fablefire wrote:I enjoy that you give me that much credit for anticipating the win. You must think me very clever at finding and exploiting the niche. Thanks much. It's too bad the derby results don't back your assumptions though. ;)
And yes, I'm guilty. I'm guilty of drawing cute things. Guilty of actually enjoying drawing cute things! I'm guilty of cutting my teeth on anime/manga. I'm guilty of being a member of DeviantArt and GaiaOnline. I'm even guilty of smiling when happy customers post pictures of them wearing the godforsaken QBF. If that's a crime then bring down the hammer! I love what I do and I love when it makes someone's day. *gasp* :O
I can't take all of the credit for the derby wins though. If I could, I would've had South vs East and Death Cooties printed. :<
In the derby sense, I support the "submitters" behind even the stick figures. I may not support the artwork, but I can't fault the "submitters" for submitting the piece. Whether they put 4hrs of thought into a clever concept and 5 minutes into the artwork, or 5 minutes into a concept and 4hrs into the artwork, or 5 minutes overall, unless it breaks some rule or law I'm not going to harass the user. I don't know what motivates them, and I'm not about to guess, let alone tell them what motivates them. I'm not a psychic. I don't know them personally. Do you?
Sometimes I enter for money. Lately I've been here for the hunt/game. For awhile it was to piss off the anti-anime people. Before that it was to test the market to see if the chibi style was really that popular, or if the voting conspiracy was true. If you want you can add all of those to your list of "reasons why Fable enters the derby". You always forget to add those. I still don't see a huge change to pandering though. Links plz? Looking through my DA I've got plenty of cute all the way back. If I'm pandering now, I've been pandering all along since Scurvy and All Hallow's Sleep. (What does my entry pander to this week, out of curiosity?)
My art has always been on the cute side (with the exception of an experiment in detail last fall). Until the wonder twins arrived people liked my work and no one cared if it was cute, kawaii, chibi, etc. I'm just as kawaii now as I was before. Too bad you can't go back in time and just call me a hack all the way since Scurvy eh? The only thing that's changed since Scurvy is my attitude toward the game in its entirety. If I didn't change my attitude toward it I'd be gone by now. I'm nowhere near as masochistic as you. How can you stay in a place that embrangles so hard for you?
There is a lot to be said for trying to make a difference.
Some people will shout at the walls knowing no one will respond, but feeling that by doing nothing, they are taking the coward's route. This is still a contest that awards a respectable sum of money to the winner, and for myself, and people who respect design in a way that means something for anyone, it should go to a respectable design. that has much to do with the submitter as well as the design quality itself.
Others will know that nothing will change, and they will use it to their advantage. I don't think I need to say anything about this. Suffice it to say that tgentry's "Stuck Inside" and infinityloop's "rain dance" and a decent handful of solid design, though by no means much, has won a derby, and won first place no less. You can do it with great design, or thought provoking ideas, or skillful execution, or even just something creative. It's just rarer. Consistantly submitting work that is less than that reflects horribly on ones motives. And no, no one is psychic, but I think it is way easier to tell who is putting time in because they care, and who is putting time in just to win, or else to give an impression that they care while they submit grenades and masks that look like previous shirts. For example. And huge surprise, all of said users who are in it for the money are big on criticizing anyone who has higher expectations. That's dangerous to your bottom line. it's not surprising.
also, motivation is such an amazing thing. See, when you first popped up, you did cute things. You of course believe that is what this is all about, since it can't possibly be about diversity or quality or motivation: it's just about cute. We hate cute. But I don't think people DID hate you. Overly chibi? oh god yes, and regularly. But you used it as your style, not your paycheck. and then I think something cracked on you when Toaster Dreams lost to a horrible clip-art collage. Which you then followed up with a parody clip-art piece of your own. Which won. And then your next win was a 100% parody free representation of Zelda items. and at this point, you seemed to put far less effort into even your most successful pieces. So I'd say a LOT of things changed. Your style, no, but definitely your content and, by your own admission, your motivation. So by the time the wonder twins came through, and you could hone yourself into a more chibified, desu mold, you jumped at the chance. Since it helped break a pretty dry spell, I'd say it's definitely worked for you, if far less frequently than it works for them... It had been a year since you'd gotten an anime-style print. Given your own admissions, and judging your timeline, I don't think I've misinterpreted the path of your motives. but that path is also why I stand behind Scurvy's success: because it was done by a different Fable who was making a shirt for her own experimentation, not for a market base, and it fits as a shirt, not a marketing plan. And it's why I laughed at first at Plan B, and presumed it wasn't foreshadowing. Your work may not have changed much, but the person making it sure seems to have. And it is that, far and away above the style which, for the most part, you have indeed had forever, that colors my opinion of your work and motives. I'm sure that doesn't matter to you, so long as you're "making people smile" to the tune of thousands of bucks, but if you want an honest answer, you have it, and if you don't care for an answer, don't ask questions.
