Thoughts about wallpapers and fanart

The wallpaper section of theOtaku is filled mostly with official art and episode stills. This isn't surprising--it's the result of some (necessary!) rules being followed. (Namely, "Don't Steal Stuff.")

So it's the result of a good thing, but I think it does kind of limit the tone of the wallpapers that are produced. One of the fun things about fanart is being able to see different interpretations of characters. You get to see different drawing styles, new ideas, situations that, canonically, would never happen.

I think most (not all, but probably most) artists concern themselves mainly with the fanart section of the site, leaving wallpapers and cards to those who consider drawing one of their weak points. (And I do think that considering it a weak point is an important thing here. If you think you're just naturally bad at something, you probably won't worry yourself with improving--or even participating--and it becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. That's probably a topic for another time.) This isn't exactly a bad thing, either! People who consider themselves poor artists are likely to throw themselves wholeheartedly into something else (like making wallpapers, or composing fan words) and really find their niche there.

My point is, I don't see a lot of fanart in the wallpaper section of the site, and I feel like that's kind of a missed opportunity. For a site with such a large pool of talented artists, and so many dedicated wallpaperers, there should be more crossover.

Maybe that would be a good subject for a Challenge? If there's interest, I would be happy to put that together.

Long story short, that's why I've been sizing my fanart up and posting it in the wallpapers section. It's a good thing to have variety, you know?

Inoue

Some more Bleach art, this time with Orihime Inoue.

I really like the colors here. Probably the best reason to draw this character is the fact that she has orange hair. I am a big fan of orange—and it just looks so lovely when it's surrounded by that nice dark teal color. Sometimes I'm so excited about the colors I'm planning to use that actually drawing the image seems like kind of a bore.

On the other hand, any excuse to paint clouds is a good excuse to paint clouds. Clouds are fun.

Leaf gnome!

So recently I've been participating in the Otakuboards Graphic Worm. It's an annual project put together by the folks on OB, and I think it's a pretty neat idea. I've never contributed before this year, but now that I've started I'm kind of hooked.

One reason that I never participated in the past is the style of the worm overall. I've looked at it in bygone years and been discouraged because it just seemed too busy. "Busy" kind of stresses me out! So I avoided participating, because I felt like my style of art wouldn't fit in.

Yeah.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I finally realised that I was an idiot—and not just an idiot, but a hypocritical one. (The worst kind.) I had fallen into the classic, whiny, "I don't like this so I'll just ignore it (or worse, complain about it!)" style of thinking that's so prevalent on the internet. I actually scold people for this all the time ("Otakuboards is boring now!" "People aren't active enough!" "No one starts any good threads!" Well start a thread and invite your friends, ya goofball!), and here I was doing the same thing. Whoops.

I mean, really. Come on, Sara! The only style requirement is matched the piece before yours. If you think the worm is too busy, use your piece to calm it the heck down!

So I did. And you know what? I've been having a great time.

Anyway, this is my latest contribution.

See it in context here! And if you'd like to participate (and you should try it!), you can sign up here. It's a lot of fun.

Wallpapers, too.

My original plan for Rukia here was to make a nice wallpaper. But when I finished drawing, I thought to myself, "Self, you should submit this as fanart as well!"

So I resized the image into something reasonable for fanart, and got ready to SaveForWeb. But! As I was previewing the saved image, I noticed that the highlights looked a little weird. "I can do better than that!" I thought, and set about fixing them.

Unfortunately, I goofed up, and accidentally exceeded the "undo" history limit. Which meant that Rukia was going to stay fanart-size small. On top of that, whenever I tried to save the .psd, I got an error!

Which meant that if I wanted to make a wallpaper, I had to a.) resize the canvas and redraw the background b.) before I closed the file.

So I did, but I have to admit that my heart wasn't really in it. I think they turned out alright, though—a proportionally larger background is probably better for a wallpaper, anyway.

The finished product(s):

Rukia

I've never seen Bleach before tonight, but I felt like doing some fanart, and it was the series that was recommended.