning my perceptions of you, I would definitely say you're creepy. I don't think I'd go as far as saying you're a "bad person" but I'd definitely label you as a sexist. "Hypocrite" I dunno, I could effectively argue a case either way based on what I've seen. However, as unfortunate as it is, I really don't think I'm going to be taking you seriously anytime soon if all I see is smutty bondage pictures, regardless of how well-drawn they are.
But it's equally true that there are always constants and useful theories; that there are certain rules of perspective, value, etc. that separate what you call "drawn by a fifth-grader" from something that fits our club standards, as you see them. I believe the study and dissemination of those rules is a worthwhile intellectual pursuit. That's why I wrote this journal; not to boast about my improvements, but in hopes that others may share in them as well. Similarly, you see Kourindou as a group that divides art along lines of 'good' and 'bad'; I see it as an opportunity to help people improve, to point out what can be worked on, to get people where they want to be artistically. That's always been the approach that's informed my moderating. And my pride as a Kourindou moderator--no, as an artist--is not in how many girls I've drawn tied up, but in seeing somebody like Helrouis rise up the ranks from being rejected to being a moderator and valued colleague.
In any event, getting in a fight about Kourindou is not a duty of mine, and it seems unlikely I'm going to convince you of the rightness of my approach any more than you're going to convince me not to draw what I like. So I thank you sincerely for a thought-provoking conversation; you've given me something to think about, and I can only hope I've done the same for you.
By the way, if you're arguing that Omega has never gone to me willingly for advice, please check your Notes.
You seem to be pretty polite about helping other artists improve, I'll give you that much. I also think that depends on the individual though. I've seen Kourindou Admins who have been pretty polite and courteous, yet on the opposite side of the spectrum some of you have been pretty rude and obnoxious in giving advice to developing artists. (I shall not name names.)
And you're perfectly free to keep drawing your bondage fetish pictures, however I would still like to reserve the right to criticize them, either directly or indirectly. I'd feel like I'd be letting down my equal-gender-rights beliefs which I hold so dear if I did not do so.
And I never said Omega never came to you for advice by his own will. I'm simply saying that, based on what he told me on instant messaging, he found the advice of multiple Kourindou admins to be...well...let's just say "unsatisfactory."
I've seen too many women, POCs, etc. shouted down for asserting their rights as people, and I'm not going to have any of that. In your survey of my work, you've surely noticed that I don't hide any comments, not even the critical ones. (I make exceptions only for spam, malware, and my own wrongposts as seen below.) Something to learn from everyone.
I welcome you as a viewer, then, and I'm glad you're thinking about the ramifications of my work. If you're thinking about art, you're doing it right. That is something I think we can both agree on.