On Fanworks and Such...
Right now I'm going through a very strange phase in my artistic life. It's like, I know I should be focusing on my original characters and original stories, but all I can do is keep coming up with ideas for zany COMMUNITY fanarts. I think it's mostly that I don't like just drawing people ofr the sake of drawing them. I normally end up giving them a name, a personality, a a past, and making them as full-fleshed a character as I can. The problem with that is that most of my characters are very, for lack of a better word, boring, in that they don't do anything other than talk, live, love, maybe smoke, maybe have sex, and be people. The characters on COMMUNITY, on the other hand, are so full of crazy, and they're immersed in such an insane anything-can-happen world, that silly ideas just come to me for play-dates at the park.
I used to look down on fanartists. I was the kind that thought "pfft! Why are you spending so much time on other people's characters!!" And now I'm like this huge hypocrite who can't stop thinking of drawing Jeff as a Disney Prince, or Troy and Abed as cowboys riding toy horses. I really can't. And the idea of drawing Engelen or Raph or Iván or Henri doing those things doesn't even cross my mind. I just feel like if Engelen and Raph were to dress-up as cowboys, rather than being something "fun" it would mostly be something very gay (in the buttsex sense).
I guess there's also the part where I'd never gotten so much praise for my original stuff, and now, the cast of the show I love fucking knows who I am. I mean, sure, I'm not like their BFF or whatever, but they know of my existence (a vague, faceless, nameless cloud of smog who sent them keychains). Even months after I sent them stuff one of the actresses said (when asked by people from nbc) that those were some of the best fanart they'd ever received. Also, there's like, two active fanartists in the fandom, so I get a lot of attention... and you know how much I crave attention... because I had no friends in grade school... and highschool... and am forever alone...
I know that a couple of entries ago I said that I should be doing this "for the funs" and not "to get outside gratification." But maybe just knowing that there's people out there appreciating what I've done is enough to fuel my desire to draw a fancomic of the study group as Power Rangers? Or maybe it's just that I've stopped caring about what other people think, that this is just me having fun, and that I can appreciate the praise I got in the past, but that this is now only about me wanting to draw a comic of Chang sleeping in Jeff's bed because he couldn't sleep on his own...
In a couple of months I leave to Canada, and then I won't have time for anything other than my original art, I guess. Maybe one thing I could do to balance this out is to draw an original piece for every fanart I do, and write an original shor story for every fanfic. That could either make me a very productive person, or just make me terribly scared and lazy and end up doing nothing.
IN CONCLUSION: I am full of shit.
Anyway, it is now time for me to go to bed.
I used to look down on fanartists. I was the kind that thought "pfft! Why are you spending so much time on other people's characters!!" And now I'm like this huge hypocrite who can't stop thinking of drawing Jeff as a Disney Prince, or Troy and Abed as cowboys riding toy horses. I really can't. And the idea of drawing Engelen or Raph or Iván or Henri doing those things doesn't even cross my mind. I just feel like if Engelen and Raph were to dress-up as cowboys, rather than being something "fun" it would mostly be something very gay (in the buttsex sense).
I guess there's also the part where I'd never gotten so much praise for my original stuff, and now, the cast of the show I love fucking knows who I am. I mean, sure, I'm not like their BFF or whatever, but they know of my existence (a vague, faceless, nameless cloud of smog who sent them keychains). Even months after I sent them stuff one of the actresses said (when asked by people from nbc) that those were some of the best fanart they'd ever received. Also, there's like, two active fanartists in the fandom, so I get a lot of attention... and you know how much I crave attention... because I had no friends in grade school... and highschool... and am forever alone...
I know that a couple of entries ago I said that I should be doing this "for the funs" and not "to get outside gratification." But maybe just knowing that there's people out there appreciating what I've done is enough to fuel my desire to draw a fancomic of the study group as Power Rangers? Or maybe it's just that I've stopped caring about what other people think, that this is just me having fun, and that I can appreciate the praise I got in the past, but that this is now only about me wanting to draw a comic of Chang sleeping in Jeff's bed because he couldn't sleep on his own...
In a couple of months I leave to Canada, and then I won't have time for anything other than my original art, I guess. Maybe one thing I could do to balance this out is to draw an original piece for every fanart I do, and write an original shor story for every fanfic. That could either make me a very productive person, or just make me terribly scared and lazy and end up doing nothing.
IN CONCLUSION: I am full of shit.
Anyway, it is now time for me to go to bed.