#commercial use clip art

[freecommercialclipart]

Creative Fabrica is currently giving away this bundle of Free Christmas graphics. They're calling them door signs and they seem intended to be used in laser cutters to make wooden signs but they can certainly be used for any graphic design project you have including holiday t-shirts and greeting cards.

This set of 50 Free Vector and JPG Christmas Clipart Designs is available in Creative Fabrica for free for the next 3 weeks.

[pefectart]

Excited to share the latest addition to my etsy shop: 15 Cute Kittens Clipart Bundle || PNG || Full Commercial Use | Instant Download https://etsy.me/3KYKzom

[emilywrites4]

I'm a coffee girl whose brain won't function properly without her morning coffee :"> like right now

I got withdrawals the other day and it kinda ruined my mood too lol

I messed up, or did I?

[morlock-holmes]

So, people explaining that AI isn't "real art" bother me, not so much because of the answer they reach but because most of the people saying it isn't seem to romanticize not just commercial art production, but also bizarrely to romanticize AI as well, in ways that bother me for subtle reasons I want to try to articulate.

So, first of all, I personally don't think fine art will be changed much by AI.

"What if the artist isn't directly producing the art but instead letting some process create it?"

Convergence by Jackson Pollock, 1952

"What if the so called "artist" is merely rearranging and recontextualizing something that already exists?"

"What if the artist outsources a tremendous amount of work?"

Cambell's Soup Can, Andy Warhol, 1968

The fine art world already confronted these questions and answered between 1912 and, what, 1980 at the latest maybe?

My point here is not to assert the artistic worth of these paintings but to assert their undeniable importance to 20th century art history.

Nobody paying thousands of dollars for a traditional painting on canvas is going to buy an AI version because it's cheaper; such people are already paying a premium for artistic technique and cultivated human talent.

Or, alternatively, I have absolutely no doubt that people would pay a lot for an AI project with, I don't know, Banksy's name on it, even if it was made with freely available, open source tools, because in other cases people are paying for, essentially, a name.

The fine art community already confronted the questions raised by AI art and we're already on the other side of that confrontation. Statistically, the large battles being waged over these issues already finished before you were born.

The actually (potentially) endangered part of the art world is the commercial art world.

Not fine art, but art produced as part of an essentially commercial process in large part under the direction of other people. Fan Art, scripts for films, stock footage, key art used for commercial campaigns, pulp fiction cover illustrations, etc.

And, first of all, the reason that you can be so romantically attached to low-brow, heavily commercial art in the way that you are without feeling utterly absurd about it is Marcel Duchamp's Fountain and the works of Andy Warhol, so maybe have a bit more respect for them and their place in history if you are going to romanticize commercial art production.

Second, because it is those things that are threatened, defenses of human art against AI tend to have this kind of implicit view that the things which characterize commercial pop art are the most important characteristics of art. There is something about this that kind of bothers me for reasons I have trouble bringing up.

Okay, like, one I just watched a YouTube video where the creator said, more or less, "Can you imagine a world where people are so alienated from the production of art that instead of learning to produce it themselves, they type 'woman painting a picture' into a box on a computer and something just pops out?"

The video background was stock footage of a woman painting.

You have this really obnoxious trend of people who make monetized YouTube videos out of other people's copyrighted clips (Claiming "Fair use") talking about how awful it is for AI to "steal" other people's works, and people who fill their videos with stock footage and library tracks talking about how crazy it is that anybody would want to outsource this stuff instead of learning to do it themselves.

But also, beneath that, there is a kind of picture of "What's important about art" that is being built purely out of commercial concerns but masquerading as belief in something higher, and that really bugs me. Stock footage is elevated to the highest of human endeavors purely because it is commercially threatened by AI production.

[diamonddeputy]

Okay I put this together for a buddy who couldn’t make it so I may as well put it here too now that I have it all in one place

All the dev commentary I picked up from the UTY anniversary stream

PLEASE REBLOG WITH ANYTHING I MAY HAVE MISSED

• It apparently took them FOREVER to solidify a design for Decibat. One of the early concepts was a literal baseball bat with wings and I enjoy this fact very much

• They originally had an idea that Dalv would accidentally try and move into Martlet’s house after leaving the Ruins LMAO

• They expanded on this piece of concept art that had been floating around: there were never really plans for the Feisty Five to be evil, they just made their own wanted posters to inflate their own egos LOL

• I didn’t really write any of the specifics down, but listening to them talk about the Flowey fight was so interesting because they were all chiming in about who worked on what parts and where the inspirations were from and where they sourced their materials. Some details I remember off the top of my head:

- Flowey’s voice lines were pulled from the same McDonald’s commercial as his canon ones

- The audio for the scene where Martlet melts before Meta Flowey was a combination of a stock laugh and a clip one of the devs just so happened to have, when they used to edit for a YouTube channel, and the file got corrupted and just randomly made that sound

- The heartbeat monitor sound that plays during the Organic speciman is taken from the frequency of an actual human heart. Don’t remember the story about how they acquired that one

- The graphics for the Polygonal speciman were inspired by PS1 horror, Ben Drowned and that meme that went around in the late 2010s of a gif of a bug that made it look like a bug was on your screen (in specific reference to the little Flowey gremlins that crawl down the screen)

- They originally had plans to include a spectrogram in the fight, but decided it would make them seem too tryhardy

• There were plans for an underwater segment that were scrapped extremely early in development, something about a bridge in Waterfall breaking

• The comment Starlo makes in the Wild East about there being a fourth mission that was scrapped from the regimen is a reference to a literal fourth mission that the devs cut because they felt like it killed the pacing, where Virgil would kidnap the Feisty Five and tie them up in places around town and you had to go rescue them and it was a stealth game type thing

• - The designs for the Feisty Five have a lot of funny inspirations

- Ed was originally designed to be a normal monster, but they liked his design so much they used it for something more important

- Initial concepts of Moray’s design had them in a fisherman’s cap or a paper boat hat, to show how unserious they were about this. Also, they weren’t originally designed to be Angie and Gillbert’s child, a playtester just made that assumption and they were like y’know what sure we’ll roll with it

- Mooch’s design originated from a Minecraft RP OC that one of the devs had that she never got to use. Which is iconic tbh

• Mo was inspired by this lil dude, who showed up and had babies in one of the devs’ attic. Additionally, while coding the game, there were little variables they put in for fun like a timer. One of them was a number that just incrementally increased, and was labelled “Crimes that Mo has committed”

• The fact that sparing Dalv doesn’t abort Geno, that everyone chalked up to being a genius narrative decision, was AN OVERSIGHT??????? It was a coding error caused by the fact that they were initially gonna make everything that happens in the Dark Ruins not count towards any route, like Flowey implies in his dialogue, but they went back on that decision and fixed it for everyone except Dalv. They made a comment on stream like “we should really fix that” and everyone in chat was like PLEASE don’t LOL

• There were never really concepts for a Geno Starlo fight. And a lot of it is the reasons the fandom talks about that he’s a coward before his character development and it makes more sense for him to back out in the face of real danger. But also because in terms of power level, it didn’t make sense for him to stand a chance. And also because they were making all the routes at once and designing the boss fights at equal times and this was the first chance they got to make a boss fight for Ceroba LOL. But the plan was already set by that point that it was gonna be her instead of him

• No one truly knows the origins of the super faded silhouette standing in the background of the UG Apartments shop in Geno. Apparently the dude who made the CG just. Put it there

• We got more insight into the Martlet transformation animation. It was made with SO much purpose. If you look closely, she starts to melt and the determination puddles underneath her, but then she gains control of it and the puddle ABSORBS BACK INTO HER, then shoots out in a burst when her first wing transforms. THAT’S SO COOL

• Additionally, they also canonized that Martlet took the determination before Alphys had any of the fallen-down bodies, and that she had no idea what it actually WAS, other than that it had something to do with the human SOULs. Which makes this even MORE impressive because she wasn’t intrinsically prepared to control determination, she just DID it

• Additionally, they also canonized that Martlet took the determination before Alphys had any of the fallen-down bodies, and that she had no idea what it actually WAS, other than that it had something to do with the human SOULs. Which makes this even MORE impressive because she wasn’t intrinsically prepared to control determination, she just DID it

• The dive-bomb attack Martlet does in her first-phase Zenith fight was inspired by Dyna Blade, as a Kirby fan that fact just made me happy lol

• Retribution was the last song made for the game, and was composed in just a couple days, which is WILD to me

• We got confirmation that Flowey is still in control of saves after defeating Axis in Geno, and Clover’s text in the overworld/after dying is just them being so focused on their mission that they’re drowning out everything else

• CANNOT forget The Jincident

[genericpuff]

Hi there! 😄 Tysfm for compiling the LO brushes, being able to use them (non-commercially of course lol) makes me so friggin happy. 🙇‍♀️ I have a few questions to ask about them though:

Which brush did RS use for laying down color before shading/effects? In the Rekindled tutorial, you use the Lineart Brush for laying down flats, but I'm not sure if what I said in the previous sentence is the same thing as flats (I've been drawing my whole life, but I didn't start taking digital seriously until very recently lol 🤦‍♀️).

When the Splatter Versa brush was used in S1, there are varying oval shapes as well as several other non-ovular shapes that I don't see when I use the brush. Were there other similar brushes used with different shapes? Or am I just doing something wrong with the brush settings? The other shapes look more wilted than the other petal shapes.

Which brush was used for the usual thick, varying lineart? (It's most noticeable with the lines in hair in mid-S1 esp.) This brush isn't really textured, so I'm a bit confused which one in particular it is.

Sorry for being annoying, I'm just not tech-savvy and very intimidated by all the technical aspects of digital drawing lol ("Wtf are 'blending modes'?" /hj). 🙇‍♀️

Hey there, no problem!! I'm glad people are getting use out of them!

Though I'm not entirely sure as it clearly changed often throughout the course of the first season, the Gouache a Go Go brush and Hard Pastel both have those "crunchier" textures that you can see in some panels. There are also watercolor brushes that she used to blend the edges in some bigger panels.

Could you send me an example of a panel? Just so then I can actually see it and mess around with some things and give you a better answer haha That said, if I had to take a guess, either she messed with the brush control / tilt settings in Photoshop, or she may have used the Warp / Liquify tools to warp them intentionally to achieve that "petal" look. But again, send me a pic of the panels in question if you can and I can take a closer look :>

As mentioned previously, an example would help a lot here, but I do know what you're saying that some panels had very thick, varied lineart. Rachel has gone on record on two separate occasions that she used the Gouache Wet Pencil / Wet Round brush from the Kyle Webster Pack. Though the Hard Square Pastel brush can also achieve similar effects. Note that the Wet Round brush is a dual-sizing brush - if you adjust the brush size, you have to also adjust the particle size in tandem, otherwise you'll get a bigger brush size with more scattered/diluted particles. Though this effect IS very helpful for shading!

As mentioned, Rachel has mentioned some of the brushes she's used, and though it's not necessarily relevant to what you're looking for specifically, she's also mentioned these brushes in old FAQ's, specifically the Wet Round brush for lineart.

Here are some examples I whipped up real quick based on some of the panels that specifically depict thick lineart and textured coloring:

Mind you, these are all my best guesses, based on what Rachel has provided and what I've both dug up and been provided by other contributors who have pointed me in the right direction.

Unfortunately, while LO's art style is unique, it also makes it very difficult to reverse-engineer because throughout the comic (esp in S1 when she was still experimenting) while she did clearly have some "favorites" out of the bunch, she also just kind of went off "vibes" a lot of the time, treating every panel as an individual painting. And while that did lend to some of LO's most beautiful panels throughout S1, it also created a lot of whiplash between stylization because after doing one panel with thick lineart and bold texturing, she'd do another with watercolors and softer edges.

That's also not taking into account the software she was using - many of these brushes were designed exclusively with the Photoshop brush engine in mind, not Clip Studio, so they may not work entirely as intended if you use them in Clip Studio or some other non-Photoshop software. We also have to consider other factors like canvas resolution, texture effects added afterwards (such as that canvas overlay), and other adjustable settings within the brushes themselves that Rachel may have tweaked, including the pressure sensitivity, particle size/density, thickness, etc. All of which we can't really truly know, so we can only settle for our closest guess.

This is half the challenge - and fun - of trying to emulate her art style, because even she clearly didn't follow any strict rules 😅 Unfortunately it leaned more towards worse as time went on as it was clear the assistants themselves were given very little guidance or consistency (or at least, didn't have the time to settle on a happy medium) resulting in panels that are even more distinctly out of place as they were being swapped between different artists with different backgrounds and styles.

All that aside, I hope that helps! I do admittedly have to update that brush pack again, I feel like there are a handful of brushes I've found since then that could also be added, but I'd also like to update the included instructions to better reflect what I've learned since then regarding each brush and how they could be used. Ultimately though, they're yours to experiment with! Mess around, adjust the sizes and density and pressure settings, all of these things can contribute to the overall look.

Good luck! <3

[mitigatedchaos]

As someone correctly pointed out, the Trump McDonald's photoshoot is camp.

The man is a celebrity reality TV game show host who has had appearances at pro-wrestling matches. This is like if there were a commercial that featured Shaquille O'Neal working the drive-thru at McDonald's, only here, we get the 'backstage version.'

The argument is that this is a fake campaign stop by the politician Donald Trump, rather than a real shift at a McDonald's restaurant.

It's a fake in-person campaign stop by the politician Donald Trump, with, presumably, a few real McDonald's workers.

It's a real reality TV photoshoot of the celebrity businessman character "Donald Trump," who eats McDonald's food and drinks Diet Coke, for the campaign of politician Donald Trump.

The character "Donald Trump" is played by celebrity actor Donald Trump, who eats McDonald's food and drinks Diet Coke. His enjoyment of french fries is authentic.

It's a behind-the-scenes look at the reality TV photoshoot of the campaign ad for politician Donald Trump, featuring celebrity actor Donald Trump, showing us the cameras and set.

The shirt, tie, apron, and lighting are a callback to the 1980s, the time most associated with the brash businessman persona of the character "Donald Trump," seen in movies such as 1992's Home Alone.

The shirt, tie, and apron while serving food at a burger joint feel like a callback to the 1950s, and there are lots of photos online of McDonald's managers looking a lot like this from the 1970s. It has a very "Americana" feel.

It's a real 21st-century campaign PR event spread across social media (with lots of photos and clips circulating) and news media, being used for memes, causing arguments or discourse that cause it to spread even farther.

Win or lose, this is beyond just a campaign ad. Is it authentically inauthentic? This is some kind of performance art.

[eyecan02]

Alastor & Charlie's Dance Analysis

I find it interesting that Alastor would choose a hobby that has been so romantically coded for centuries. The art of dance is basically a mating ritual of sorts. It opens the door to romance, love, passion and trust.

In the dance film "Take the Lead", the lead character describes dance as an act of trust. As he says (paraphrasing a bit because I couldn't find the actual quote or clip) "The man leads the dance, but it is the woman's choice to let him lead so she is the one with the power."

I feel like this line sums up Alastor and Charlie's first dance in the pilot and their relationship in general. Tossing Charlie into the air and catching her. Sliding down the ramp/stairs while holding her hand. Alastor dipping her. All of these moments during their dance were how Alastor was building trust with Charlie.

Alastor believes he is the one leading their "dance". He's the one "producing" the show. He's the storyteller. He's the one directing the tide how he wants. Except for underestimating Adam, he has had a lot of control over many events; running the hotel, mutually agreeing with Charlie to let Sir Pentious stay at the hotel, protecting the hotel, the satisfied look he had during "More than Anything" almost as if the outcome of the song is exactly what he wanted, saving information on the angels for a rainy day, Alastor telling Charlie about his smile being a power play, Alastor taking her to a town full of cannibals, looping his arm through hers so Charlie doesn't stray, Alastor introducing Rosie as an ally for Charlie and lending Charlie his microphone staff.

"I knew she could do it all along."

"She's filled with potential that I could guide."

When Alastor returns during the Finale song, Charlie literally re-receives him with literal open arms. He smiles with satisfaction because her hug confirms that he hasn't lost Charlie's trust (which is currently the most important thing to him besides his freedom).

Earlier, I had said dancing can be a mating ritual. It makes people bond. In this case, Alastor and Charlie bonded as friends while also "bonding" through their ambiguous contract. While not binding Charlie's soul to him, their "dance" still bound her to him in a sense. They'll be "together" until Alastor decides what his favor will be/what he wants to do after he regains his freedom.

Now onto Charlie's POV of their "dance". She knows that Alastor's whole persona is an amalgamation of control and choice. As Alastor stated before, he can make people stay at the hotel so why doesn't he just force them? Charlie wants it to be the sinners' choice.

Why does he originally use modern technology for the first commercial? Charlie. Why does he stop beating up Sir Pentious? Because Charlie had said "He's had enough." He actually did stop and only blasted Pentious a moment later because he ripped his coat.

Why does he allow Pentious to stay at the hotel? Because Charlie was the one that encouraged Pentious to apologize to Alastor. Why was Pentious allowed to stay even after they found out he was a spy? Because Charlie forgave him and that was good enough for Alastor.

It's always about Charlie's choice. When they first met, Charlie said, "I know he probably doesn't want to change, but I can't turn him away. It goes everything I believe in." Then she takes the reigns of the situation by telling Alastor, "I hereby order you to help with this hotel for as long as you desire."

A royal decree but not one that forces Alastor to stay at the hotel forever. She's giving him a choice and choices are probably seldom for Alastor due to him being leashed.

"Sometimes the best way to conquer an enemy is to get right in their face."

Another fitting quote from the Take the Lead film. I feel like Charlie's decision to let Alastor into the hotel was meant to keep him as close as possible by keeping a watchful eye on him so that he wouldn't be all over the city again back to his old ways.

It was Charlie's choice to defend Alastors sadistic way of defending the hotel. It was her choice to make a deal in exchange for valuable information because they were all in a desperate situation.

Charlie trusted that Alastor would "ask for one favor at a time of my choosing where you harm no one." No matter what the deal is, for her the most important part is that she wouldn't be obligated to hurt anyone once Alastor collects. It was her choice to make a risky decision because it would be for the good of all.

Charlie has more power in this "dance" of theirs than people think. If Charlie is unhappy, Alastor is unhappy. She is the one with the power because for whatever reason, Alastor's goal is to keep Charlie happy and fulfill her "every bizarre request."

Her trust to let Alastor into the hotel did have a pay off. She didn't expect him to change or care and yet he ended up "growing accustomed" to Charlie and the Hazbin gang and went all out in trying to protect them and the hotel from the angels.

Even when Alastor cashes in on the deal/inevitably betrays her, she'll understand that it was her choice to let him in, to work with him and to care about him enough to say she "loves" him, the Hazbin gang and the cannibals.

That's why it will also be her choice in trusting him to do the right thing at the perfect time and her choice to forgive him and let him back into her life. That is why going back to the quote from earlier, "The man leads the dance but it is the woman's choice to let him lead so she is the one with the power." It will be her choice to allow him to be her partner in dance, business or anything else.

[l0verseyes]

COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN :)

about me: krizzia, 25, she/her

links:

art tag: #draws

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ko-fi (tips/shop)

you can use/repost my art as long as you credit me. if you want to print them out for yourself please ask permission first. absolutely no commercial use for my art.

i use clip studio paint (brushes i use: 1, 2) and photoshop to draw. my drawing tablet is a huion kamvas 13

[elliespectacular]

Any tips on how to correctly credit clips used in YTP? I'm very lost when it comes to finding copyright info and stuff like that.

The stakes are pretty low for YouTube Poop and crediting clips in the video/description is not standard practice - but it's a good thing to do! That said I am not an authority on this and even my method has some blind spots. These are just some generally good ideas for being a slightly-more-courteous-than-average shitposter.

The acknowledgement is the most important part, stating outright what the names of the sources are. Pay attention to the official titles of what you use and try to trace them to their original form - for example in The Price is Rice COMPLETE I wanted to credit the gamer-themed Dust-Off commercial I used in The Price is Rice Jr. Usually ads are more difficult to track down than other kinds of televised media, so often "___ TV Spot" does the job, but a quick peek at the official YouTube channel reveals that the ad's actual name was How to properly clean your gaming computer.

Then there's an acknowledgement of the owner. I try to list composers for music, directors for film, and of course artists for art. You aren't required to give an exhaustive list of every single contributor to the art you've sampled, but make sure you credit the person/company it belongs to at the very least. Going back to the Dust-Off example, the YouTube video contained a link to dust-off . com which now redirects to falconsafety . com - I lucked out because the top of the page indicates clearly that Dust-Off is a product owned by Falcon Safety Products Inc. but this info is often in the About section of a website or at the bottom of the page.

I like to throw the year on each YTP credit as well. Academic citations usually require a more precise publication date if available. Among other benefits it helps distinguish between things with the same name/owner that were rebooted later - for example there are multiple games called Sonic the Hedgehog owned by SEGA from different years (In fact in this example there are two games from 1991 so it's also important to note what system the game is for!) Generally your source credits should communicate to a viewer where to start looking for a specific thing or who to ask.

You can use Wikipedia to orient yourself if you need a lead on where to start tracking down copyright information for popular media, but make sure you cross-reference what's there with other sources. For Movies/TV I usually just look at the very end of their credits which usually has the copyright info. For music I use Discogs. Sometimes for more obscure or less-documented things I have to do some search-engine sleuthing.

If you're stuck, ask a friend for help! It can be fun and rewarding to track down something that isn't answered by a quick google search, and like most things turning it into a collaborative effort makes it less of a slog.

Copyright acknowledgement is tricky to do correctly and not every Best Practice applies to each situation. There may come a day when MLA-style citations become normal or required even for shitposts and your due diligence will become greater. Do your best, give credit where it's due, and you'll be fine :)

[freecommercialclipart]

Free clip art bundle from Creative Fabrica

This really cute, huge bundle of vector clip art is available for free for a limited time. The graphics in this set would be perfect for children's books, invitations, kids shirts and more.

Get yours here

[thistlearts]

Trans Masc MLM book cover artist and character designer here!

Hey there, Tumblr fam! I thought it's time to properly introduce myself. My name is Jan. I am a transmasc 🏳️‍⚧️🎨 artist and immigrant, now based in Belgium.

What I Do: I'm a self-taught artist specializing in MLM (Achillean) book cover art and illustrations. I use both digital tools like Clip Studio Paint, Rebelle 6 and Procreate, as well as traditional mediums like watercolour and ink. What I'm Passionate About: My heart beats for MLM romance! I love bringing stories of male/male (MLM) Achielan romance and eroticism to life through my art. It's a genre that truly resonates with me, and I pour all my passion into capturing the essence and emotions of these stories on canvas.

Fan Art: Not only do I create book covers and character designs, but I'm also a fan artist! I created art for multiple fandoms and, in fact, fandoms is what made me a professional artist. Currently, I'm into Kdrama, Cdrama, Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, BG3, Witcher and GoodOmens

Private and Commercial Commissions: Whether you're an author seeking a book cover that will make your Achillean story stand out and sell well, or an individual looking for a piece of art, I'm here to bring your vision to life! I take on both private and commercial commissions.

I also make lewd art, but it's only fully available on my patreon You are very welcome to buy art prints of my art in my Etsy Store Here's all info about Commissions

[blubberquark]

Playtesting, Censorship, and Authenticity

I have seen some backlash against Stellar Blade for "caving to censorship". This could probably have been avoided if the developer hadn't previously made full-throated promises about his artistic vision, and if the marketing campaign hadn't released promotional images of costumes the the game. When Stellar Blade finally had to tone down some of the nudity for age ratings and console approval, some audience said they felt cheated.

I don't know how much of this outrage was real, and how much was political posturing. Probably a lot.

This happens all the time. A game is re-released, or re-mastered, the developers have to remove or tone down the edge of parts of the game that was completely fine and unremarkable when the game was released. It happened with Skullgirls, and even with certain cards in Hearthstone. In the case of Skullgirls, the backlash was kind of predictable, because Skullgirls was hardly unremarkable back then. On the one hand, because they originally crossed the line twice, the retroactive censorship wasn't unexpected. On the other hand, half the the point of the game was that it was edgy and anime and looked like it was made by Japanese people who didn't understand what you can and can't say in Europe and North America. It wasn't just gratuitous Nazis and panties, but gratuitously gratuitous Nazis and panties. It's not my cup of tea, as a player or as a developer, but I completely understand what they were going for. In the case of Hearthstone, the removal of the Succubus card/character was in all likelihood due to Chinese censorship, about age ratings on one app store or another, and then they just decided it would be easier to justify and draw less attention if they removed the card/character everywhere around the world, and it would be more profitable this way than if they made the game ages 16 and up in some parts of the world.

There have been multiple instances of politically motivated outrage against games that had hired a narrative design consultancy firm, sometimes fuelled by short, out-of-context clips of activists from these firms bragging how they managed to change the tone and direction of the game despite resistance from the developers, or explaining how they managed to influence management to hire a consultancy firm against the will of the core team.

All this taken together forms a narrative: Outside forces are deliberately pushing designers, developers, art directors, and lead writers to abandon or water down their creative vision.

I think that's misguided for two reasons: First, I think the developers of indie games are either themselves trying to make their games palatable for mass audiences, and they themselves are responsible for the political messaging or general vibes of their work. Second, game design is full of compromise. About that first point: ZA/UM were not secretly pressured manipulated to add in a bunch of politics into Disco Elysium. Concerned Ape was not browbeaten into removing realistic gore and nudity from Stardew Valley. A lot of the time, most of the time, what you see is the artistic vision of the developers, or their political stance. There is no need to conjure up conspiracies. Maybe the remaining Skullgirls developers just have gotten older and don't feel the same way about shock value like they used to.

Most indie games do not self-censor, but I would not be surprised to learn that the more popular and mainstream a game is, or the more popular a game becomes, the more likely the developers are to self-censor. This is because "true artists" that ruthlessly follow a creative vision are usually niche oddities you can download for free (itch is full of them), but also due to the dynamics of indie success. When games develop something of a following and commercial success, so that their developers keep on expanding and iterating on the game, they become more conservative. Just imagine you decide to keep working on a free game of yours that blew up, for financial reasons, instead of working on the next niche thing. If you make this decision, you are probably already motivated by growing your audience, and more likely to self-censor.

This "conservative" approach to game development is usually not about avoiding sex, violence, religion, and politics, of course. It's about making the game easier, avoiding difficult puzzles, complicated narratives, niche literary references, and all kinds of mechanics that could limit your audience. Instead of removing unpalatable elements from a game in the end, you decide to pursue mass appeal early on, and reorient your whole design around that from the ground up. I mean, if you could choose, would you rather develop the next Lunacid or the next Among Us, the next Passage, or the next Vampire Survivors?

I fear if you are following me, you will probably decide to go the starving artist route.

The second reason why you shouldn't worry that much about outside forces influencing games also has to do with game development, but less with marketing. It's fundamental to the way game design works.

Re-makes and re-releases are unusual in this regard. Most of the time, you don't see a fully formed game like Skullgirls that you can compare with a re-release, or Final Fantasy VII, or Silent Hill 2. Most of the time, you only see the final product, and perhaps, if the marketing campaign screwed up, you realise that the final product differs from the promotional material (as was the case with Watch_Dogs or No Man's Sky).

Most of the time, you don't see all the content that was developed and doesn't make it into the game. If you did, you would realise that games usually are not born out of the head of their creator fully formed and armed like Athena from the head of Zeus. Most games are developed iteratively, and although the core of the game is fixed, most mechanics, plot points, levels, and characters are subject to change. Often you only see how well something works once you implement it and try it out.

And then, you only really see how well it actually works when you let somebody playtest it. The clunkiest game mechanics and the most obtuse puzzles feel fine to you if you were the one who thought about them. The worst writing and the most convoluted plots will feel elegant because you wrote them. The only way to see what works is playtesting.

Being "true to your artistic vision" from start to finish is pretty much impossible. If you work together with people, you will struggle to communicate your ideas. This is why big productions resort to mood-boards and all kinds of adjacent junk in their production bibles, why AAA games produce so much concept art, and why games often feel like they are ripping off existing work. It's really hard to communicate to your team that you want to make a game with a certain feeling if that game does not yet exist, but it's easy to communicate that you want a game "like Doom 3" or "like Metroid Prime" or "like Proteus".

If you actually manage to communicate your artistic vision to your team down to the precise minutiae, you will hamstring your artists. You have those artists working with you so you can worry about the big picture stuff while they work on the art part. If you are rigid about your own creative vision, you leave other people no space for creativity, no space to express themselves, no leeway to make creative or design decisions.

And after all that, everything must be playtested, even the big-picture mood stuff, to see if the mood actually comes across when the players aren't already primed by the concept art and the design document and weeks of meetings. If the player doesn't know he is supposed to feel a certain mood, does the game still work?

Both the Skullgirls situation and the Stellar Blade situation are unusual, because the the tone of Skullgirls was edgy on purpose, and Skullgirls concept art had been released in 2012, and the designer of Stellar Blade had already promised not to censor all the eye candy. I think the backlash to Stellar Blade was overblown and politically motivated, and the part of the backlash to the Skullgirls re-release about sanitising their decade old concept art had a point, barely.

If you are making your own game you will quickly notice all the compromises you have to make your game, or maybe you just don't release any concept art or in-progress screenshots, maybe you don't work with other people, maybe you don't even play-test, and just upload a finished game to itch.io without ever reading the comments, like a true artist.

Once you understand that, you will understand that there is a solid core to every game design that you won't compromise on, and a surrounding malleable blob that you want to re-shape and negotiate in order to preserve the core. When you get playtesting feedback that tells you to replace the core with something else, you try to re-shape that blob in order to make the core work. When an idea of yours is not feasible, you compromise to preserve the spirit. If you are making a real-time strategy game, and somebody tells you to make it turn-based, you might ignore them, or you might entertain this feedback. It all depends on whether your core artistic vision is "real time" or "flanking the enemy and using the terrain" or "logistics and intelligence in 19th century land warfare".

The people who are the most rigid about game design are usually teenagers just learning to program. They bite off more than they can chew, and they are completely unwilling to reduce their scope. They are unable to execute on their vision in terms of development skill, unable to understand the consequences of their design choices.

If you are unable to compromise on your artistic vision, you are unlikely to realise it.

[90s-2000s-barbie]

You might already be aware of these, but on archive.org there are a lot of digitized VHS bootlegs of MTV blocks. My personal interest is in episodes of 120 Minutes (the late-night alternative music showcase) from the 80s and very early 90s, but there are a lot of episodes from later than that. They often include commercials as well, which is fascinating, especially to me as someone who didn't grow up in the US and never had cable. It's a really interesting snapshot of the time in terms of fashion and art and tech too, and what was considered cool in multiple subcultures.

Hey thanks for telling me about that site. It sounds familiar but I’ve never been on it to check it out. I love mtv archives. 120 mins was great! Would be cool to see it. My dad taped MTV back when it first started to like mid 2000s. We have a lot! But cool to see stuff I haven’t before or even performances I e never seen. One of my favorite performances on 120 mins was Concrete Blonde - Everybody knows. It’s like embedded in my brain since I was a kid, lol . I’ve been trying to get a copy of it for my channel but that video never works unfortunately. Soo good though The fashion like u said so cool to see, so I post a lot of 2000s but it’s funny, 90s is probably my favorite especially music wise! Love 90s fashion too!

Have u ever watched Rinse Repeat on YouTube? It’s not mtv clips but they literally post hours of blocks of old Saturday morning cartoons, commercials and all too ughh live for that. It’s all from like 1980s -2000s.

Thanks so much for the recommendation, totally gonna check it out. 😄❤️

[fraternum-momentum]

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈���� 𝐀𝐍 𝐍𝐒𝐅𝐖 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆. 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 / 𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐒 𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝐈 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊 𝐘𝐎𝐔

TW: general dead dove do not eat stuff, mostly nudity and sexual themes, non-con, dub-con, gore, etc.

RB acc is @fredoots

𝐍𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍:

frambling...? memes, general shitposts, thoughts (🧍‍♀️for tmi stuff )

franswers asks

frayocs oc tag !

my art drawings and more serious art (yes i've debated on calling it frart or fart, this is for the best.) (froodles for doodles :D)

not my art specifically for other peoples art :DD

hoes in da closet fit pics

shitty art advice (dont listen to them) im not joking, im not good at giving art tips :'] i try my best thou

[ ❀ ] ALL my nsfw stuff will be tagged under this (brackets included) drawings, hornyposting, etc. so if you dont want to see anything nsfw specifically on my blog (for some reason???) just block that

𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐖𝐏𝐀𝐆𝐄

the notes/drawings i receive are tagged with [📮💌]

𝐅𝐀𝐐:

Can I repost your art in another website?

Yes ! Just please credit me properly and provide a link to the original post :] What I don't allow is: commercial use without pemission, NFT's, and AI

Are your commissions open?

They are currently not open ! But info can be found here

What program and brushes do you use?

I use Clip Studio Paint ! I constantly experiment with brushes weekly but here's what I frequently use:

WW squares sketch from @/wwraithsart 's brush pack [link]

Illust from @/fearoffun's brush pack [link]

Flat render [link]

What are your boundaries regarding your OCs + sona?

⋆ Allowed: Fanart (SFW/NSFW) Thirsts in the inbox, tags, and comments are allowed and platonic or meme-y art with your oc/sona is ok. ⋆ For OC's, ship art with romantic or sexual connotations are not allowed [reasons why and full response here] ⋆ For OC's in pairs: Sadie + Macy, Melanie + Azalea, Theo + MC: anything is ok :3 pls do not separate them

[freebooter4ever]

ok slow day on the blog so im about to get all soppy and artsy. Because a) this man drives me insane and i continously try to figure out why slash justify it to myself and b) i am so obsessed right now with that one leg muscle that kinda goes flat when you sit but also is a key part of how to structure the leg when drawing. Blah blah blah hockey butts yeah great but what if... hockey inner thigh....

Ughhhhhhh kill me now.

Anyway im gonna adress a trend i have noticed in the pens fandom mostly displayed through passive aggression towards me or other creators...and that's the use of references. There seems to be this idea that using references is lazy or cheating or means that this person isn't making 'real' art. And im gonna call some bullshit. Every single artist since someone decided to paint their hand and try to recreate a cow on a cave wall with their thumb has used references. Talk to real commercial artists and they use WAY more references than you can imagine. My current job is super stylized and unique. But back when i worked in hyper realism on C*ll of Dooty and superheroes and stuff? Never not once did the illustrators not utilize references. Often us 3D artists were given a photo with a posed actor, which we used to pose the 3D model, which then was illustrated on top of directly by the illustrator. Those artists had to churn out hundreds of illustrations a month. They did not have time to get precious about it.

And lets talk about 'sourcing'. Yes, if you copy a photo directly almost pixel for pixel an artist should probably reveal their source. But so rarely is this the case. If you put any kind of spin on it - your own style, change the colors, add or subtract the background - that is YOUR art and there is no need to link to or include the damn 'source'. It's not a 'source' at that point. That would be like asking the amazing folks who photoshop artistic 'edits' together using photos and brushes to link to the original photos at the bottom of all their posts. This is just silly.

You want to know what commercial artists did before the internet? My old friend here has a studio from the 70s-2000s that has an entire wall full of neatly organized stacked drawers of printed references, a lot of it clipped from magazines and books. Each of them labeled by subject matter. And this artist worked in some of the most famous advertizing studios during that era.

So, coming back around to hockey thighs, because I know there are certain folks in the pe*ns fandom that get annoyed and angry at my daily drawings (which is so sad by the way, get a life). I have to admit this is the first time this has ever happened in a fandom so it threw me for a loop. But I also know there are younger artists out there who follow me so I want to explain my process a little. Most of my daily doodles are studies - its one of the reasons its been easier to do them during my illness than any more serious creative work. When i doodle i am looking at references and trying to recreate that as i see it. The key point being 'as i see it'. I am usually trying to learn things like: in this photo what about the lighting is compelling, and how can i make it more so? Or what is the focus of the drawing and how can i let the rest of it fade? Or whats the main gesture and how do i exaggerate that? And always, always im trying to study anatomy from new angles. For me its not enough to learn what a 'knee' looks like because the shape of the knee and the muscles around it change depending on how it's posed. And it is often those changes that make it so beautiful. Or in this case that beautiful sexy stretch of thigh between geno's knee and groin.

Often times if i imagine a 'pose' in my head, i will then go pull as many references as i can where the body's limbs are roughly arranged how i want it and then draw those over and over until i feel like i have enough of a grasp on that anatomy to recreate it for myself. So please, dont listen to the haters, use those references or dont use them freely. the haters are idiots who are projecting their own fear of inadequacy and learning to be creative onto you. <3

In my next essay i will discuss how baffled and humbled i am by the way my love for geno's face has utterly transformed my artistic eye...