Art topic taboos/ Unpopular opinion

Louhi 2018-05-01 16:53:26 UTC #21

These are good opinions imo and I also agree on ”not everything is good art”. Anyone can call anything art but there is actually set of guidelines what makes art ”true art” and what is just an amateur’s doodle.

SleepingPoppy 2018-05-01 17:10:11 UTC #22

One of the biggest debates in the art community is how to define what “true art” is, so I’m not sure it’s fair to say there are definitive guidelines. More, there are guidelines to help us identify qualities in art and help us create art. Just my two cents there, and probably debatable amongst artists anyway. Lol

But I do agree that different pieces have different artistic value, and that the effort and skill put into a piece are relevant to that value. But I have a pretty ephemeral view on “judging” art in part because it is so complex and vast.

Unpopular Opinion Segway..

Video games are art! While I don’t believe every video game has high artistic value, I absolutely believe video games are art in the same vein as movies. It takes artists to create video games. Environments and characters are crafted. Storyboards are drawn. Etc etc etc. probably not that unpopular an opinion amongst us comic nerds? But definitely something the art community debates.

UrMom 2018-05-01 17:30:26 UTC #23

My line is normally drawn at that phase of semi-mediocrity. When you get the super basics and you're starting to experiment with the more advanced stuff like composition, color theory, dynamic poses and angles, stuff like that. Like you don't need to be the next Da Vinci, just have a mostly solid style and understanding of basic stuff. Work that shows you put time into developing it pretty much.

Also agreed that (non-asset flip, dime a dozen, cash grab) games are totally art! Ever play Child of Eden? The game itself wasn't that great, but DANG it was some creative eye candy. Same with the Myst games, and Bioshock, and... a lot of stuff really.

SleepingPoppy 2018-05-01 17:53:03 UTC #24

I can agree with that. I liked the cooking verses chef metaphor btw.

I have! Bioshock in particular is such a good game. And an example of art + game really working and creating something awesome. I think people forget when they see 3D worlds and characters that everything they’re looking at was still designed and crafted. A computer didn’t fart it all out.

CurlyComics 2018-05-02 09:54:08 UTC #25

Amen! somebody finally said it!
I have friends that are in art school (I myself am not) that strongly believe that comics are not considered art.
And just because I never had formal artist education (and because i do comics) cannot be considered an artist.
What they fail to see, I believe, is that comics, as you said, entail writing, directing and drawing that can be very well be considered art individually. So why not when they are combined? where is the line where something is and is not considered art? Is it the hours you put in a piece? Is it the quality of a work? Is it the medium used?

punkarsenic 2018-05-02 10:29:10 UTC #26

essentially the issue is that comics is a relatively new medium, facing the scrutiny of film and tv before it - and comics got a really bad start in life in america due to censorship laws. thered grown this public perception that comics were for children, so any vaguely adult storylines or genres - such as horror - were severely axed. modern western comics have an origin in vaudeville and newspaper funnies, and when will eisner started fighting for comics as literature, the olds and greats of comics took him less seriously than the wider art world even did.

things are different now weve had eisner, spiegelman, bechdel, all sorts of great graphic novels and movements, and various different prizes such as the lynd ward award and the eisner prize. but i still think theres a lack of wider recognition of their validity, especially given the massive prominence of marvel and DC in the west. when i say im making comics to other writers, a lot of people come back with something like 'oh yeah childrens books are really important.' LMAO my comics are Not for kids

CurlyComics 2018-05-02 11:09:52 UTC #27

that's very true !

that has never happened to me before
maybe because in my country comic and comic artist are very scarce so everybody just dismisses it as just another hobby

Cavechan 2018-05-02 11:17:05 UTC #28

Thank you for saying this. My art teacher in high school, while she was incredibly helpful in me getting my life together at the time and getting into college, at the same time she was always berating me for drawing anime style. She thought everything I drew was "plagiarism". Looking back, at the time, drawing/painting faces more realistically was simply not interesting to me. In college, it was much better because we could draw the way we wanted and in that environment I was able to draw more realistically without any issue.

Cavechan 2018-05-02 11:29:11 UTC #29

My opinion, I don't know if it's taboo or unpopular, is about the differences between scrolling and page by page comics. From what I've seen of scrolling comics, it always looks like the art is never as detailed as it could be. Especially backgrounds seem to be lost a lot so the setting is always more implied with much more focus on what the characters are saying. It seems like scrolling comics are more geared towards slice of life, or romance, or simple drama stories rather than a story with incredible world building.

I think at the core the point is: Don't skimp on drawing backgrounds! It's nice to know where your characters are!

That said, if anyone has links to scrolling comics that do have more detailed world-building, I'd be interested in seeing them.

Oh and that doesn't mean the comic is bad at all. I have read some incredible scrolling comics, but they have been very character driven.

punkarsenic 2018-05-02 12:08:39 UTC #30

i feel like this is very correlation =/= causation? theres nothing about scrolling format that dictates anything about the work except the direction of flow and nature of the panelling. its more likely that a lot of scrolling comics are this way because the scrolling layout comes from korean webtoons, which is closely related to manga tradition, in which backgrounds (while often detailed) arent in every panel. theres maybe a bit of a common style forming that isn't so detailed, but it doesn't make it an imperative of the format. and yeah, slice of life & other dialogue-heavy character-driven stories are most popular. theres also plenty of comics that are more page by page in style that are lax on the backgrounds.

LCT_m_a_d 2018-05-02 17:37:14 UTC #31

No one should complain about the entertainment industry running out of creativity if they overlook opportunity to support non-trendy smallpress. If you want big media to change take a chance on supporting smaller risky ventures especially when they're struggling to get on the map. Not when it's already a subculture phenomenon. Complaining about popularity and trends without actively supporting existing proposals is an irresponsible use of your voice

Jenny-Toons 2018-05-02 20:45:53 UTC #32

-Looks at the BL/Romance/Fantasy Complaining Threads-

I cannot stress this enough whenever I'm listening to people talk about how all of the popular things get picked, but do little to actually help the little guy. I hear more about people thinking companies/creators are "selling out" than I do "hey, how about we check out these guys!"

Like, I get it. We all go through it. We all end up seeing the same thing over and over in our media, and we can get caught up in complaining. But if you see something you like not getting the attention you feel it deserves -- complaining about it and not actually doing anything about it helps no one.

After all, how are companies supposed to know there's a demand for different content if they're not seeing that demand or seeing more people invest in those areas?

All talk and no walk doesn't get anything done, and it's high-time people come to understand that, especially around here (yeah, I'm calling it out like a seagull).

Zugaikotsu 2018-05-02 21:19:47 UTC #33

I put a lot of details on mine. I think mostly it depends of each artist. Many might be more worried about accomplishing deadlines (in case of webtoons artists who want pledges) than improving their stuff. And good backgrounds may take a lot of your beauty to do.

bakasama25 2018-05-03 05:29:06 UTC #34

Well, those webtoons are done on weekly basis with often no assistants. Japanese do have have assistants (oftentimes not credited by the publisher) for their weekly manga. That's pretty hard to do backgrounds with that kind of timeframe to work for a solo artist.

There are webtoons with a lot of world building like Tower of God, Kubera for LINE Webtoons.

Black Behemoth, Devil Sword King, and They Say I Was Born a King's Daughter. Tapas but these are pay to view.

Ghostblade, and The Wormworld Saga. These are free but they a WHILE to update. They also have nice backgrounds.

Cavechan 2018-05-03 20:48:43 UTC #35

That is true, I have seen some barren page comics for sure. Hell, even some of my own pages, especially earlier on can be that way. It's a challenge to draw settings for sure!

Cavechan 2018-05-03 20:52:09 UTC #36

Yes, deadlines indeed can inhibit the opportunity to do detailed backgrounds/settings when you're under pressure. I don't know how some of the manga artists do it, even with assistants it's pretty amazing. Though there have been a few instances recently where the chapters of Black Clover and My Hero Academia ended up being only half-inked in the magazine.

@bakasama25 Thank you! I'll check those out!

Zpreader 2018-05-03 22:39:47 UTC #37

This subject has actually been really interesting to me ever since I started reading korean webtoons. So much so that I spent alot of time looking up some YT channels run by korean artists to look into some of the shortcuts they use. Color references, custom made materials for complex objects (shrubbery, debris, chains, etc.), Sketchup, reused blurred backgrounds, it's pretty cool stuff. I feel like there's alot to learn there.

60Six 2018-05-03 23:34:39 UTC #38

Can't recommend these two comics enough as examples of beautiful vertical scroll comics:

First one becomes pay to read after a certain point, but I still highly recommend at least checking out the free episodes for some gorgeous art that definitely doesn't skimp on backgrounds!

I also like to think I don't really skimp on backgrounds, so I guess there's my comic too ahah... But I don't think it's as good of an example of a vertical scroll comic yet, as it was traditionally formatted and reformatted to vertical. However, starting literally this week, I'm drawing pages vertically so I hope it'll be a better example of vertical scroll comics as of this upcoming chapter ahaha.

Luminosophy 2018-05-04 02:22:23 UTC #39

It's funny because I think I found the opposite. Long form scrolling pages tended to have more attention to BGs in them because they were hyper focused on mood and atmosphere. Where as I found page forms were sometimes largely lacking in environmental development. I guess for me, that is my unpopular opinion. I just can't get into comics that only have characters drawn, because so much context is lost for me. It feels claustrophobic only ever viewing people that exist in the white vacuum of space. I suppose I find it strange that you would want to create a comic but omit the most important character of all : the world people live in. And to the people that say "well it's too hard to draw backgrounds" ...learning a skill was never meant to be easy.

bakasama25 2018-05-04 03:14:26 UTC #40

Yeah, I've observed how manga gets made and the one of secrets to making manga is, industrialization. A manga team has a mangaka, a (ghost) writer, an inker, and a gofer etc. but their names are seldom put in the credits.

There's a lot of shortcuts done just to make weekly 25-30 manga. There's tone sheets and pre-made backgrounds and objects you can buy. Their is, at times, an artist that draws props that the characters hold and use. I did save an article about these Japanese techniques by Colleen Doran somewhere. She was with a group of artists in Japan for a cultural exchange back in the 90s. She goes in detail about "secrets" about manga making. If you want, I can share that.

Koreans seem to use many of same shortcuts like Japanese. I've seen many webtoons backgrounds done with 3D programs. Some artists use them to copy/paste, trace, or use them as references. I've some artists vectorized some characters faces for closeups. Lookism seems to have of those closeups. First, there's a character face done at a distance then in the next panel there's a closeup of the face but it's same face but zoomed in.