Thursday 14 February 2013

Kazue-Chan´s Valentine´s Day

An alle, deren Valentinstag nicht so gelaufen ist, wie geplant:
Kazue-chan versteht euren Schmerz...

       

        



To all those whose Valentine´s Day did not go as planned: 
Kazue-chan understands your pain...




Monday 4 February 2013

Let´s talk about art: Beauty VS Diversity

A discussion about art from an artists perspective and the problem of character-fuckability. We are so classy.

Alvene: I don't care much about sameface to be honest as long as it's beautiful, variety for variety alone is kind of pointless.

Nekromantenhase: Well, yes one has different priorities concerning beauty and diversity, but sometimes it just gets ridiculous with groups of people having the same faces and bodies in one picture.
Also, there is more than one way to draw "beautiful". That reminds me too much of super-heroines where you just change the hairstyle and costume and BAM different character. But yes, diversity just for diversity´s sake is the other extreme and does not make much sense either. I personally would just find it boring to draw the same model over and over again.

Alvene: The thing is, not everybody has a diverse taste - maybe, someone really does have one idea of beauty. Like, we all have restrictions and they may be tighter or looser, for example some people can tolerate certain features and abnormalities of the human body, others just find the person automatically ugly.

Nekromantenhase: I´m not even talking about the "extreme" stuff. I´m talking about using literally the same face and the same body http://www.comiccombo.de/images/product_images/original_images/42431_0.jpg
over
http://majorspoilers.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/GrimmFairyTalesCover.jpg
and over
http://www.x-comics.de/bilder/produkte/gross/Grimm-Fairy-Tales-Mythen-Legenden.jpg
again -.-

I guess I just can´t accept that someone can only stick to one depiction and one depiction only. One could go with almond-shaped eyes or with round eyes, or tired-looking eyes. One could make the lips of the one person a bit fuller or less full; one does not even have to change the nose if they think it makes their figure automatically ugly. Vary the chest size a bit. Vary the weight a bit. Trying stuff out makes one realize one´s tastes. It´s like that person decided to only eat ice cream and only one flavor of ice cream for the rest of their lives. If he or she likes to, okay, but I would find it boring.
It´s just not how I would do it.

Alvene: I would not believe somebody with such skills has not tried life drawing and all kinds of physique before developing their own style, that's unrealistic. I don't quite agree about realizing one's tastes  - yes, one can certainly discover new things and acquire tastes, but a great lot of stuff is sort of already there, programmed in your core and you won't get rid of it.

Nekromantenhase: But my core point still stands: It´s just not how I would do it. Of course, everyone has a taste in beauty and I do not want anyone to get rid of it, but as I said: staying at that point all my life I would find kinda boring. And diversity is not that hard, really. I mean, honestly those women just look all the same. I just can´t get over it. Fairy tales are such an interesting concept and he ignores all possibilities of drawing interesting ideas for the sake of having an army of Barbie dolls... it´s a shame, that´s all ._.
Regarding him studying anatomy and so on... I do not know about that, but this way or the other he surely ignores those classes. That little red riding hood has no place for organs in that body.

Alvene: I agree about that guy, his fairy-tale work is kind of boring and these bodies are impossible - but it is obvious that he CAN do realistic and decided to work in this style. It is rather possible that he's doing it for the money though, cause sex sells and so do Barbie dolls.
Drawing exactly one face for life does appear strange, but I seriously doubt that anybody would really go to that extreme. Look, that guy can also draw like this:
http://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com/gallery/11378688#/d1b0hv3 And like this: http://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com/gallery/26557218#/d2zaims   He does have diversity!

Nekromantenhase: Well, I did not want to go there, but... yes. Yes, he can draw different faces. He did draw different faces... mostly on guys.
Case in point:
http://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com/art/TRUE-BLOOD-quot-Tainted-Love-quot-covers-1-6-274262731?q=gallery%3Aj-scott-campbell%2F2221546&qo=18
Uh, wait, I am being unfair: There is a non-sameface in the background. But her body is the same XD Ahaha.
Also, I take it back, what I said about red riding hood having too little space for her organs. Yes, you are right, it is stylization, and even when it´s stylization I do not agree of, I don´t have to bitch about it. I was just angry about the double standard once again, because his guys look really awesome, but his women (almost) always have the same face, body and move like bad imitations of porn stars.

Alvene: Indeed, his girls are all the same, like in Marvel. But being able to draw different guys means being capable of doing the same with females too, thus is it is a choice (and double standard), but not inability to draw.

Nekromantenhase: Which is even more tiresome for me because, well, he CAN draw awesome females theoretically, he just chooses not to *sigh* For me that is as if he is able to fly but insists on very elaborate crawling because it looks better in his opinion.

Alvene: Well, that's a matter of taste entirely. I sort of still have a strong feeling it's a commercial thing, but one never knows.

Nekromantenhase:  If all his work would be just for pin-up-calendars, I guess I would be more okay with it, but as we have already discussed, a character does not get better if you want to fuck it.

Alvene:  Nah, not really. Fuckable characters can certainly appear, but it should not be their main asset.

AMEN!

Alvene made the Comics “Loveletter”, “Ich tanze nicht” and the cover for Schattenspiele 2012, among others. Her deviantart-account is http://alvene.deviantart.com.

Nekromantenhase is responsible for “Artischocke”, “Visage” and “Kopflos”, among others. Her deviantart-account is http://nekromantenhase.deviantart.com

A few notes:
·         This used to be a private, casual conversation between the two of us. It´s not a representation of our generalized opinion on everything concerning art. It´s also not an attempt to solve the matter, it´s just an exchange of thoughts.
·         Just a quick reminder: We are not talking about aesthetics of real people, we are talking about art and media, that is something else entirely.
·         We would also like to add that we love and respect each other and each other´s opinion <3