oh, good, Cy, you're here already. Continued from
https://entervoid.com/comic/7361 heavyweight 2021
can't relate to why someone would enter big events then like, not follow through . but it wasn't exactly HALF the community who had a poor showing at least once this past year, was it? if so, my pointing it out isn't the problem
how is it remotely an insult to point out that about one fourth the final submissions for about half the community events since I joined have had artists, who were usually vetted by committee, either default or submit a few pages of early pencils?
I know I'm not the only one who is envious whenever the chosen artists are submitted and I'm not the only one who gets confused when such coveted memberships in contests seem to be undervalued by the members.
I was merely pointing out that Rikun deserves some recognition for making time for his submission, because I know he has been trying to get into one of these things for ages and even though he was busy with life and school, he didn't over burden himself and still had a good showing.
I've been asked before to stop comparing people because it makes them feel bad to be compared to others. but this is 'compare your art to other artists' the web page the hangout dot com. If I had read Rikun’s submission without knowing what everyone else had done here and all year, I would have been less forgiving. It MATTERS what all the other artists are doing.
it's just an opinion at the end of the day. but at the same time I can see how writing a banger serious review for the one person who asked for one might negate trying to honor the other artists' requests to not receive serious crit. But I feel the silence says more than anything.
so, how can I rate anyone's art and comics if I'm not comparing them to the others in the very same contest? everyone was chosen based on a similar skill level, so it was a fair fight, right?
compare their showings to their individual past work?
That's What I Did. Except for Anteres because I had never heard of them and wanted to be surprised. It was a wonderful experience, going in totally blind.
so maybe I should try not to compare everyone's art to their old showings. for example, most of these artists usually spring for full color. should I have then felt their art had declined?
no. because no one else in the current CONTEST did full color.
ok. so we're not comparing people's art to their old art, because that would be unfair as they all chose to put energy into the art in a way that would allow them to compete with each other on other more fundamental points.
But yet we're also not judging it as a contest between these 8 individuals because that would be ‘putting someone down to compliment someone else.’
so I should just look down into my kokoro and imagine the best art possible for this contest and view every turnout as up against that?
no, that would be the most unfair of all.
to imagine everyone out here reading these comics being magically objective in a 'the supreme court of justices as represented by AI' kind of way is unrealistic. Our opinions are all informed by past experiences, knowledge, our own skillset and everything we know about the artists.
I write my reviews having read backlogs on old void, read the artists' old comics and having read professional work outside of void and having a background in fine art. I can tell when someone cut corners because they were in a contest and view these contests as counter productive to creating good art and I always have. but as a performative piece, the contest makes sense. everyone was participating in this big living creature with interconnected parts, and I write my reviews for battles not just on everyone's individual merits, but on how their individuality affected the whole turn out.
in my mind, this is the only fair way to view these royales, battles and tournaments.
I’m sorry if my way of writing serious crit for artists who request it counters their opponents’ requests for gentler reviews or compliments only. But this is why we put things behind spoiler bars.
That’s somehow not enough? And then what? Just not write honest reviews? Don’t leave comments at all? DM my reviews to the artists on discord to avoid hurting their opponents’ feelings?
I put a lot of energy into reading these stories, learning about the characters and their artists, reading about void and participating as much as I can. I thought long and hard about the first 7 entries before moving on to the longest, final entry. When I wrote my review, I was proud of it. I thought it would be fun for the other readers and helpful to the artists, even if they didn’t read anything but their own review. I’m pretty disappointed that at least one person HATED it, after I spent two hours writing it.
But I am an artist too and I know how much it hurts to not get enough praise. I try to put no more than 50% negativity into my crits and comments and put a positive spin on even negative things.
I’ve decided to step out of the personal bubble of this community for a while. Maybe it is correct to divorce artist from artwork.
Mother's Day 2024
Dairyu
@ 7:03 PM May 14th