BEAR on 29/4/2009 at 03:06

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Thanks Ton. The palm thing I did notice myself (and I'm quite sure she did as well). In all fairness, she voiced some of the same concerns you did, so she was aware of them too. I felt she took them wayyyy to seriously and personally though, hopefully this will change her mind. Thanks for your comments, I'll pass them along :)

aguywhoplaysthief on 29/4/2009 at 04:15

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I'm not sure why it is that I like you BEAR, but I do, even though you post the occasional threads that are horrible shit like this one, and act 5 years younger than you actually are.

That being said, for whatever reason, I find your forum character to be somewhat endearing, so I will try to be slightly helpful.

The anime "style", I think, is very analogous to skiing. It's really easy for a beginner to get going and make a couple good runs, but it requires actual skill and training to do anything with consistency. More realistic art is more like snowboarding - hard to learn, and harder to master. I would argue that this is the major reason why it has become so popular with beginning artists these days (besides the rise of interest in Japanese cultural export which confuses the fuck out of me).

I get the feeling from your post that your girlfriend doesn't have a great deal of training, which makes me surprised by how not awful it is (so, to answer the question directly, it's looks like an average anime character). The more important question is whether or not she can draw this character again and again doing completely different things, and in different poses, while maintain an absolutely consistent character and style. That requires actual knowledge of gesture, construction, and anatomy, but since the internet and I are rather confused by each other, I have no idea how to look at her Deviant Art page to find out about that. The artists who actually do good anime are also excellent all around artists - this is something that I don't think the average Joe is aware of.

So, yeah, I don't know if that was actually helpful or not, but I think there was a compliment in there somewhere, so I'm sure you can relay this information in a much nicer boyfriendy-type way.

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On a secondary (but related) point, let me bitch about kids these days:

You don't need to put your shit on the internet.

If you like drawing, or composing, or writing, but don't think it is any good, then don't put it on teh intarwebs and then it isn't an issue. Draw horrible shit, have fun, and it won't matter if it is horrible or not because no one else is going to see it. Back in my day, we didn't have blogs. When we did stuff, we just showed our friends and family. If we seemed to have some talent, we would take art class, and after some talent filtering by the teacher, we may get something put up in the school library.

With blogs, and Youtubing, and the like, the barrier to entry that must be overcome to reach the public eye is far too low, which isn't a completely bad thing per se, but growing up with it does not foster positive social attitudes. It makes it too easy to get criticism early on without having to deal with actual people, and it inflates the human being's natural need for group affirmation to unhealthy levels.

To boil my point down: don't put shit on the internet, and if you do, don't be a pussy.

jtr7 on 29/4/2009 at 08:02

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That's a very good point, and generally sound advice, aguywhoplaysthief, but in this instance, I thought BEAR put it up, and she just wanted to destroy it, so that's probably not been a problem for her. Or were you just expressing something that you just needed to say against these trends?:D

snowcap21 on 29/4/2009 at 08:19

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The scetch is nice, certainly nothing that one has to throw away. But it's hard to call it "good" or "bad", I could only comment on it in comparison to her other work.
If you allow I'd like to offer my (completely unasked for) opinion on another subject instead:

Maybe this "fixing" would work better in the long run if you stopped questioning her judgement (esp. in cases like this)? She seems to have a good idea about what she wants to show to the public and what to share in private. You can of course have another opinion and argue for it, but for her self confidence she should be able to form her own opinion and stick to it, if she's convinced. Beeing "overruled", even with the best intentions, wont help. You don't want her dependent on the nice (and maybe not very sincere) words of other people, but secure in herself. And for that she needs to trust in her own judgement. Well, at least I think so. And of course it's more complicated than this, but this is the idea I got and I thought I'd share.

Sorry for getting so personal, especially since you don't know me (I only lurk here), but somehow I wasn't able to ignore it. Feel free to ignore me instead or send those people with the flamethrowers. Or those with the English grammar.

aguywhoplaysthief on 29/4/2009 at 17:07

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Yes.