Please click on one of the links below to send you over to the rant.
Fanmail
turned request
Enough of the clothes made for anorexic girls!
"Here's a drawing, but I suck"
Online
Fights
"Hi Kanthara your art is so cool I love it and you draw like so good, and I was wondering if you would draw me as a anthro please please please, and tell me how to be as good a drawer as you and how to get to art school and look at my art and tell me what you think."
erf. Okay, I LOVE receiving fanmail. LOVE it. But I've got just a little problem with emails like these. Now, the above text is a combined example of what irks me in an email. The compliments are good, don't get me wrong. The thing is, I don't like being begged at for artwork, and I certainly don't appreciate the fact that people think I'll just draw them a picture like this, doodeedoo, for nothing, for a complete stranger that told me "wow your art is like the shit". When directed to the commission price list, these people usually don't reply, or tell me they can't pay me. One person once asked me to make an exception because she's suuuuuch a big fan, then got offended when I said I couldn't -- for the simple reason that drawing is how I make a living and so I can't draw for free.
The next part that gives me a problem is the "Tell me how to be an artist". There is no magic formula, people. It's all trial and error, practice, observation, and work work work. You have to figure it out by yourself for the most part, and I can't write back to a person with a dissection of how to draw like a pro because honestly, as much as I like to teach, the amount of teaching that can be done over a single email is incredibly limited. So I'm sure there are a lot of unsatisfied people getting from me the above notice of "observe, draw what you see and practice", in a few more words than that.
Oh, and there's the use of the word drawer. I am not a drawer. I am not a part of a piece of furniture. I am an artist, an animator, an illustrator, but I am not a cupboard, a counter or a drawer.
I haven't been to art school. So why don't you call the art school you want to apply to and ask them what they want from applicants?
AGH! Attached files of doooooom! Please please please, if you want me to look at your art, send me a URL. Also, don't expect me to give you a full dissection of your art, or refuse to hear that your art needs work -- if you are sending it to me to critique, be ready to hear what I have to say. I've had enough of people telling me I don't know what I'm talking about and I suck and I don't realize what a genius they are because I replied that the anatomy needs work. I give constructive criticism, when it is asked for. I comment on the good and the bad. I tell you how you can make it better. I don't pretend to be a genius, to know all there is to know about making art -- I am good at what I do but I know I still have a ways to go.
And then there's the oh so friendly one-liners:
"when are you going to make new pictures??"
I know I am slow at updating this website. It's because it's such a massive thing that it's often a discouraging task, and while working full time it would still take forever to do. So I'll update when I have time. It's always been like that. I don't like these one-liner emails and the multiple question marks indicates impatience, which I don't appreciate. I don't reply to these. You have been warned.
And mostly, please, if you're going to email me, check your spelling and grammar, would you? It makes your emails difficult to read if they are badly written, and it makes you sound stupid, which does not make me predisposed to reply to you. This is harsh, but it's how I feel. It's my rant section.
Do you hear me?
Enough!
I've had enough of the clothes that are made several sizes too small, that are
supposed to be for women but are actually made for prebubescent yet tall girls,
for girls that have an ass as wide as their waist, and a belt line that grazes
the pubic hair and barely covers the ass crack!!
There are FAR TOO MANY women with generous hips and ass and small waists to
ACCEPT this tendency of the fashion industry to dress them in clothes that don't
fit.
I wear high waist jeans because I have the thin waist -- but I have to buy jeans
that are too large at the waist so that they'll fit my hips!
I should take in the waist line of several pairs of pants I own in order to
make them fit well... but you know what? I'm sick and tired of having to buy
clothes that I'll have to alter! What, I can't find something that will just
work with my body shape?
I'm thin-waisted, and I have wide hips and a great ass, okay? Give me clothes
that fit! Give me clothes that I WANT to wear!
I'm not alone in this. There are plenty of women out there who have generous
hips and a round bottom, and they can't find pants that will complement those
shapes, noooo, the pants are made for flat asses with no waist.
And what's with the belt line of these pants? lower, lower until the pants look
ready to fall off? Bend over and show your crack? Geez! I tried on a pair of
those pants, thinking to complement my round hips. hmp. Did I mention I have
a round belly too? I swear, I was afraid my butt cheeks would jump out the back,
and my tummy was positively enhanced by the belt line of the pants -- I looked
4 months pregnant, or like I had a beer gut.
arg. I'm usually a size 7-8. maybe a size 9-10 for certain stores/brands. My
waist is a size 5-6. Maybe I DO have hips of doom... but explain to me why I
had to try on a size 14 in that store with the low-cut pants, hm?
I DEMAND that the fashion industry LOOK at the women in the world today, that
they take their eyes off those anorexic Victoria's Secret models with no waist
and bones jutting out from everywhere and Britney Spears and actually deliver
clothes that are MADE FOR US.
What brought this on? The fact that I'm wearing size 30 jeans to accomodate
my hips, but that could take having about 3 inches removed from the waist, and
that I need to go buy pants because my usual pants are getting too old to wear
at the office.
arg.
Now this has been bothering me for a while. I go into chatrooms, forums or journals, see people there, they post either drawings or writings, then they say that they suck. They say they're no good. They keep bashing on their own heads. Genn knows how angry that makes me: we had a long chat about this. If a person does this once or twice, I can understand that they find that a particular piece of artwork or writing is not as good as what they usually do. If they come into a chat room and all that they talk about is how lousy they are, that's what gets on my nerves. First of all, if a person keeps being negative about their own work, they will never be able to improve. OK, I admit, it can be very discouraging to find that other people are better than you are. I know it's easy to say that this shouldn't discourage you, that you should find a challenge in it. But that's the right attitude to have. If you look at your own work and analyze it, see what's wrong with it, then you can start to work on what needs to be worked on and improve. Instead of saying, "Oh, I stink at this", try saying, "Well, the weakest point in this drawing is the hands. I’ll try working better on those."
But what I really get angry at, what really ticks me off is people constantly saying that they're bad, that they're gonna give up everything, and see that they're still posting ficbits or artwork. People who receive praise and reply to it by saying that they suck. I don't call that modesty. I hate the sound of it, to me it's a whining plea for attention. Modesty means saying thank you when someone gives you praise. It means not showing off to others, and not replying, "I know" when someone says you're good. It doesn't mean you have to reduce yourself in front of others, it doesn't have to mean you have to grovel in front of your audience. So please, pretty please do not put on such a show when I'm there. It makes me say not nice things.
Why is it that there are so many fights going on online nowadays? It feels like a friggin "bashing on our friends" tournament! Most of these fights happen because of MISCOMMUNICATION. Most of those continue because a) people can't mind their own business, or b) people take sides and yell at the other people for things that they know nearly nothing about, and often that happens AFTER the initial argument ended. I've seen fights in the MGC comment room, and I had to yell at everyone to shut up because they were fighting about something completely different than what the original argument was about. I've seen fights in the main Gargoyles chat room, I've seen fights in other chatrooms. I've seen people type very angrily at others because they read a post all wrong, and I'm just appalled at all the terrible things say to each other there.
NEWS FLASH people! First of all, there are REAL PEOPLE behind these keyboards, real people that get hurt by all the accumulation of negative comments. Second of all, make sure you get all your facts straight before taking sides and yelling at the "offending party" like there's no tomorrow. Third, think before posting. Sometimes NOT posting anything is a far better option. Fourth, remember that an argument between two people is a private thing between them. Don't get involved if you don't have to. Of course, if this war takes place in a public chat or comment room, which is what usually happens, I will agree with people who will say, "Guys, take this somewhere else, we don't need to see you two (three, four, whatever) fighting."
I'm there for my friends, and I listen when they need to vent, rant, cry, or ask advice, as they are there for me. But I'm getting sick and tired of hearing about all these fights hurting my friends to tears or depression when it never needed to go that far. Yes, sometimes fights and conflict are required. But never to the extent at which they go nowadays. And you all have to understand one thing -- for most of us the only communication we do is through typing. THAT reveals very little about what a person is actually like! Nowadays the saying shouldn't be "Don't judge a book by its cover", it should be, "Don't judge a typist by his webpage".