WARNING! EMO COMING THRU'!
Ah well, this year, I wanted to try something different.
Maybe it was a bad idea to show my art when it is still so lousy. Sitting beside all the CG artwork it looked kinda sad. Not because my art is in any way bad, but because it is not the kind of artwork looked for in conventions like these.
But the problem is, I'm beginning to think that maybe it'll turn out to be the kind of artwork that is not looked for anywhere, ever.
When I was younger, I actually read a lot of those "I was a starving artist but made it big" stories, and I guess after you read like fifteen or more you begin to believe that the world is made up of starving artists that make it big. In fact, to my mind it became almost a prerequisite that to produce great art, one had to go through life-changing illnesses and chop off a few body parts, and/or subsist for enormous periods of time on nothing but sardines eaten off spare paint lids.
How great childhood disillusionment is - I could write books of EMO about the fall, and make a killing amongst the younger children.
Ok, ok, I admit it. People told me, and believe me, every single one of you, I listened. I know my art is not flavour of the month in the J-rock circles, considering I have been known to use copious amounts of colour. (I even MIX colour - now that is a surprise worth a barrel of monkeys!) I knew, when I went into that booth, that I probably wouldn't sell, wouldn't be asked for a single comission, wouldn't really have any purpose for sticking my art there.
Believe me when I say I listened. And believe me when I say that I wanted to try, even if it was only to be disillusioned again.
And finally, believe me when I say it was all worth it, every fucking second.
It is just that there are the down periods. Everytime I look at a friend's art and see the pages of comments on how nice it is. Everytime I give comments on a comission and realise that for that piece of paper with an artists' work, someone out there will pay twenty dollars. Everytime I see the booths at the cosplay event of your choice, the art that is different from mine, the art that I cannot do and in some way do not want to do, and know that it will sell.
Doubtless you know what it feels like - each and every one of you artists, who make art not just by selling and drawing but just by living in the cosplay scene - to have eyes slide away from you, because you are too different? To see the steady flow of "wow, it's quite nice" comments die to nothing when they look at your art - the art that there is truly nothing to say about?
I am not good enough to be someone - something - new, like Aramaki, like Imaginary Friend, like all the good studios in Malaysia that inspired me. I am trying. I am a beginner.
Maybe I have invalidated this post simply by writing that statement. But if there are any Asian values I don't believe in, not complaining because you suck is one of them. Complaining is our God-given right, and I'll use it well if it's the last thing I do.
And so we get to the point. That it was worth it to be brutally reminded of what my brother and others said to me - "no one has ever painted anime art in a classical style before. You can show it, but be prepared - it is avant garde, it is likely no one will look at it."
"Some people won't even know what you're doing. Because to them, it isn't anime art. It's too nuanced. Too many colours. I look at it, I don't see anime art."
Miss Liddell, this is my answer to why I didn't "pimp my art". I can't - it's not the sort of art that can be pimped. I went there to see if people liked it, and if they did not...
If they did not, then I will simply have to get better. Hopefully, good enough to be what you guys can do with CG, just with paint. Good enough that paint will cease to be something that people draw their fingers away from as though it is hot coal. That they will stop looking at the ragged edges of my drawings, the lack of black background, the unexplained pictures with no titles.
I'm not the first and not the last to paint with acrylics and oils. And I hope that more people will use the traditional mediums for the entirely selfish reason of my wanting to know more people, to have more in common with people whom I do know. But I am selfish, again, in the fact that I want to draw and continue drawing in my style - thick paint, dull-coloured shine, and all.
Then, when we fight, we'll fight as artists and not as market managers and salesgirls. And I don't intend to back down any more, the way I used to, the way I maybe should.
******
Well, I did say emo. Hopefully everyone has a grape slurpee or something to use to recover? If not, I'll be happy to lend my seven episodes of Samurai Champloo.
Maybe it was a bad idea to show my art when it is still so lousy. Sitting beside all the CG artwork it looked kinda sad. Not because my art is in any way bad, but because it is not the kind of artwork looked for in conventions like these.
But the problem is, I'm beginning to think that maybe it'll turn out to be the kind of artwork that is not looked for anywhere, ever.
When I was younger, I actually read a lot of those "I was a starving artist but made it big" stories, and I guess after you read like fifteen or more you begin to believe that the world is made up of starving artists that make it big. In fact, to my mind it became almost a prerequisite that to produce great art, one had to go through life-changing illnesses and chop off a few body parts, and/or subsist for enormous periods of time on nothing but sardines eaten off spare paint lids.
How great childhood disillusionment is - I could write books of EMO about the fall, and make a killing amongst the younger children.
Ok, ok, I admit it. People told me, and believe me, every single one of you, I listened. I know my art is not flavour of the month in the J-rock circles, considering I have been known to use copious amounts of colour. (I even MIX colour - now that is a surprise worth a barrel of monkeys!) I knew, when I went into that booth, that I probably wouldn't sell, wouldn't be asked for a single comission, wouldn't really have any purpose for sticking my art there.
Believe me when I say I listened. And believe me when I say that I wanted to try, even if it was only to be disillusioned again.
And finally, believe me when I say it was all worth it, every fucking second.
It is just that there are the down periods. Everytime I look at a friend's art and see the pages of comments on how nice it is. Everytime I give comments on a comission and realise that for that piece of paper with an artists' work, someone out there will pay twenty dollars. Everytime I see the booths at the cosplay event of your choice, the art that is different from mine, the art that I cannot do and in some way do not want to do, and know that it will sell.
Doubtless you know what it feels like - each and every one of you artists, who make art not just by selling and drawing but just by living in the cosplay scene - to have eyes slide away from you, because you are too different? To see the steady flow of "wow, it's quite nice" comments die to nothing when they look at your art - the art that there is truly nothing to say about?
I am not good enough to be someone - something - new, like Aramaki, like Imaginary Friend, like all the good studios in Malaysia that inspired me. I am trying. I am a beginner.
Maybe I have invalidated this post simply by writing that statement. But if there are any Asian values I don't believe in, not complaining because you suck is one of them. Complaining is our God-given right, and I'll use it well if it's the last thing I do.
And so we get to the point. That it was worth it to be brutally reminded of what my brother and others said to me - "no one has ever painted anime art in a classical style before. You can show it, but be prepared - it is avant garde, it is likely no one will look at it."
"Some people won't even know what you're doing. Because to them, it isn't anime art. It's too nuanced. Too many colours. I look at it, I don't see anime art."
Miss Liddell, this is my answer to why I didn't "pimp my art". I can't - it's not the sort of art that can be pimped. I went there to see if people liked it, and if they did not...
If they did not, then I will simply have to get better. Hopefully, good enough to be what you guys can do with CG, just with paint. Good enough that paint will cease to be something that people draw their fingers away from as though it is hot coal. That they will stop looking at the ragged edges of my drawings, the lack of black background, the unexplained pictures with no titles.
I'm not the first and not the last to paint with acrylics and oils. And I hope that more people will use the traditional mediums for the entirely selfish reason of my wanting to know more people, to have more in common with people whom I do know. But I am selfish, again, in the fact that I want to draw and continue drawing in my style - thick paint, dull-coloured shine, and all.
Then, when we fight, we'll fight as artists and not as market managers and salesgirls. And I don't intend to back down any more, the way I used to, the way I maybe should.
******
Well, I did say emo. Hopefully everyone has a grape slurpee or something to use to recover? If not, I'll be happy to lend my seven episodes of Samurai Champloo.