Why Is It Less Acceptable to Create Derivatives of Visual Art?

[47948201]

(I wandered around for a bit trying to find where to put this. Creative seemed the most fitting except it's basically 100% galleries and requests and eh whatever)

I'm probably going to butcher my thoughts now that I'm actually typing them out, but here goes...!

I find the visual art community pretty unaccommodating. Actually, that's a bit of an understatement. I mean, consider "derivatives" in other art media: if you copy an existing performing work, it's a performance; if you copy an existing musical work, it's a cover; if you copy an existing written work, well, there are a few things it could end up being considered, but as long as it's not a pure copy/paste, it'll guaranteed be more favorably looked-upon than a copied visual art piece. Even games, my goodness how many Final Fantasy clones are there. And yet, they'll, at worst, get some comments on being unoriginal. (I mean, aside from the fact that 99% of them suck, but that's a separate issue entirely) But I've never found any remotely acceptable form of copying even parts of visual art. Why is that?

I'm going to use music as my tool for comparison here purely because it's the only one I know much of anything about. There are tons of ways to approach doing your own music-y things. Being able to do any one of them is sufficient to make your own product, since it's perfectly acceptable to just place your own vocal or instrumental track over an existing piece. But for drawing, traces are plagiarism, color adjustments are plagiarism, distortion or splicing is plagiarism until you get into the really abstract or used stock art. There's no such restriction in music: take the famous "Nightcore" style of remix for example. It takes maybe 10 minutes in Audacity to speed up an existing song, that you can download straight from the source, and it's a totally accepted way of giving a new tone to an existing work. (As a little comment about this, that little glimmer of hope for a usable resource, stock art, is generally far less free to use than probably even more than half of the music resources out there)

That kind of leads into the point about just how many things it takes to make visual art. You need the physical dexterity, the vision (literally), a good understanding of anatomy/architecture/whatever you're making, usually at least a passing knowledge of physics (I'm including here stuff like cloth, perspective, shadows, etc.) and a lot of principles. If you're lacking any one of those, your entire piece suffers greatly. (I know you can get those little anatomy doll thingies, but you still need to know about anatomy to make use of them) There's practically nothing to substitute even partially for any of the other skill requirements. With music, if you don't have the dexterity to play or sing, you can use midi or samples. If you don't have imagination, you can copy the style and instrumentation of the original. If you don't know the theory, that's totally fine--you literally have all the notes right in front of you for a huge number of songs.

(I uh don't know where to place this but I want to give mention to how, to take a familiar example, a romhack whose sprites consist of splices will always be looked down upon relative to one with customs. It's always assumed that the splices are just because the creator isn't much of an artist and exist as placeholders until they get better or can enlist someone who can bring down the great fullcustoms. But rip a midi from another game and plop it in your ROM, and suddenly your game's sound department is amazing!)

It doesn't help that 99% of drawing tutorials basically consist of "here are the steps I take when I draw. Remember to practice!"

I said I'm using music as my example because I'm most familiar with it, but I never intended for that to be the case. I ended up learning about music on accident, and I think it says a lot about the available resources for visual art that someone can spend 2 weeks halfheartedly teaching themself guitar and end up at a considerably higher level than over a decade of art books, tutorials, and studying (of varying degrees of formality), with many semi-long periods of relatively hard work. The resources present leave the barrier to entry of visual art so high, I can't even see where it is from here.

That's...not to say I wanted to turn this topic into me complaining about my own lack of skill. I do think this is a pretty big issue however, thinking about those who feel the same way. I know I'd be among the first people to say a given thing pretty much only seems easy to you if you're good at it--for example, I know full well to actually make a good written work takes a lot of skill, but creating a mediocre one is, as far as I can tell, so, so much easier than constructing a mediocre painting. So considering how difficult of a medium it is to execute in, the lack of concessions for aspiring artists seems like a pretty big failing of the art community, in my opinion. Time to prepare for a bunch of people complaining about that last line! I don't meant to say all the content producers should go out of their way to help each beginner at their doorstep, obviously. (Insert comment about how if they're at your doorstep, your priority should be calling the police) But it seems there ought to be a higher degree of acceptance present, particularly with regard to the directing of those starting out.

...On the off chance someone who knows me reads this, betcha didn't know I was capable of text walls~

Edited April 10, 2015 by 47948201

[Party Moth]

Beware the wall of walls of text!

As to your question: Because most people's sense of anatomy and form haven't deteriorated to the point of pop music. The Zelda fandom is a great example of this:

A lot of love goes into fanworks, and visual art is no exception to that. A lot of neat art, such as recreations of official art through watercolor paint, chalk, even cakes pass over the eyes if you look deep enough. Surprisingly enough, there is some recognition by fans that the ideas are cool and that they must have taken a lot of work. However, prove to the fan base that you are somewhat competent regarding playing a D minor scale on a violin, and woah you can play the Song of Storms that's so cooool!! Blame the decline of music theory, blame people's tastes shifting to electronic music, blame the radio, blame whatever you want. But I still think the overall problem lies in the general public's lax view on music.

For example:

It doesn't help that 99% of drawing tutorials basically consist of "here are the steps I take when I draw. Remember to practice!"

I said I'm using music as my example because I'm most familiar with it, but I never intended for that to be the case. I ended up learning about music on accident, and I think it says a lot about the available resources for visual art that someone can spend 2 weeks halfheartedly teaching themself guitar and end up at a considerably higher level than over a decade of art books, tutorials, and studying (of varying degrees of formality), with many semi-long periods of relatively hard work. The resources present leave the barrier to entry of visual art so high, I can't even see where it is from here.

I do agree that the barrier to entry is high. However, I think the rest of this is slightly unfair, especially to any musicians out there (myself included) who spend hours upon hours sitting on their ass practicing theory, harmony, technique, scale proficiency, and just plain practice. I did not spend 10+ years practicing bass and tuba and piano just for some schmuck who picked up a guitar last month to get the gig. Because, outside of the internet (and pop music, but that's a whole 'nother issue), people who don't practice, people who don't put in the effort to perfect their technique, people who don't internalize rhythmic patterns and scales and counting and communication, don't get the job. They simply don't. You can't just pick up an alto saxophone and learn Milhoud's Scaramouche in a month. Not even remotely. You can't play anything on the level of Snarky Puppy's Lingus without years (decades!) of practice, either. Those who are good musicians commit. They do not slouch and do not act lazy, for if they take a day off of practice someone better will get ahead of them. Their persistence can cause serious turmoil in their relationships, whether they're on heroin or cocaine or stone cold sober. To take the musician's path is no easier than any other road of life.

Now, the issue you're seeing is that good musicians rarely have time to dedicate to fan works. I personally was planning to put together a Fire Emblem symphony, a tribute to the series that I'd end up releasing for free on BandCamp or wherever as an exercise in symphonic composition as well as to create tonal correlations between the games. However, it turns out this takes a lot of time. Hundreds of hours, even. Hundreds of hours just structuring it. And then there's the issue of having no orchestra that would feasibly record it for anything less than $40,000. MIDI isn't a proper solution, either: Basic MIDI simply isn't articulate or authentic enough to impress, and samples on the level of Native Instruments or East West take such an intricate level of detail and defining velocities of notes/articulations that even mentioning all of this is going to give people headaches. And the fact of the matter is, I just don't have time for that if I want to have food on the table.

Yet, despite this, musical covers get more attention than fan art. Is it because it's easier to scribble together art of Link than it is to play his theme on guitar? Not necessarily, though the barrier of entry there is slightly higher on the musician's part since they actually have to buy an instrument. I would say it is because you can draw Link as much as you want, but if your anatomy is off, or your color palette is gaudy, or if Link's eye is a little too far to the right, people will notice. Anatomy takes skill to do, and people will come to the conclusion that if you trace you have no skill. On the other hand, with music, the fact that you even managed to replicate a song note-by-note is considered a miracle. People accept that mixing and recording and editing is hard and often don't question the content, and since the content is what they've heard before note-for-note it doesn't carry the same anatomy parallels.

Anyway, I could continue, but we'd be here all day.

TLDR; Errors in technique on the artist's part are more readily noticeable by people than musicians' screw ups, and good musicians don't have the time nor the money to dedicate themselves to fan projects more often than not.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Duels at Dawn

[Rehab]

God, what's the term? I just /know/ there's a word for "attempting to recreate a drawing /painting/whatever in order to get something out of it, like to build it up from nothing," but the word escapes me. Anyway, yeah, actually, that is indeed a thing, and a thing that (I'd wager) most right-headed fellow artists won't eat you over, it's just considered very much a practice thing.

One aspect of it, though I wouldn't know as much about the creation side of it having merely gone to a music aftercurricular school for performance lessons, is that it seems to me music is a good bit more (or rather almost entirely more) performance-based. Creation obviously is a huge part of it, and it's not like developing one's physical dexterity has NO relevance or place in visual art, but songwriting and performing are kinda... well, I hope it's evident enough that the two are separate (if very much related) endeavors in a way that isn't quite fully analogous to visualizing and physically making/constructing art.

I do get it, though, at least in some related part. My own freakin mom was both a vis arts major of some kind and a bloody Starker-loving cellist, and was, uh, not exactly understanding when I tried to explain how I was having trouble even beginning to /approach/ drawing, because I had no idea how to practice it, (whereas! with music, while I still had some perfectionist make-one-mistake-and-immediately-freeze tendencies, there were tons of things like scales and breathing exercises to help me with technique that actually themselves helped me get up to where I felt I could take on some 220+ bpm multiple key signature differentiated monster). She just kinda shrugged and said something like "music has systems you have to practice, drawing is just 'do the thing.'" Didn't help much!

Trying to remain optimistic, though, both do in fact involve learning how to make what you want to see (or hear) made, over much refinement. And both do in fact have their fair share of cliquey, unhelpful-at-best communities, along with hordes of nitpicky traps to fall into. I'd like to think what remains key is improving at one thing at a time, indeed keeping up with that ol' practice monster (s/he's not so scary when you get to know em) and becoming familiar enough with the local trappings of the thing that you stick around long enough to use it to, y'know, express yourself. Bringing into the world what you want to see made is of course the end goal, though it's easy to lose track in the details.

Have you tried the community and (mind-bogglingly voluminous) resources at conceptart.org? I've found they're pretty good at helping out in improvement capacities, if only by observing from the sidelines a little. Loomis and other household names being standard starter prescriptions.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Rehab

[Maritisa]

Ohh boy...

We're delving into some deep waters here everyone, grab your snorkels.

Rather than ramble into a text wall about my feelings on the art community, I'm just gonna put my thoughts in on what others have said, as most of how I feel has already been said by you.

BUT OH BOY

It doesn't help that 99% of drawing tutorials basically consist of "here are the steps I take when I draw. Remember to practice!"

...she just kinda shrugged and said something like "music has systems you have to practice, drawing is just 'do the thing.'" Didn't help much!

THIS is one of my BIGGEST gripes with visual art communities. I WANT to draw, I really really freaking do, I'd absolutely love to be able to even just do it casually. But the thing is where the HELL do you start? Obviously you need to learn to sketch, be it through a tablet or on paper, but nobody ever teaches HOW to sketch. They're just "This is what I do for my sketches" instead of "How to sketch" basically. It's like nobody understands that there really are people who never doodled when they were kids, and never ever had any practice drawing at all. But it's even worse if you CAN'T sketch. For those doing pure digital art with a mouse or something, you have absolutely no guidelines and nobody freaking teaches the basics of working like this, even though there surely are people who do it. (SAI is amazing) Tracing can help, but it only goes so far, because if you're tracing you're just, well, tracing. You're not actually learning how to create that foundation from scratch, which is probably why some artists look down on tracers. But it really freaking sucks to not know where to start.

There's a sort of triangle of ability: Dedication, Direction, and Talent. You only need two of the three to be good.

The problem is that in the world of visual art, the second point, Direction, is very very hard to find. So the only people who get good have the only other possible combination, Dedication and Talent. Having Talent and Direction or Dedication and Direction are just as equally viable of combinations, but they're not easily possible with how the community's structured right now. Even my own artsy friends have been extremely unhelpful in that regard.

One thing that bothers me in particular though, is the whole "Practice Makes Perfect" mantra, but moreso that everyone thinks you NEED years and years of practicing to even be mediocre, and often just laugh at you and say it'll take a lot longer to be good. If you didn't notice, there's "Direction and Talent", which doesn't involve excessive amounts of Dedication, aka practice. I'm one of those people who, not to boast, but if I know where to go and/or how to go about it, I can become very skilled with something in a very short amount of time. I'm a fast learner and a very observant perfectionist. I believe it's completely possible to go from having no skill in an art to being highly proficient in even a month if you've got a good teacher or good resources to be taught from, provided you have the learning capacity to do so in such a short time. So it greatly frustrates me that this isn't really an option in the visual art community.

I became pretty decent at my splicing in only a month or two because people gave me critique a lot and I picked up technique from some people. _{^{(I'm terribly out of practice now, though, haha...)}}

Practice is for keeping a skill sharp, improvement happens by itself the more work you do. I had tons of sprites in that time, so I had a lot of feedback and it really helped. Maybe one of the problems is the severe lack of friendly critique in most art communities. Some people get too aggressive about it and put others on the defensive, others just can't take being told they're doing something wrong because they haven't really experienced it. And in this absence of simple critique people have seemingly just started making excuses like "Just practice more and you'll get better!" instead of saying what actually needs fixing. Some people will figure out what they're doing wrong on their own, but having a third party point out what you did wrong and give pointers on how to fix it really helps. I feel it keeps those who genuinely want to improve around, making progress, instead of fumbling around trying to figure out what's wrong and eventually giving up out of frustration.

It's one of the reasons I actually like the FE community, funnily enough. People here aren't afraid to point out problems, and plenty know how to give advice. When I used to splice, I had people who almost walked me through fixing up the sprite. I'd post the original, they'd tell me what was wrong, some might say what I could do to fix it, I'd try their advice, and then post it again. Then I'd get more feedback, and such and such. That kind of interaction is VITAL to improvement in an art, and it's something a lot of people are far too hesitant to do now, it seems. So +1 for you guys for being brutally critical! Those killer weapons sure do work!

^{On another note, (no pun intended) I honestly feel I could excel at (digital) music if I tried, I have a few friends who know their way about it well, but in this personal instance I'm hesitant to learn notation, because I fear my over-analytical nature will cause songs to lose their "magic" if I learn notation... I'd be hearing the notes and not the song...}

[Party Moth]

One thing that bothers me in particular though, is the whole "Practice Makes Perfect" mantra, but moreso that everyone thinks you NEED years and years of practicing to even be mediocre, and often just laugh at you and say it'll take a lot longer to be good. If you didn't notice, there's "Direction and Talent", which doesn't involve excessive amounts of Dedication, aka practice. I'm one of those people who, not to boast, but if I know where to go and/or how to go about it, I can become very skilled with something in a very short amount of time. I'm a fast learner and a very observant perfectionist. I believe it's completely possible to go from having no skill in an art to being highly proficient in even a month if you've got a good teacher or good resources to be taught from, provided you have the learning capacity to do so in such a short time. So it greatly frustrates me that this isn't really an option in the visual art community.

I became pretty decent at my splicing in only a month or two because people gave me critique a lot and I picked up technique from some people. _{^{(I'm terribly out of practice now, though, haha...)}}

Practice is for keeping a skill sharp, improvement happens by itself the more work you do. I had tons of sprites in that time, so I had a lot of feedback and it really helped. Maybe one of the problems is the severe lack of friendly critique in most art communities. Some people get too aggressive about it and put others on the defensive, others just can't take being told they're doing something wrong because they haven't really experienced it. And in this absence of simple critique people have seemingly just started making excuses like "Just practice more and you'll get better!" instead of saying what actually needs fixing. Some people will figure out what they're doing wrong on their own, but having a third party point out what you did wrong and give pointers on how to fix it really helps. I feel it keeps those who genuinely want to improve around, making progress, instead of fumbling around trying to figure out what's wrong and eventually giving up out of frustration.

While there's obviously some leeway that's highly dependent on inherent talent and learning curves, some things are simply not possible without a lot of practice. I don't know if that's the case with visual art; my experience is in composing and performing music as well as literary analysis and composition. But from my experience in the music world I have never seen a single person go from guitar tabs to Paganini in a month. In two years, maybe, if they're a prodigy.

Nonetheless, as you said it's important to practice the right things, or else you end up picking up bad habits or not learning a thing. I agree with the rest of your post.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Duels at Dawn

[Rehab]

It might just be my own desperate existential fears hangups, but I prefer to think of that whole "speed of improvement" cluster of issues less in terms of the Divine touches of circumstances and genetics and Talent, than like, "okay, what do you have in mind?" The difference between "merely" wanting to do some kind of art because... well, because, and having something inside you that has to get out. (That may be creating a false dichotomy, though)

Even more than a sense of purpose, though, (because if I'm certain of anything it's of how enormous is the number of experiences different from my own), I think getting /into/ exploring the given medium is important. By that I mean seeing possibilities in every tweak one makes, of reevaluating how one sees the limits of both one's own ability and of the medium as a whole just by messing around and seeing what happens. Your own love affair with creation is probably more important than the mean, median and mode improvement arcs and increments.

Easy to type from my armchair, admittedly, but y'know.

[General Banzai]

Manet got away with it

the amount of things being ripped off in this one painting is pretty a lot

[Thor Odinson]

Actually there are more systematic ways of doing art if you actually get a proper art teacher, you could find some resources on the internet too, but it's inherently false that art doesn't have some kind of system and is just "draw this lol" and whatever

When I was 15, drawing shitty anime was doing my art no good and I went to take actual art lessons, and I basically started again from the ground up. You learn geometric shapes. Start with those. I started off drawing cubes and pyramids and cylinders and moved to spheres and fruits and vases before going on to more complex things like busts. Get your foundations down. Draw simple geometric shapes until you can draw them perfectly without rulers and compasses. Use these shapes to approximate more complex shapes. One thing I've also learned in art class, especially for drawing observational still lifes, is to use your pencil as a ruler to gauge the space between objects. You need to not only be able to draw shapes accurately, but also gauge the space between them accurately.

Then there's perspective, which gives your work depth, and if you focus mostly on humans or animals, anatomy. To draw a good human, you need to understand how humans are structured. You can start by breaking down the human body into the geometric shapes you practiced earlier, and then move to studying skeletal and muscular structures once you get the basic framework down. If you want to draw humans well, it is imperative that you at least learn most major muscles. You don't have to learn every single little piece (but it's still better for your art if you do, because the better understanding you have of exactly how the human body works, the more accurate you can draw dynamic poses)

Once you have your foundations down, then you can play around with it. Get a unique style-there's no exact guide to do this, but I guess one thing that worked for a lot of artists is to just practice emulating other artists and borrowing bits of what they like stylistically from many while putting their personal touches on it. Don't entirely lift an artist's style as your own, though - that's counterproductive. There's a vast difference between an artist who knows their shit and stylizes their work, and an artist who simply don't know their shit. It's very easy to tell visually.

But yeah art is absolutely not "lol just draw this" or there wouldn't be entire schools for it, people not telling you what exactly needs to be fixed likely also don't know exactly what's wrong or can't put it into artistic terms, rather they just know it's wrong. Hell, I've been doing the art thing for a pretty long time and, I don't trust myself to give perspective advice since I didn't study perspective as hard as I did anatomy. If your anatomy's wrong, chances are I'll know exactly what's wrong and can pinpoint it. If your perspective is wrong, I'll notice and I can probably tell you a general idea of what's wrong, but I can't go into as much detail about it than if, say, you drew the bicep wrong.

[Dark Sage]

Actually there are more systematic ways of doing art if you actually get a proper art teacher, you could find some resources on the internet too, but it's inherently false that art doesn't have some kind of system and is just "draw this lol" and whatever

When I was 15, drawing shitty anime was doing my art no good and I went to take actual art lessons, and I basically started again from the ground up. You learn geometric shapes. Start with those. I started off drawing cubes and pyramids and cylinders and moved to spheres and fruits and vases before going on to more complex things like busts. Get your foundations down. Draw simple geometric shapes until you can draw them perfectly without rulers and compasses. Use these shapes to approximate more complex shapes. One thing I've also learned in art class, especially for drawing observational still lifes, is to use your pencil as a ruler to gauge the space between objects. You need to not only be able to draw shapes accurately, but also gauge the space between them accurately.

Then there's perspective, which gives your work depth, and if you focus mostly on humans or animals, anatomy. To draw a good human, you need to understand how humans are structured. You can start by breaking down the human body into the geometric shapes you practiced earlier, and then move to studying skeletal and muscular structures once you get the basic framework down. If you want to draw humans well, it is imperative that you at least learn most major muscles. You don't have to learn every single little piece (but it's still better for your art if you do, because the better understanding you have of exactly how the human body works, the more accurate you can draw dynamic poses)

Once you have your foundations down, then you can play around with it. Get a unique style-there's no exact guide to do this, but I guess one thing that worked for a lot of artists is to just practice emulating other artists and borrowing bits of what they like stylistically from many while putting their personal touches on it. Don't entirely lift an artist's style as your own, though - that's counterproductive. There's a vast difference between an artist who knows their shit and stylizes their work, and an artist who simply don't know their shit. It's very easy to tell visually.

But yeah art is absolutely not "lol just draw this" or there wouldn't be entire schools for it, people not telling you what exactly needs to be fixed likely also don't know exactly what's wrong or can't put it into artistic terms, rather they just know it's wrong. Hell, I've been doing the art thing for a pretty long time and, I don't trust myself to give perspective advice since I didn't study perspective as hard as I did anatomy. If your anatomy's wrong, chances are I'll know exactly what's wrong and can pinpoint it. If your perspective is wrong, I'll notice and I can probably tell you a general idea of what's wrong, but I can't go into as much detail about it than if, say, you drew the bicep wrong.

This is very true. I remember when i took art in high school and learned some of the basics of proportions, perspective, shapes, etc. though i didn't really end up learning perspective unfortunately. It was really insightful and though i don't have access to all my old notes and drawings from the classes, those foundations forever stuck with me and got me into art myself. I can at least appreciate good technical skills a lot more than i used to now.

Another thing to note is the use of color and shading. The thing that stuck with me with my painting classes the most is that there is always a contrasting color that should be put on first. It's hard to tell what it is but a good way is to look very quickly at your subject and then paint the color that registers. For examole, my art teacher showed us this method by using a bright sky on a sunny day; through the above method he correctly determined that the sky's contrasting colir was a light pink and painted that layer before the blue. It resulted in a sky that looked strikingly accurate to the actual sky. Also when painting different shades, i learned that often, you put down noticeably different colors and try to fit it into the painting, and not just simply adding some white or black to the existing color.

Generally it helps to use reference images too. Whether it be for anatomy, perspective, or design, i make heavy use out of reference images and they prove very useful. They're especially helpful for stuff like clothes and armor. Most of my phone's pictures are simply images i downloaded off the internet for reference.

[Thor Odinson]

This is very true. I remember when i took art in high school and learned some of the basics of proportions, perspective, shapes, etc. though i didn't really end up learning perspective unfortunately. It was really insightful and though i don't have access to all my old notes and drawings from the classes, those foundations forever stuck with me and got me into art myself. I can at least appreciate good technical skills a lot more than i used to now.

Another thing to note is the use of color and shading. The thing that stuck with me with my painting classes the most is that there is always a contrasting color that should be put on first. It's hard to tell what it is but a good way is to look very quickly at your subject and then paint the color that registers. For examole, my art teacher showed us this method by using a bright sky on a sunny day; through the above method he correctly determined that the sky's contrasting colir was a light pink and painted that layer before the blue. It resulted in a sky that looked strikingly accurate to the actual sky. Also when painting different shades, i learned that often, you put down noticeably different colors and try to fit it into the painting, and not just simply adding some white or black to the existing color.

Generally it helps to use reference images too. Whether it be for anatomy, perspective, or design, i make heavy use out of reference images and they prove very useful. They're especially helpful for stuff like clothes and armor. Most of my phone's pictures are simply images i downloaded off the internet for reference.

Yeah, color theory is actually a really huge thing to learn. There's also how ambient light affects the colors, reflective light, refraction, etc. It's actually really scientific. In programmer class I had to program a raytracer once, and everything I ended up programming in, I learned first in art class before I learned it again in Physics, actually. There's also contrast, saturation, relative colors

References are very good to use. While I don't need them to draw, say, one of my own characters punching someone or flexing, that's only because I've drawn such designs and that pose enough times to burn it into memory. I consider myself fairly experienced in art for someone my age, and I had a stint in working as an artist professionally, but even then, especially when I'm not familiar with something I had to draw or design, I reference hard.

[deleted35362]

my oh my....

Beware the wall of walls of text!

As to your question: Because most people's sense of anatomy and form haven't deteriorated to the point of pop music. The Zelda fandom is a great example of this:

A lot of love goes into fanworks, and visual art is no exception to that. A lot of neat art, such as recreations of official art through watercolor paint, chalk, even cakes pass over the eyes if you look deep enough. Surprisingly enough, there is some recognition by fans that the ideas are cool and that they must have taken a lot of work. However, prove to the fan base that you are somewhat competent regarding playing a D minor scale on a violin, and woah you can play the Song of Storms that's so cooool!! Blame the decline of music theory, blame people's tastes shifting to electronic music, blame the radio, blame whatever you want. But I still think the overall problem lies in the general public's lax view on music.

For example:

I do agree that the barrier to entry is high. However, I think the rest of this is slightly unfair, especially to any musicians out there (myself included) who spend hours upon hours sitting on their ass practicing theory, harmony, technique, scale proficiency, and just plain practice. I did not spend 10+ years practicing bass and tuba and piano just for some schmuck who picked up a guitar last month to get the gig. Because, outside of the internet (and pop music, but that's a whole 'nother issue), people who don't practice, people who don't put in the effort to perfect their technique, people who don't internalize rhythmic patterns and scales and counting and communication, don't get the job. They simply don't. You can't just pick up an alto saxophone and learn Milhoud's Scaramouche in a month. Not even remotely. You can't play anything on the level of Snarky Puppy's Lingus without years (decades!) of practice, either. Those who are good musicians commit. They do not slouch and do not act lazy, for if they take a day off of practice someone better will get ahead of them. Their persistence can cause serious turmoil in their relationships, whether they're on heroin or cocaine or stone cold sober. To take the musician's path is no easier than any other road of life.

Now, the issue you're seeing is that good musicians rarely have time to dedicate to fan works. I personally was planning to put together a Fire Emblem symphony, a tribute to the series that I'd end up releasing for free on BandCamp or wherever as an exercise in symphonic composition as well as to create tonal correlations between the games. However, it turns out this takes a lot of time. Hundreds of hours, even. Hundreds of hours just structuring it. And then there's the issue of having no orchestra that would feasibly record it for anything less than $40,000. MIDI isn't a proper solution, either: Basic MIDI simply isn't articulate or authentic enough to impress, and samples on the level of Native Instruments or East West take such an intricate level of detail and defining velocities of notes/articulations that even mentioning all of this is going to give people headaches. And the fact of the matter is, I just don't have time for that if I want to have food on the table.

Yet, despite this, musical covers get more attention than fan art. Is it because it's easier to scribble together art of Link than it is to play his theme on guitar? Not necessarily, though the barrier of entry there is slightly higher on the musician's part since they actually have to buy an instrument. I would say it is because you can draw Link as much as you want, but if your anatomy is off, or your color palette is gaudy, or if Link's eye is a little too far to the right, people will notice. Anatomy takes skill to do, and people will come to the conclusion that if you trace you have no skill. On the other hand, with music, the fact that you even managed to replicate a song note-by-note is considered a miracle. People accept that mixing and recording and editing is hard and often don't question the content, and since the content is what they've heard before note-for-note it doesn't carry the same anatomy parallels.

Anyway, I could continue, but we'd be here all day.

TLDR; Errors in technique on the artist's part are more readily noticeable by people than musicians' screw ups, and good musicians don't have the time nor the money to dedicate themselves to fan projects more often than not.

blaming pop music? is this what we're doing now? pff....i don't like to generalise anything but there are too many professional instrumentalists or....people who study music closely...looking down at simplified electronic music this way. i totally disagree with what you said and...frankly i just think you're thinking too hard.

i'm an amateur in pretty much everything i do, and drawings and music are made and appreciated in totally different ways. with a drawing, you can make a doodle. you draw it, right? and then you finish the doodle in a short time. doodles are pretty much basic, but when the doodle is done....it's kinda done....isn't it?

http://i.gyazo.com/ba50a74398cf9b35285b56fb707134d6.png

yeah it is....i FINISHED drawing a picture of a dragon attacking a village...pf i would never be able to write a simple song in the time that took lol. and upload it, and show it off. and a gyazo link? i uploaded it SO fast and there it is. done. like 5 minutes it takes so little time to look at and see what it is....yeah it saves time for the person making it, because it takes like a second to look at it and think "oh it looks like this good enough done". for a simple song.....i'm going to actually time this

https://soundcloud.com/hoshihearts/quick1/s-N8PVk

it took me 30 minutes to make that blasted thing! and it's minimal...melody, bass notes, and a looped tambourine. that's a short song but people need to stop and sit through the one minute it lasts to take it in. maybe a few more times. with art, it's just looking.

mmm pretty much it's more accessible for people to quickly make barebones art that "feels" finished which can look really good if they know what they're doing. if i just throw notes in, a song doesn't "feel" like a complete thought like a doodle does

music these days is simplified because who wants to sit through an hour long symphony anymore? we have things to do, and we have tvs and computers. pop music is electronic and simple because like, that way it's easy to sing along, and the beat is super pronounced so people can dance to it in clubs. and to save money, then use the money they save for promotion and all that jazz...

anyway back to visual art....you know it's taken in differently than music, right? you can take 5 seconds to look at art and decide you like it, or you can take 20 minutes. you can make a doodle fast, you can make professionally detailed work in like 20 hours total. i feel like there's a lower minimum when it comes to art and in the end this happened.

also, i feel like people who don't already do music feel pretty intimidated by the idea of making them own original song compositions. like, it's a common thing with people i knew, and heck i still agree. people understand this and are more understanding with it(among fandoms anyway)

what else is there.....oh yeah um since we look at people and places so much, it's easier to think "ohhh uhm really, you can't draw a person arms and legs what are you 5" but with music, it's more obvious that you need to know basics or play an instrument or such. it's not that art is easy no way

and i'm sure there's more too it that i forgot but....i really doubt that beating simple music into our heads is the problem.

[MercyWalk]

I beg to differ on the whole tracing/distorting etc. is plagiarism because really it depends on the artist and whether or not they get mad about it. At this point though, there's such an influx of people creating derivatives that the original artist generally will become desensitized or even now appreciate people using their art as part of other people's works.I'm sure a tonne of street art revolves around taking already established pieces and putting their own spin on it, and until they get really out of hand, the original artist probably will never see it/be affected by it. I mean this is the same case in music as well, it's perfectly fine to put up a remix, however if you want to make money out of it, you're gonna have to pay royalties or at least ask for permission.

I see the visual art community going through a transition state right now. Take a look at tumblr for example, people are putting their own spin on artworks to attain large popularity, whole clothing/fashion trends have essentially been made out of this 'remix' culture the internet has become a host to. Even so, many people have taken iconic pieces of work previously and essentially 'remixed' them in the past, much like using a sample or speeding up a song, Steve Kaufman for example, he's essentially traced pieces of art, be it photographs of Marilyn Monroe or the painting of the Mona Lisa and given his own spin on it, perfectly accepted. On the other hand though claiming some shit as your own without telling anyone where you got it from is basically you being a bitch

Edited April 16, 2015 by Alb

[Party Moth]

my oh my....

blaming pop music? is this what we're doing now? pff....i don't like to generalise anything but there are too many professional instrumentalists or....people who study music closely...looking down at simplified electronic music this way. i totally disagree with what you said and...frankly i just think you're thinking too hard.

i'm an amateur in pretty much everything i do, and drawings and music are made and appreciated in totally different ways. with a drawing, you can make a doodle. you draw it, right? and then you finish the doodle in a short time. doodles are pretty much basic, but when the doodle is done....it's kinda done....isn't it?

http://i.gyazo.com/ba50a74398cf9b35285b56fb707134d6.png

yeah it is....i FINISHED drawing a picture of a dragon attacking a village...pf i would never be able to write a simple song in the time that took lol. and upload it, and show it off. and a gyazo link? i uploaded it SO fast and there it is. done. like 5 minutes it takes so little time to look at and see what it is....yeah it saves time for the person making it, because it takes like a second to look at it and think "oh it looks like this good enough done". for a simple song.....i'm going to actually time this

https://soundcloud.com/hoshihearts/quick1/s-N8PVk

it took me 30 minutes to make that blasted thing! and it's minimal...melody, bass notes, and a looped tambourine. that's a short song but people need to stop and sit through the one minute it lasts to take it in. maybe a few more times. with art, it's just looking.

mmm pretty much it's more accessible for people to quickly make barebones art that "feels" finished which can look really good if they know what they're doing. if i just throw notes in, a song doesn't "feel" like a complete thought like a doodle does

music these days is simplified because who wants to sit through an hour long symphony anymore? we have things to do, and we have tvs and computers. pop music is electronic and simple because like, that way it's easy to sing along, and the beat is super pronounced so people can dance to it in clubs. and to save money, then use the money they save for promotion and all that jazz...

anyway back to visual art....you know it's taken in differently than music, right? you can take 5 seconds to look at art and decide you like it, or you can take 20 minutes. you can make a doodle fast, you can make professionally detailed work in like 20 hours total. i feel like there's a lower minimum when it comes to art and in the end this happened.

also, i feel like people who don't already do music feel pretty intimidated by the idea of making them own original song compositions. like, it's a common thing with people i knew, and heck i still agree. people understand this and are more understanding with it(among fandoms anyway)

what else is there.....oh yeah um since we look at people and places so much, it's easier to think "ohhh uhm really, you can't draw a person arms and legs what are you 5" but with music, it's more obvious that you need to know basics or play an instrument or such. it's not that art is easy no way

and i'm sure there's more too it that i forgot but....i really doubt that beating simple music into our heads is the problem.

Don't misunderstand me: many musicians in the pop industry are quite skilled. At the very least, you have to be skilled at bullshitting talent or have a mixer who can EQ the hell out of your autotune. But there is real talent there in terms of instrumentalists. It is also worth noting that I am not "looking down on simplified electronic music" as I have written similar material with electronic samples. If you are into electronic music production, the pop industry is a fantastic place to look for examples as there are absolute masters there as well as complete jokes. However, in terms of the compositions themselves, they are homogenized and have been in the steady process of homogenization over the past 30+ years. I listened to a Fall Out Boy song the other day on their new album and was legitimately surprised to hear an actual cadence rather than the standard Plagal-ish material pop music has been using for decades now.

Don't even start with the "symphonies take too long to listen" argument. That is not where the problem lies (though attention span decline does have a lot to do with that particular issue). There is music (the soundtrack to the anime Madoka Magica, for instance) that is in increments of 30 second-to-5 minute tracks that does not require hours of your time to listen to and still catches the brilliance of a complex structure such as a symphony. Short songs can be masterpieces too. There are 45 second long symphonies as well (see Webern).

If you want an example of our poor societal listening standards, go listen to Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On" and understand that this reached #19 on the US Billboard Top 100, topped the US Rap Charts and has been digitally downloaded over 1 million times, with the YouTube video having 30 million views. It's not even in tune! The point I was trying to make (rather than going off on this tangent) was that there are only two places I have seen no-talent hacks get recognition, and that is the internet and pop music. Pop music is not necessarily "dead" and there are some damn good artists there but the homogenization simply gets old after enough listens to I - V - vi - IV as a chord progression.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Duels at Dawn

[--------------------]

There is honestly way too much information here for me to read in detail, so I'm just going to comment on something that I feel is interesting.

Tracing and copying. I have found that people do, indeed, look down on tracers and people who use other works as a basis for their own. First of all, I actually think these "artists" are just elitists. Tracing is a very good way to learn how to draw. (Granted, I'm no expert, but my drawings have improved by a visible amount from the way I practice.) The way I did this was by using one picture as a base, turn it invisible, draw it, turn it visible again. Realize that what you just drew was pretty terrible, erase it all, and just try again. Other than that, tracing can also increase your hand stability, if you do it enough, and just overall control of your pen, in other words, training muscle memory. As long as you reference the work you based yours on, I really don't understand why any sane person would have a problem with it. By referencing it, you can even contribute to the artist whose work you just copied, as well as serves, basically as feedback to the artist that their work is good. It is just like referencing in scientific reports, for example.

Second of all, we're all copying _something_. If you're not copying anatomy from another drawing, you're looking at your own body and trying to figure out how to get it on paper. Or looking at your own clothes to see the way your movements effect it, as well as shadows. So, what is the big deal with copying from a drawn source? What if you just have very good memory and just happen to remember a certain drawing super well that you can copy it without looking at it or tracing it, is that still unartistic?

It just sounds like some artists are way too full of themselves to consider other perspective and more unorthodox methods to achieve the same, or even better result.

Also, for anyone that is struggling with sketching, try the stabilizer on whatever program you're using. I use Paint tool Sai and it so happens that the highest stabilizer (afaik is s-7) made my drawings a lot neater and I don't even need to do the sketch phase anymore. (I also traced things heaps, just to get my hand used to drawing the shapes commonly used in drawings).

As a final note, I actually found the speedpaints on youtube to be very useful in my drawing endeavors. Learning by example can be a powerful thing.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Autumn

[Integrity]

What if you just have very good memory and just happen to remember a certain drawing super well that you can copy it without looking at it or tracing it, is that still unartistic?

my mom can trace freehand from memory, it's kind of fucking bizarre.

that's pretty much all i have to contribute!

[Thor Odinson]

There is honestly way too much information here for me to read in detail, so I'm just going to comment on something that I feel is interesting.

Tracing and copying. I have found that people do, indeed, look down on tracers and people who use other works as a basis for their own. First of all, I actually think these "artists" are just elitists. Tracing is a very good way to learn how to draw. (Granted, I'm no expert, but my drawings have improved by a visible amount from the way I practice.) The way I did this was by using one picture as a base, turn it invisible, draw it, turn it visible again. Realize that what you just drew was pretty terrible, erase it all, and just try again. Other than that, tracing can also increase your hand stability, if you do it enough, and just overall control of your pen, in other words, training muscle memory. As long as you reference the work you based yours on, I really don't understand why any sane person would have a problem with it. By referencing it, you can even contribute to the artist whose work you just copied, as well as serves, basically as feedback to the artist that their work is good. It is just like referencing in scientific reports, for example.

Second of all, we're all copying _something_. If you're not copying anatomy from another drawing, you're looking at your own body and trying to figure out how to get it on paper. Or looking at your own clothes to see the way your movements effect it, as well as shadows. So, what is the big deal with copying from a drawn source? What if you just have very good memory and just happen to remember a certain drawing super well that you can copy it without looking at it or tracing it, is that still unartistic?

It just sounds like some artists are way too full of themselves to consider other perspective and more unorthodox methods to achieve the same, or even better result.

Also, for anyone that is struggling with sketching, try the stabilizer on whatever program you're using. I use Paint tool Sai and it so happens that the highest stabilizer (afaik is s-7) made my drawings a lot neater and I don't even need to do the sketch phase anymore. (I also traced things heaps, just to get my hand used to drawing the shapes commonly used in drawings).

As a final note, I actually found the speedpaints on youtube to be very useful in my drawing endeavors. Learning by example can be a powerful thing.

The problem with tracing isn't the act of tracing itself. Most experienced artist do encourage the usage of tracing as a practicing tool, however, the problem lies in when someone posts traced art as their own and thinks they're the shit or something, especially if it's unsourced. A lot of the times the issue is not giving credit where credit is due. Unlike extremely famous paintings like the Mona Lisa where mostly everyone knows who the creator is for one and Leo is kinda long dead for another, most works on the internet are made by relatively unknown artists who have a lot of skill but don't get paid all that much and visibility is a really big deal for artists trying to make it into the industry. Sometimes you have very rare cases like berunov whose (very, very good) Ass Creed fanart got noticed by Ubisoft and now got hired by them, but they're a very rare case and definitely not the norm. So when someone posts a traced piece with no accreditation, that's when artists get mad. And yes, like you said, tracing is a very good way to practice hand stability and how things fall together and there's nothing wrong with that doing it in the privacy of your own sketchbook, but when someone posts it under their name, with no permission from the original artist or even credit, that's when it becomes unacceptable.

As far as the music artists I know, when a big name, major-record artist makes a remix/use sample of someone else's work, in a commercial setting, they do get permission to do so. If the original creator gives permission, then it's entirely okay to do so.

[--------------------]

The problem with tracing isn't the act of tracing itself. Most experienced artist do encourage the usage of tracing as a practicing tool, however, the problem lies in when someone posts traced art as their own and thinks they're the shit or something, especially if it's unsourced. A lot of the times the issue is not giving credit where credit is due. Unlike extremely famous paintings like the Mona Lisa where mostly everyone knows who the creator is for one and Leo is kinda long dead for another, most works on the internet are made by relatively unknown artists who have a lot of skill but don't get paid all that much and visibility is a really big deal for artists trying to make it into the industry. Sometimes you have very rare cases like berunov whose (very, very good) Ass Creed fanart got noticed by Ubisoft and now got hired by them, but they're a very rare case and definitely not the norm. So when someone posts a traced piece with no accreditation, that's when artists get mad. And yes, like you said, tracing is a very good way to practice hand stability and how things fall together and there's nothing wrong with that doing it in the privacy of your own sketchbook, but when someone posts it under their name, with no permission from the original artist or even credit, that's when it becomes unacceptable.

As far as the music artists I know, when a big name, major-record artist makes a remix/use sample of someone else's work, in a commercial setting, they do get permission to do so. If the original creator gives permission, then it's entirely okay to do so.

Very true. Although that has more to do with plagiarism, as opposed to what the OP was talking about, which is the art community not being tolerant of derivatives of preexisting art.

I think there really shouldn't be any issue with copying, as long as you don't plagiarize, and when people do have an issue with it, even when it is properly credited, those people are just being elitists.

A good copy (not tracing) of something still needs a considerable amount of skill, just like creating something original does, the only real difference is in the creativity aspect.

(People who trace and think they're great artists for doing so really need to get their heads out of the clouds though, lol.)

[Thor Odinson]

Well I mean like, there's plenty of derivations and copies and parodies of works such as the Mona Lisa, Starry Night, etc, which are perfectly acceptable

It just generally takes a lot longer for a piece of artwork to become well-known enough for people to make derivatives of in the first place than (popular) music. Vincent Van Gogh didn't even become famous until after he died. A lot of derivative works of unknown pieces are generally frowned upon due to aforementioned plagiarism issues, since a lot of it really just comes from people not properly crediting and asking permissions. It is actually very common practice in art school/classes for teachers to assign students to replicate famous artist works.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[Tessie Spoon]

There's a sort of triangle of ability: Dedication, Direction, and Talent. You only need two of the three to be good.

The problem is that in the world of visual art, the second point, Direction, is very very hard to find. So the only people who get good have the only other possible combination, Dedication and Talent. Having Talent and Direction or Dedication and Direction are just as equally viable of combinations, but they're not easily possible with how the community's structured right now. Even my own artsy friends have been extremely unhelpful in that regard.

I wholeheartedly agree. I have a friend who's spent less than 1/10th the weekly effort I do, and has been at drawing for less than 1/3 of the time I have. Yet, he's far better than me; he very much has Direction and Talent in his favor.

I'd also like to add the importance of Money. Maybe I'm just biased due to my own experiences, but if you try to teach yourself with all the best free internet resources and hardly get anywhere despite putting in much effort, you're screwed unless you have someone to guide you. Usually that means hiring a professional tutor, but if you can never get the money for a tutor (through no fault of your own, no less), then you're kinda screwed.

[--------------------]

I wholeheartedly agree. I have a friend who's spent less than 1/10th the weekly effort I do, and has been at drawing for less than 1/3 of the time I have. Yet, he's far better than me; he very much has Direction and Talent in his favor.

I'd also like to add the importance of Money. Maybe I'm just biased due to my own experiences, but if you try to teach yourself with all the best free internet resources and hardly get anywhere despite putting in much effort, you're screwed unless you have someone to guide you. Usually that means hiring a professional tutor, but if you can never get the money for a tutor (through no fault of your own, no less), then you're kinda screwed.

I want to disagree from my experiences, since I've only spent money on the drawing pad itself. Everything else is from the internet, one way or another.

Maybe ask your friends to teach you a few tricks?

[Tessie Spoon]

I've got no friends that can teach, sadly. I'm severely lacking in other possible resources, too (such as social ability to network; I'm autistic and have no reliable means to improve my social abilities myself); hence my argument about money. Severe lack of talent + severe lack of money means that the ability triangle will need the two other items plus money for one person to improve at a reasonable pace at something.

Having known how difficult learning to draw can be, I've gained a sort of appreciation of sorts for those who've managed to become decently skilled. So, I can sympathize with the disapproval of tracing a drawing and posting it like it was made with real skill.

Edited May 15, 2015 by Tessie Spoon

[Shuuda]

I've got no friends that can teach, sadly. I'm severely lacking in other possible resources, too (such as social ability to network; I'm autistic and have no reliable means to improve my social abilities myself); hence my argument about money. Severe lack of talent + severe lack of money means that the ability triangle will need the two other items plus money for one person to improve at a reasonable pace at something.

Having known how difficult learning to draw can be, I've gained a sort of appreciation of sorts for those who've managed to become decently skilled. So, I can sympathize with the disapproval of tracing a drawing and posting it like it was made with real skill.

I apologise if any of what I'm about to say seems rude, mostly because it is rude, but I think it's your attitude that's the problem. I have an amusing thought, that if you took all this energy you put into over analysing why you're not as good as others and wallowing in self pity, and put that into drawing, you might actually start seeing improvements. That whole triangle thing-a-jig just sounds like you're looking for some magic formula for becoming a good artist (or in this case, a reason why you're currently not good), but I suspect that most people who're good at drawing didn't spend their time dwelling on that sort of thing.

I mean, I'm a hermit with no ability to socialise too, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying drawing, even if I'm no good. It's not a competition, you know. If you can't detach yourself from the need to compete, then you're probably going to spend your whole life being disappointed.

Edited May 15, 2015 by Shuuda

[Thor Odinson]

No money for a tablet only really hinders digital if you have enough to access the internet unless you're working like 3 jobs and have no time in which case you prolly shouldn't be on here anyway

Take a pencil and practice your fundamentals. Even as primarily a digital painter I still draw in pencil often, and I actually prefer to test out composition ideas in pencil before transferring it digitally. It doesn't matter if you have a $3000 cintiq if you hand can't pull off the techniques. You don't need an expensive sketchbook. you can practice anywhere you can draw on.

Hell, when I paint in PS I apply oil techniques. Traditional art capability is still very important and many of the techniques do transfer.

As for resources, here's a collection of resources and references I put together that might be helpful. [warning: may be slightly nsfw in that anatomy references inevitably would contain some cases of artistic nudity]

Edited May 15, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[I'm gay dabadeedabada]

My highest rates of improvement at art were during periods where I'd doodle on everything nearby constantly. Of course, you have to know what you want to doodle and make sure it's a productive thing to doodle, otherwise you're only really getting (possibly misguided) stroke practice in.

(Drawing cartoons and annie may since I was little totally screwed me over.)

[Thor Odinson]

Using classmates for figure studies is something I found pretty useful personally. There's some fairly interesting poses that can be found inside a classroom.