Character Copying

I recently have been assembling my first uploaded Kiara/Kovu spawn (something new and different for me; I’ll talk about it more when the ref sheets hit TLKFAA), and have been fussing quite a lot over these babies.  The thing is, as with any of my characters I want them to be “unique”, and not consciously-or-subconsciously similar to other artists’ renderings of Kiara/Kovu cubs.  As you can imagine, this is very difficult, as there are only so many ways you can combine the traits of these two lions.

For example, I loved the idea of Kiara-ish fur coloring + Kovu mane coloring, but that has been done before (Capricornfox’s Chaka comes to mind).  So my male Kiara/Kovu offspring will not have that specific combination.  I try to make these original characters unique partly for uniqueness’ sake, but also because massive dramaz happen whenever fanartists think that “their” character designs are being ripped off. There are significant examples of this on the Archive, and I really don’t want to bother bringing them up again.

Instead, I’ll give you a very personal example of being accused of design-taking myself…before I had even been one month on TLKFAA.  I was very proud of my character Blitz, a melanistic 3/4 lion, 1/4 lynx, and I thought it would be kind of fun to create a whole pride of black lions.  So I adopted another melanistic cat, a lion offered up by the artist now known as Bonebreaker.  Then I drew my first picture with two black lions in it, Blitz and this new character Ravenstorm.

Just over an hour later, I got a comment from Endless Night telling me that I should change my characters’ designs (both of them) because they were too close to her “Maazeousi lions”.  First of all, I was shocked that I should have to change my characters because they just happened to have the same fur color as someone else’s lion pride.  Second, I was pissed.  I had never heard of this artist, had no clue what the heck a Maazeousi lion was, and knew for sure that I had not copied one as I had never even seen one.  I didn’t give a darn that they were apparently “invented” in 1998, because as far as I could tell, there were no similarities between my lions and Endless Night’s lions at all.  Look at the differences for yourself and you’ll see what I mean.

I have later come to realize that Endless Night was just full of herself.  She has written: “Endless Night was the ORIGINAL black and white lion.” and “Yes he IS the original black and white lion. You have a black and white lion that looks similar to him and chances are I’m going to ask you to change it. Why? Because he was the first and he’s been around the lionking.org fanart gallery since long before there was a fanart.lionking.org and he was also on Kubo’s spot.” She came up with an idea she thought was unique about 12 years ago, and then attacked anyone else who came up with the same idea (which happened frequently because honestly, black-and-white lion designs aren’t that unique).

I was a newbie when all this went on, however, and I was scared to death of someone who claimed to be the O Wise Ancient Of All TLK Fanartists With The Sacred Black/White Lion.  So I left a response that I hoped would appease her and continued making my pride…but I never created a black lion with a white mane.  I kind of want to do it now, almost 4 years later, but I really don’t want to stir the beehive again.  It’s in my potential “to-do” list, anyway.

What I gained from this experience was an intense hatred of artists who attacked others that unknowingly made characters like theirs, and a desire for a different sort of community.  Thankfully I’ve seen this other sort growing…it can be seen for example with the design similarities that spring among various fanartist Urus and Ahadis.  I’ve tried to contribute…as with my idea for Mheetu being a white lion, which has led to similar designs by other artists; Half-Tail, for one, even very politely asked me if it was all right to use the same idea.

The way I see it, fan art is done because fans love the original material. Fan art should not be based on sniping and accusations and suspicions. Those belong to the “original” art world.  I have seen that drama erupts more often with non-canon-related characters, particularly original species.  It’s yet another reason why I advocate for a more on-topic archive; send those who want to be original to other art sites and pick at each other there. In a fan art community like TLKFAA, we don’t even own the canon characters to begin with, and inevitably any lion design we make is essentially a rip-off of the canon.  It would be nice if more fanartists had a sense of humility, and remembered that.  But I’m not holding my breath.

Why a Blog?

Well, I am now ten posts into this nifty experiment called a blog, and so far I’m liking it.  So maybe it’s time to talk a little more about why I decided to try it in the first place.

The biggest reason, I suppose, is my community-specific drawing style.  Currently I upload exclusively at The Lion King Fan Art Archive.  For a while I used a FurAffinity gallery just so I could link to bigger .png files of my work.  At one time I did a couple of pieces of artwork forWajas as well.  But both of those quickly died out, while my presence at TLKFAA has remained strong ever since 2006.

I’ve talked about in my uploads why I stick with TLKFAA instead of, say, deviantART,or while I only upload at TLKFAA and not other LK sites like MLKFAA.  It has to do with restraining myself so that digital art doesn’t overwhelm my life, among other things.  However, the result of this means that on TLKFAA, the only way I can express myself is in 750 characters per upload, which is incredibly frustrating for someone as verbose as myself – see my AotM speech for how annoyingly wordy I can be.  (Needless to say, I loathe sites like Twitter…and don’t get me started on YouTube comments.  Reducing intelligent conversation to txtspeak–my little Creative Writing brain would be screaming hysterically all the way to the looney bin.  Ah, I’m getting a great idea for a short story…but I digress.)

If I had a “journal” on DeviantArt I would be able to write all I wanted, but with the 750-char limit on TLKFAA that just isn’t possible.  Hence, blog.  Now I can happily blather here on Coalf for as long as I want, not worried about tichy details such as being careful not to double-space after sentences since that eats up my precious characters-remaining.  Hopefully in the future I can direct traffic from my TLKFAA uploads if I find myself with something more to say about a particular picture, and in the meantime I can chatter to myself about myself, setting my thoughts about my art down on paper, as it were.

And so that is a very basic backstory for the reason I began to blog.  And for those interested, this post is precisely 2160 characters. ;)

Lineart by Moi

I was working on a collab with Mizan in Sketcher a few days ago (here’s how it turned out) where we did something fun and colored each other’s lines.  Mizan mentioned something about how my lines were fun to color, and that I should consider putting lineart like that up for others to play with.

It’s an interesting thought, particularly because I have never offered lineart up that has been drawn in Sketcher before.  In Sketcher I usually use a technique I call a “refined sketch” – I sketch heavier and heavier in a gray color which eventually becomes my lines (works well since the layers in Sketcher all multiply).  My Sketcher lines usually wind up looking so much better than my Photoshop ones – this lineart to the right was done in Photoshop and I don’t like it much at all.

The problem is, I am jealous of my lines.  They are mine!  MINE!  It’s like the story of the Little Red Hen…I came up with the character, I sketched the character, I refined my sketch, and now I wanna eat the gosh-darned bread!  Meaning, I want to color it because coloring is the most funnest thing ever compared to the pain of sketch/lining.  I love color.  I even made a site contest about colors, once.  One of my favorite television shows has to do with using color to decorate.

So, if you ever see me succumb and put up some Sketcher lines for other fanartists to color, now you will know the pain I had to go through to force myself to do that. Aagh!

Screenshot References

I had a great idea for a blog post before I fell asleep last night…woke up today and I had no idea what it was.  So you’re getting this instead because I’m lazy and I need to do some homework.

I think that using screenshots/illustrations, etc. for references when drawing TLK fanart is fine.  I started out drawing canon that way, and I’m pretty sure lots of others did too.  Fanart requires at least a basic knowledge of how the characters are drawn in the source material. Artists also use references in the real world…you’re not going to properly know how to draw an elephant unless you’ve seen at least a picture of one.

A “reference”, though, means that you should not just copy that image.  Look at how the artist constructed Nala’s pose, or what Mufasa’s mane looks like from that angle, and then draw your own version of that.  It’s also nice if you mention when you use screenshots as reference because otherwise you can get people snarling at you for being a thief, which is never fun.  You might think that you’ve modified the original enough or that the pic is obscure enough that no one will recognize the source, but believe me, people like me with TLKOCD can usually pick out a referenced piece.  It’s become easier ever since I started helping out with art thieves on DeviantArt by identifying the source pictures that were stolen from… not that hard if you have a decent visual memory.

But if you use references properly and give credit where it’s due, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with looking at a screenshot once in a while. =)

[(2^4)-10]x(10^2)=Yay!

In case that random title makes no sense, I reached 600 popular pictures in my TLKFAA gallery today.  That means I’ve made 600 pictures that were actually somewhat interesting to people-who-are-not-me!   Amazing.  It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. =)

Also interesting to note: my number of popular pictures is beginning to catch up to the number of people who have me tagged as a Favorite Artist (currently 635) which hasn’t happened before.  If they ever overlap, I’ll have to draw something for it…probably something for my fans, since I haven’t drawn a fan-picture since that monster I did for 500 uploaded pics *shudder*.  I suppose I should start working on that now…if I ever want to finish it in this lifetime.

Anyway, if you’ve ever favorited a pic of mine, I say to you: “OMG u r so awsum an teh bestest evr!!!11  *hug* *glomp* :DDD”  Or in the common tongue, “Thank you!“

How to Win Fans and Influence Voters (TLKFAA-style)

The simple answer: draw canon.  Canon, canon, canon, and specifically movie canon.  After all, that’s the unifier of TLKFAA, the LK universe.  Most of the artists here love the movies, and so if you want to gain popularity among them, movie canon subject matter is what you need to draw.

Now, I’m not saying that’s the only way to win people over, but it’s the fast-and-dirty way.  If you have your own original species or a particular drawing style that is really unique and fascinating, that also works.  Dille, for example, is a fantastic artist in her own right with amazing style, but she doesn’t actually draw canon all that often.  But people don’t really join the archive just to see the style she draws in, although they may adore her uploads all the same.

When I joined TLKFAA, like many others I was determined to show originality, and made up individual characters like crazy, playing with their designs, and also entered many user contests.  But somewhere along the way I observed that my canon art got more comments, was favorited more often, and generally garnered more interest than any of my OCs.  Gradually my art shifted in focus to where it is today – primarily canon and subcanon based.  It may be that I am just going through another phase of being here at the archive, and eventually I will become jaded and return to my individual quirks and characters (I have noticed many artists before me do the same after becoming AotM).

I think if I actively drew things besides TLK art, I might be more tempted to strike out on my own.

But here’s the thing, the canon world has its own charm, and can be extremely interesting.  It can also satisfy the urge for creativity in a number of ways.  If you develop your own unifying fanon story, like I have, you can invent new ways that the characters relate to and react with one another.  You can design relatives (i.e. Uru or Mheetu) and even invent relatives (i.e. Nala’s father).  I’ve also found that a limiting factor on my artwork, constraints like “only TLK art” cause me to become creative in whole new ways–how can I make these 15-year-old characters new and interesting?  This also comes into play in the site contest, which poses rules that you get to play within the boundaries of.

I was going to talk more about the site contest, but I think I’ll save that for another day since I’ve blathered on enough already.  In summary, if you want TLK-lovers to become interested in your art, draw what interests them. =)  You might fall in love with the movie and its characters all over again!

Motivation Station

Some people might look at my uploads and ask, “What the heck are you doing, making art in Sketcher when you have a perfectly good, brand-new Adobe Photoshop CS4 with all the bells and whistles?  Why limit yourself to four transparent layers, four hours, and limited drawing space?”

Excellent question, and one I often ask myself when I become enraged at Sketcher (which happens very frequently).  Here’s the thing about Sketcher – it makes me draw.  It’s a motivational tool.

I did not really give Sketcher a chance back on my old laptop, with Adobe Photoshop 7 inherited from my older cousin (no extra licenses). But then, when I got my new laptop to take to college, I suddenly was Photoshop-less.  The only way I was going to draw anything, since I am abysmal at real media, was to go on Sketcher.    For a period of about five months, I drew exclusively on Sketcher.  And funnily enough, I found I was drawing more often.  Here are some of the reasons I adore Sketcher, and why it motivates me to draw:

1. Four-hour time limit.  It means that I can set aside one chunk of my day, and know that I won’t go over it because I’m too engrossed in what I’m doing.  It’s also helped me with my completion speed.
2. Four layers = less complexity.  Complex pics take me forever, and I inevitably become frustrated or bored and they die when I lose interest in them.  Photoshop is a TRAP!  It makes me start huge projects that I will never finish.  Sketcher frees me from that.
3. Painting.  Sketcher is so much fun to paint in, and I’ve become so used to the settings that any other program earns my wrath for not having Sketcher’s simplicity.  I cannot paint in Photoshop the way I do in Sketcher, and as for lining in Photoshop?  Ugh, forget it!
4. Human contact. Or cyber-human-contact, anyway.  I can talk to other users while I’m working, and if I get art block, the conversation will usually help me figure out what to draw.  I also can do collabs, which are a lot of fun.

There are probably more reasons why I prefer Sketcher, but I’ve noticed that reset just happened and I really want to draw something tonight.  So I will bid Coalf adieu and hop over there to have some Sketchery fun!

Just for the record…

…my favorite character of the Friendly Five is Chumvi.  I like Malka’s design the best, but I am a lot more interested in the fanon plot story I’ve created for Chumvi.

Here’s the short form: As a cub, Chumvi realizes that if he is to survive Scar’s reign, he has to join Scar’s side.  When he gets older, he becomes Scar’s right-hand enforcer.  Zira approaches him to be the father of her cub (Kovu) after she learns she and Scar are half-siblings.  Chumvi ultimately undermines Scar by allowing Nala to escape the Pridelands and later by distracting the lionesses sympathetic to Scar’s rule so they are not there when Simba returns to fight him.  (See the comic I made for the last site contest.) He leaves the Pridelands with an outsider lioness so he does not threaten Simba’s rule, and when Zira and her followers are banished he tries to install himself as their leader but fails.  Finally he goes southwest to the steppes where his outsider mate originally came from and reestablishes a pride in that area, where he lives for the rest of his life.

In summary, I heart Chumvi.  And I will continue to draw pretty pictures of him. <3

Coalf, 1.0

Say hello to the mascot/fursona of this blog, Coalf!  He is, of course, a calf/foal, but in order to fit with the African setting of TLK, he is actually a giraffe calf/zebra foal!  (Please note that he is not an okapi, which is sometimes claimed to be a zebra/giraffe cross but is in truth an entirely separate species.)

More specifically, Coalf is a cross between a Grevy’s zebra and a reticulated giraffe.  Reticulated giraffes are the subspecies most popular in zoos, while Grevys are a quickly vanishing subspecies of zebra (fascinating animals, I recommend you read more about them).  Coalf has the blog’s current color scheme, of course.  I will probably continuously revise his appearance, so don’t be surprised if the next time you see him he’s morphed a little bit.  But for now, he’s very happy to meet you!

Knockoff…Who’s There?

Recently I’ve been in a kerfluffle over a pair of 1995 German audio plays set in the Lion King universe, which I am pretty positive are not published by Disney, but instead knockoffs capitalizing on the brand. Read the comments on “SkepticalKopaIsSkeptical” to get the scoop.

Why do I even bother worrying about whether these obscure radio plays are canon (Disney-published Lion King stuff)?  Well, mainly because these plays contain part of the story of Kopa, and also introduce new characters to the universe.  New characters are important to fanartists because, well, we draw them.  Also interesting to me because I have been compiling a list of subcanon TLK characters.  The Kopa thing is an issue because I have my own “fanon”, or a set of fan theories about TLK that I use to dictate my canon and subcanon artwork.

I’m what some would call a canon “purist”, in that I try vehemently to keep canon and subcanon separate from fan theories, and keep true to TLK canon a majority of the time.   This gets me into heated discussions (read: cybershouting matches) sometimes with people who believe their fanon is the One True Story, like on YouTube last week.  YouTube comments drive me crazy sometimes.  Anyway, my decision to be a purist means that it is important for me to know exactly what is part of the canon/subcanon, and what is not.  I call this obsession “TLKOCD” and yes, it is weird.  It’s related to being a know-it-all, I think.

My TLKOCD leads me to investigate canon merchandise of all kinds, from books to plush.  And sometimes I find knockoffs, rarely, but sometimes.  For example this LK-esque plush cub made by Goffa:

which was discovered by a fellow TLKFAA artist.  All in all, I really don’t have any particular beef with knockoffs, but I do see them as being on essentially the same level as fanfiction or fanart.  The two audio plays are great stories (to read them go to that comments link I embedded above), but they aren’t official merchandise, much like this cute bandanna’ed Goffa cub.  They are similar to great fanwork…just, they’re exploiting TLK and sold to earn money off fellow fans.  So, not so great.  Hats off to the entrepreneur who bothered to make what is a pretty good quality product, but it’s stealing, in the same way that someone could steal a character I’d written, write a short story about him/her, and sell it to a publication to earn cash.  Do not want.