#make great art

[ikuneko]

Just because your drawing, writing, sewing, or general crafting/art isn't as good as someone else's, doesn't mean it isn't good. You can still make great art without being the best.

[mk-wizard]

It really shocks me that people make assumptions about writers just because of what they write. An author is not their main character, and their fiction is not their biography. For crying out loud, I’m a feminine woman who was raised by two parents and most of my main characters are orphaned men.

You would be very surprised how authors are like in real life. You don’t need to be a disturbed traumatized person to make great art. Yes, some of the great artists were not mentally or emotionally well, but that is not the standard for being an artist.

We’re just average people like you. We just like to make art. That’s why I also don’t judge other artists. Not even the ones who create things I don’t agree with. Making art is form of expression not a sign of not being well. And I feel especially bad for artists who create horror who face a lot of grief for this reason.

[brunhielda]

I have yet to use this phrase but it is exactly how I direct theater.

I say- once we know it well enough to just have random fun with it we can create some really GOOD stuff.

For reference I work in community theater with people who come to rehearsal after doing a full day of work and volunteer all thier time for 3 months for a weekend of performance. The general attitude is- “If they are willing to volunteer thier time, we can’t ask too much of them” and the usual show is only just memorized and everyone is happy is they remember where they stand on stage.

Meanwhile I demand you know the text a month in and have blocking down by the end of the second. It gives us just a couple of weeks to really “fuck around” and find great stuff.

But mostly- I pull in things from fandom.

I say- “find a song for you character. Find a playlist of songs. Why does it connect?” By the end of the show, I swear, every song playing on the radio as I drive home from rehearsal relates somehow, (and I see it in full fanvid behind my eyes).

I say- talk to your fellow actor. We know the present from the script. What does it tell us about the past? What WAS your relationship? What parts can you fill in together? (The word headcannon is never used, but that is EXACTLY what we are doing)

What are you wearing and why? (I also demand my costumes so much earlier) Is it said in script? Does it give you a nervous thing to do with your hands? Is your character being rebellious? What in the script would suggest that? (Don’t tell me one of the favorite bits of fan work isn’t dressing up your favorite character in a new outfit they would TOTALLY love, and I can prove it with these 3 episodes!)

I know there is more, but I am struggling to think of them in the moment.

The point is- fan work has shaped how I used my brain to look at stage craft and that is only good. I get EXCITED about my shows- the story becomes my FAVORITE for awhile and the work only benefits.

If you are an avid member, or even an occasional visitor, of fan spaces, you have artistic skills in dissecting text that are useful to you in other spaces. Use it. Enjoy it.

Anytime I see people talking about canon and fan fiction and all the discourse that happens therein, my brain always goes back to this line from Slings and Arrows. It’s been living in my head rent free for nearly 20 years.

Geoffrey Tennant is standing in front of a workshop class full of corporate middle management people who tell him they’re at the workshop to learn communication skills and management styles by learning about the works of Shakespeare. And they’re all just very cut and dry business folk who are there and are gonna Learn a Thing. Geoffrey basically waves the class’s notions aside and says: “Let’s fuck around with some text.”

I love that line. I think about that line a lot when I think about fandom. Taking canon and finding our own way to play and fuck around with it. Search for profound truths about a character. And the horny. The silliness and fun. Explore the new and process trauma or share joy with fic or art or vids. Going in completely different direction from canon because we’re in so deep and are possessed and that’s where the stories and the fanon has carried us.

Let’s fuck around with some text. It’s so good.

[clarisimart]

be careful what you wish for, Fordsy

commission info here

[katsinspats]

Thematically appropriate comic for Make a Terrible Comic Day!!

I saw the original post this morning and it made me get out of bed to make something, so thank u Pseudonym Jones mission accomplished

[mushbeast]

we’ll fly together until the stars collide

[heart-locket-musicboxless]

•. A visit in a dream .•

[keymintt]

they say it wasn't humans who found the lost dutchman's gold

(another set of traffic box illustrations!!)

[pokimoko]

I can't keep being fundamentally changed as a person by animated movies, it's just not sustainable.

[odetoscavengers]

Something that could have been

[nevesceramics]

great blue heron bell

cone 04 terracotta, underglaze, glaze, wire, cotton thread

[northernfireart]

i can't find the original post of this idea but im obsessed completely with Sam Reich! Master

upd: The original idea was by @ace-whovian-neuroscientist!!!

[mk-wizard]

Your media stinks, but that's ok

Hello, friends. I posted this on my blog, but I want to share it here too because it is relevant.

I am here to talk seriously though kindly, as always, about the issue that Hollywood and the video game industry is facing right now. Everyone is throwing their hat into the ring right now, so as an artist and comic connaisseuse myself, I have my own criticism though I want to give it constructively. For context, I think it is great that we are more aware that different people are into a media, so we try to represent those fans who love the media so much. In fact, I think it is very sweet of creators though it should be done right and naturally not shoehorned in. Moreover, you should not alienate or vilify one group of people just to uplift another. Art supposed to be love after all. The root of it all goes beyond the obsession with representation and inclusion though. I think the real problem is that nobody in the professional world wants to be the bad guy when it comes to judging creators. We don't want to turn away people because we don't want to appear bigoted even though we know we're not. We are looking solely at what they are presenting and only judging the piece not the person, not their lifestyle and not who they like to kiss. Our eyes are on the project. I mean, I'm just a fan and I have never ever thought about what Steven Spielberg eats for breakfast, how often he goes to church if at all, how his love is going, how often he exercises, or his parenting style. Nor do I sit there thinking about what any artist does in their private life because it doesn't matter and that is the very point; it does not matter. What matters is whether they are good at their craft or not.

And that circles back to what the real problem with modern media is right now. It's not the obsession with appealing to a modern audience, it is not checking inclusion boxes and it is not the political themes in art because art, especially comics and cartoons, has always been liberal leaning, progressive, showcased the underdog and is politically themed. Just look at Robocop, Rambo, Beverly Hills Cop and even Alien namely the sequel Aliens. The real problem is the quality of what we are getting now. All of the new medias Wish, The Acolyte, and even Starfield, they all had the potential to be great, but they failed because of bad writing, bad storytelling, bad art designs in some cases and bad creative decisions. All this has nothing to do with modernization. It's the bad quality of work combined with over-relying on modernization to cover it up. And it doesn't work that way. THAT, friends, is the real problem. Modern day artists have trouble accepting that they messed up or that they are just not good at working with a specific medium or genre. Or in some cases, some people just stink at making art period. It's nice of people to give them a chance indiscriminately, but it should not be at the cost of holding professional work to a high standard. People are paying for that art, they are getting excited for it and they are spending time on it. They deserve the best version of it, but instead of being allowed to say that we got stinks, we are told to not do that because it is mean. The result doing that though is that we now have a bunch of naked emperors who think they are fabulous, but are actually embarrassing themselves and it's not entirely their fault. It's ours too. The truth will set these people free of their delusions and allow them to genuinely improve their craft and produce great media. Moreover, some people may learn that maybe they're in the wrong line of work and that's ok too. Let them move onto things they are good at. The point is that is that honesty really is the best policy. If we want comics, movies and shows to get better, we have to be better ourselves and not be ashamed of expecting better and asking for better.

If anything, believing that these artists can do better is a good thing because it means we believe in them. I know I do even now.

[seatoss]

It's not diving underwater, but he still looks pretty good swimming and burrowing up like a mole.

[egophiliac]

queen of diamonds, upright + reversed 💎

I've redone this like eighty times, I have to just be done with it now and stop staring at all my mistakes oh no 🫠

[squidthusiast]

“The oven has a goofy face”

Octo-Oven Moment?

Just some past work experience