YARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!

'Nuff Said.

A-N

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I see potential in everyone's work! I see a world of artwork and creative geniuses!

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Way Too Much Good Stuff to + Them All!! Special Artists Sites



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The Shot of the Week - Pics So Goood it Hurts!



















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FAVORITES LIST = 16,503!

Congrats to these benchmark Faves!

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PLEASE NOTE! Due to some artists removing their posted art, these marking points may change - A recounting was completed 01/20/2008.

This was an interesting weekend. Shadsie and I both have new jobs that are improvements over what we had been doing, but we were lacking an extra set of wheels (my truck is off the road due to mechanical problems). I spent the previous week looking around for a good second set of wheels, preferably another Volvo like the one I got for m'lady when I hauled her out here.

Well, when I found one, it turned out that our financing company would not touch it (something about age and value and such - what'ta pain).

"Well, we do have that car..." they said.

What was shown to me dropped me back to my youth... my very very youth... youth...

It was called The Flying Banana.



My father brought it home from his work - our first company car. A 1966 Pontiac Tempest sedan in this glaring yellow paint job. We didn’t have it long, but the legend of the nuclear colored Pontiac lived on in our family.

Until… it returned… perhaps reborn… in the form of…



…a 2004 Toyota Matrix. This sucker has plugs and gadgets all over it – I’ve never seen a car actually come with an inverter built in.

And Shadsie loves it. Now she’s got something better to go back and forth to work in and scare the neighbors with.

Somehow, I can just figure Shadsie and Zhon starting to swap tuner stories together... skulls and drift racing... weeee...

The Banana lives!

A-N

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I see potential in everyone's work! I see a world of artwork and creative geniuses!

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Way Too Much Good Stuff to + Them All!! Special Artists Sites



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The Shot of the Week - Pics So Goood it Hurts!
















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FAVORITES LIST = 15,000!

Congrats to these benchmark Faves!

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PLEASE NOTE! Due to some artists removing their posted art, these marking points may change - A recounting will be made in February.

There's an interesting poll up by about the subject of plagiarism - seems some teacher thought that Anime style drawings were just the ' P ' word. Well that set off my hackles, so I wrote -

I will assume that you are meaning Anime as a style and not the form of animated film – Anime and Manga are styles of drawing – but in each style the creativity of the objects created are that of the artist who did the creation – it is a category of style associated with that of a cartoonist or illustrator. Plagiarism is a direct copying of a piece of artwork or writing without credit towards the original creator of said work.

That being said, if you were to say that using a style of artwork or writing for your own benefit is plagiarizing, then who’s to say who created that style in the first place? For example, in school or in training and practicing how to draw/write/take a photograph/breathe, did we first take small steps, then graduated to greater attempts? Were we not taught by someone how to do any of these steps along the way? And if so, would that not also be considered plagiarizing someone else’s work by doing so? Personally I would hope not, otherwise we’re all in copyright infringement. And personally, I like to breathe.

As an illustrator and cartoonist, after many years of doing my own thing as a kid, where I mimicked the style of Charles Schulz (Peanuts), I later improved my style by embracing the artwork of Walt Kelly (Pogo) and Chuck Jones. Do I consider that plagiarizing? No, I consider that they were my indirect teachers – yes, I can draw a pretty good representation of Pogo, but I would never consider him my own. It’s the same reason why I also drew a rather large Lina Inverse for a WebMag. Just because I can draw it does not mean that I own it, nor does it mean I copied it directly. If I had, THEN it would have been plagiarism.

It’s funny that this was brought up today – yesterday, while I was rummaging through my massive pile of piccies I look over here on dA, I ran across a picture of a cat girl that struck me. The artist who had drawn her and posted her back in February had positioned her with her back facing us, her arms off to her sides, and she was looking over her left shoulder at us. When I rolled down the screen to see the people who had posted comments, they were all praising and astounding on how well this person had drawn this girl.

Only thing was, I recognized the picture right away. The so called ‘artist’ had traced a picture I had seen on a shareware wallpaper site on Google and had simply changed the girl’s clothing, hair and mouth. When I brought the two pics up side by side, you could see the copies precisely. THIS is plagiarism, especially since the ‘artist’ never even mentioned that he/she/it had used this earlier artwork as a base for their own copy.

If the question you are asking was brought on by the reaction of your teachers, well then I would consider the teacher first. As an old art director, I have run into many others, some of whom are teachers as well, who are stubborn on the subject. In my day, since my style was more cartoonish, the teachers noted it as such. They hated it, while I embraced it.

It all comes down to who you are selling your works to (not in a monetary way, but in a presentation way). If the person in question wants to see Rembrandt, do you give them Miyazaki? Not if you want a passing grade you don’t. You give them Rembrandt simply because that’s what sells. Then you show them Miyazaki and tell them it looks good this way too.

A-N

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I see potential in everyone's work! I see a world of artwork and creative geniuses!

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Way Too Much Good Stuff to + Them All!! Special Artists Sites



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The Shot of the Week - Pics So Goood it Hurts!













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FAVORITES LIST = 11,606!

Congrats to these benchmark Faves!

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Observers, and What it Means to Be One
Or
Critique or Not to Critique


Observer… what the fork?

It has become obvious to me that some folk seem to think that just because I watch them, I need to critique them. Well guess what… IT IS NOT. That goes for folks here on dA, and that also goes for folks over on FFN.

Placid watching, observing and such is my style (okay, LURKING). My critique will be in the form of a Fave here on dA and a WATCH (what they call Favoring an Author) on FFN. It is the only way to keep an eye on an author over there, as is Watching is over here. BUT… and this is a big BUTT – ahem – I WILL NOT BE PRESSED OR COERSED INTO A FULL CRITIQUE OF ANYONE’S ART/WRITING.

Trust me you will know it when it happens. In artwork, I will put on my old Art Director’s hat and I’ll point out proper flaws when I find them, even if the artist complains that I’m being picky or not seeing it properly. If it doesn’t follow a logical pattern, then it will be analyzed to death! In writing, I will put on an editor’s cap and DOWNLOAD the story into WORD first and do a heavy edit (correct errors and spelling that MANY authors seem to leave in [including myself at times… erk!]). Then and ONLY THEN will I check it for continuity. A writer needs to be just as creative with their writing as an artist is with their works.

With that said, some might look at my watches on both sites and wonder where my head is. Face facts, not all watched are because the artwork is superb or the writing is great. Some are there because some are folks I consider either friends or family. Some are there because I see possibilities in the works. Many are there as reference for future needs (AKA you never know when this old art director might come out of retirement and need good artists and writers).

So blast it all, stop complaining if I’m not critiquing your writing or commenting about your artwork! As an Observer, I watch. If I feel the need, THEN I’ll intervene, but not before, and not after.

I Observe, therefore I Watch.

A-N

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I see potential in everyone's work! I see a world of artwork and creative geniuses!

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Way Too Much Good Stuff to + Them All!! Special Artists Sites



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The Shot of the Week - Pics So Goood it Hurts!










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FAVORITES LIST = 10,944!

Congrats to these benchmark Faves!

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As I’ve noted before, I observe and fave MANY MANY artists here on dA, scrutinizing and cataloging their works into my rather huge FAVORITES file (I do wish dA would put back up the counter for these… I’d like to keep track on just how many are in there!). Because of this, I also have a rather lengthy bookmark list on my computer of sites I didn’t have time to thoroughly scrutinize before. Well, now is as good as any to start working my way through this list!

When I randomly chose a site and brought it up, a not-so-uncommon thing occurred – on the first site I found a second site – then a third and forth site to artists that I would add to my list of observed. It wound up kind of like a ‘Seven Degrees’ sort of way (maybe they all wind up pointing towards Kevin Bacon – who knows?). So in the end, we’ll all start here…

artoftheempath was where I started first, and got 2 sites for one attempt. Seems she had a site before on dA that is still up (see [link]) of her earlier work from before she became Art of the Empath. Her style links the other four artists reviewed here – Fantasy Illustrations, and for the most part, in a traditional painting/drawing medium. Her themes tend towards the portrait picture, such as [link] 'Cleita' First Queen of Atlantis, and [link] Yavie - The Last Warrior, both of which show excellent form and presentation of the subjects, while [link] The Sleep of Briar Rose is a beautiful example that even a sleeping form can be pleasant to observe. But while portraits are one type of illustration, she is also quite well at presenting the story picture, as seen in her [link] The Claiming. Her range of drawings and paintings are that of realistic fantasy to semi-surreal – a fine mix for the subjects.

While on her main dA page, I found the first two associated sites listed on her Friends box, while the third site came from a chance viewing of a picture on her Random Favorites section. This is not uncommon What drew me to the first two was their icons. I have found that if the image in a person’s icon made it jump out of the page at me, then it just might be worth it to check over their sites. In these two, I wasn’t disappointed. (Mind you, some of the others listed are also quite good, but these two were both new to me, and they simply stood out.)

alienarose - her icon jumped out at me. An artist in the Realistic Fantasy realm, her specialty seems to be as an expert in skin tones and shades, fine examples of which are [link] Jiao-Tu for Semiramis, [link] Winter Rose and [link] Portrait of an Artist, from which her icon came from. Her best work is when she does line-less drawings and goes for the near photographic approach.

thedreamflier, whose icon was right next to Aliena Rose’s, stands away from the realistic pictures of the first two sites and goes for a more stylized illustration. Her works are light and bright with vivid colors and airiness to them. I could see many of her pieces being used in the area of book illustrations, such as [link] Mermaid’s Treasure would make a fine children’s fable illustration, while [link] Autumn would make a fine front-piece. Her work is extremely vibrant and alive.

kyrn was the final artist spotted in this search. Of the four chosen in this review, she has been with dA the longest, which makes running rampant through her gallery more interesting. I always find it fascinating to she how an artist evolves from early drawings to latest illustrations, and Kyrn is certainly one who has improved from her 2003 debut. And unlike the others, whose icons caught my eye, it was the Random Favorite on Art of the Empath‘s page of her [link] Peace on Earth that drew my attention. She states in one of her pics that she originally tried for a style of that of the anime/manga artists at CLAMP, though I see handling of hairstyles and faces more in a Botticelli way. Her artwork deals with Fantasy Portraits as does the others, though not all are humanoid – she has done an excellent set of dragons [link] [link] and Kitsune [link] [link] [link] [link] . Her presentation of her works range greatly, from sublime examples such as [link] Black Rose Angel to powerful mythical characters such as [link] The Lady of the Lake. Her medium tends to be watercolors, which gives her art a pastel lightness to them, yet great strength in their depth and details.

So there you go – 4 fine artists added to the ever growing list. Check ‘em out!

A-N

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I see potential in everyone's work! I see a world of artwork and creative geniuses!

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Way Too Much Good Stuff to + Them All!! Special Artists Sites



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The Shot of the Week - Pics So Goood it Hurts!