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!

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.