fchan

Advice Wasted On A Fandom

(Most of you out there are familiar with the Wear Sunscreen essay, written by Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune as a column in 1997. I decided it might be a good idea to convert it over to something a bit more useful in our world.)

Future artists of the Furry Fandom

Take Life Drawing.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, Life Drawing would be it. The long-term benefits of Life Drawing on your art has been proven by fans and artists alike, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own fandom experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your gift. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your gift until it has faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at artwork you have done and recall in a way you can't grasp how much potential you had and how fabulous your art could have been. It is not as good as you once imagined.

Don't worry about art theft. Know that worrying about art theft is about as effective as trying to paint canvas with crayola. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your mind, like the deadline blindsiding you a Friday evening you wanted to go out with your friends. Draw one thing every day you never tried before.

Sketch.

Don't ask to get work done before you pay. Don't put up with people who don't pay in full first.

Paint.

Don't waste your time on drama. Sometimes it targets you, sometimes it targets everyone else. The path of an artist is long, and in the end, you are only in competition with yourself. Remember the constructive criticism you receive, forget the insults. When you get that one down, show me how. Keep accurate income records. Pray the IRS doesn't want them.

Backgrounds.

Don't feel guilty if you have to sell out to drawing porn to make ends meet. The most interesting people I know had to sell out drawing porn at 22. Some of the most interesting 40-year olds I know buy it. Get plenty of rest. Be kind to your brushes. You'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe it'll sell, maybe it won't. Maybe it will sell prints, maybe it won't. Maybe you'll think you have gotten the best you can be at 40, maybe you will still be learning past your 75th birthday. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate your art either. Your choices are hit and miss. So are everyone else's.

Enjoy your media. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid to mix it or cross one to another. Multimedia is the best form of art you will ever learn.

Scan, even if you never post your art anywhere.

Read every critique, even if you don't agree with them.

Do not trace from porno magazines, it will only make your art look ugly.

Get to know the old guard. You never know when they will leave for good. Be nice to your peers. They are your best source of information and the people most likely to be able to help you with improving in the future.

Understand fans come and go, but a precious few become true friends. Understand that one is not defined by lifestyle, and the older you get, the more accepting of others who are different you will have to become.

Be a dealer at Anthrocon each year, for much money you can make there. Be a dealer at Further Confusion as well, but don't expect as much.

Accept certain inalienable truths. Drama will happen. Porn will sell. You, too will experience art theft. Someday you will fantasize that when you were just starting out, everything was reasonable, only good porn sold, and everyone respected copyright.

Respect copyright.

Don't expect anyone to be nice to you. Maybe you have a fanbase. Maybe you have a wealthy patron. But you never know when either will dry up.

Don't use non-archival materials or by the time it is two years old it will look like it is two-hundred. Be careful who you try to learn from and moreso those how to draw books. Their advice is tantamount to taking a bad drawing, writing a few words next to it, printing it en-masse, and selling it for more than it is worth.

But trust me on the Life Drawing.

Derivative ©2006 Miyagami Noriko


(Please note, the title comes from the name of the original news column which was headed "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young". It is in no way meant as an insult.)

Y'know...my complaint with this little essay, or whatever you want to call it, is the mindset that porn is somehow not art, that it is a lesser art, and that to sell it or draw it is 'selling out'...essentially, wasting talent (or so is the impression I get). It's like saying people who make porno movies only make them because they can't make -real- movies, and for the money. It's insulting to someone who ENJOYS drawing porn and would prefer to draw that, over some boring landscape or still life.

"Be a dealer at Anthrocon each year, for much money you can make there. Be a dealer at Further Confusion as well, but don't expect as much."

And that statement is hypocrisy to the earlier statement about 'selling out'. Drawing porn for the sole purpose of making money is being a sell out, but going to a con for the sole purpose of making money isn't?

Also, I know -tons- of artists who've never taken a life drawing class and can draw perfect anatomy, and sometimes even better than people who have taken the classes.

I'm going to take a guess here that the author of the article is a professional artist (or aspiring professional) and as such fails to realize MANY artists in the furry fandom draw furry art in their spare time as a hobby, not as a source of income. Why should they go spend the $500 or so to take a life drawing class for a hobby? It's like saying someone who collects antique cars should go take a mechanics class. It's relevant to what they're doing, but it's not a necessity for a hobby.

>>4

I'm sorry, but just because she's an owner of a 'furry eBay' does not make her some massiah regarding furry art. I've been to Furbid. I've seen GREAT art from obscure artists get passed over for the likes of art done by Ulario or other artists who very much lack quality (in regards to their art), simply because they're 'well known' in the furry community.

Who she's married to or whom she's friends with doesn't mean anything either. All it does mean is that she befriends people who uses her sites services. It'd be like the founder of eBay befriending all of his users and suddenly proclaiming he knows all there is to know about selling any item. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Also, I know lots of artists who don't use FurBid and who make damn good money on the side without following any of the 'advice' given in the article.

Somehow I feel this does a major disservice to the original speech, the "Wear Sunscreen" speech is so famous because it puts timeless advice into easy to remember and quite comforting words. Not to mention that everyone needs to hear that type of reassurance that "you're not the only one going through what's happening, but enjoy it while lasts".

How to draw and profit from furry porn isn't timeless or needed advice.

And who said anything about porn? there's lots of art to be made besides porn.

I... thought the article was a good joke.  Did I miss something here? O.o It wasn't serious was it?  I mean, it's a clearly stated parody.  Laughs for all yes?

>>3
I agree sir, but don't take it too seriously.  Pornography is an artform to be sure, but an underground one of sorts... or at least one associated with the low and unseemly.  Society's elite have decreed it so, and thus it is so, and so forth. ^_^ Society's elite also used to wear fish around their necks and butter their bread with their fingers, but as long as they control the invested media, they decide what is popular or not.  Heed not the words of yuppies.

>>6
Same person who wrote the article yes?  Excellent parody! ^_^ I saw one, once before, about professional wrestling, but I can't remember where. ^_^;

>>11 Yes, I am the same who wrote the article.

It is a parody, yes. But it is also the exact same advice I give to anyone who asks for any. I can also be often quoted as saying "One can never have to much life drawing". My personal opinion being that a minimum of three years should be able to give one a base with which to build off of. From there at least one refresher every four years should be enough, though more is better.

My feelings of the boundries of porn and art are known and best left to other discussions. The exact nature of the comments regarding porn are not meant to insult porn itself. Instead to comfort those who are in the machine. Not all of them do it because they like it. They do it because they have no other alternative. Many a good artist have been chewed up and eaten alive by that machine.
Consider that I had a choice between using a generic, such as porn, or using a specific, such as an individual. There are certain truths. Everyone experiences certain things. The choice was to remain generic, like I did and widen the base that can relate, or focus on something which runs the risk of insulting another. I chose the wider base.

But, like I said in the article itself. Drama will happen. No matter how you distill this thing we call furry, someone somewhere will demand their right to be insulted at your words. They must for it is inevitable. We are made up of to many who want it to be so for it not to happen.

>>1

Privacy, Time, Money, Giving up a social life. Based off alot of artists' have grown off with each of those, drawing and jacking off/fingering to shit in their room's alone, the ability to use time for honing and learning their trades, have never shoveled shit for cash and just plain gave up on a "REAL" social life.. well aside from chatting and posting on internet forums pretending to be something your not.

>>16 re:>>1 It does. It is just not direct. As was said in >>8, I am not the kind of person who gives you enough to see exactly what I am saying until you have put some effort into it as well.
re:>>5 There have been many rumours in the past about what I do and do not do. I do not befriend people because they use my systems. I do not befriend them because I find their art to be nice. I do not befriend them because they have something to offer me in return. I befriend people who I have common grounds with. Who I can chat with openly. No other reason.
re:>>15 Everyone starts somewhere. Many artists have social lives. Many of them have them, beleive it or not, outside of the fandom. A great deal of us do not live, breathe, and exist only for the furry community. It is a part of our lives, yes. But, it is not the all encompassing overwhelming defining factor we live for.

In a short time I will be releasing an explanation as to what life drawing teaches. It teaches far more than just how to draw a nude person. Until then, I will be at least attempting to enjoy my next few days an perhaps lunch at the club.

>>17
 Im not saying they live, breathe, bleed furry fandom or its some huge life consuming thing, im just saying a great deal have had a horrible experience in school or whatever and are turning to something they can relate with others creating some huge internet community, I mean ive met about 10 furries around my area, most of them all the same, backpack wearing, sweater tied around the waist, albino pale skinned or wearing a tail.

Come on.. going to the mall by yourself or with your parents and shopping at spensers isnt having a social life.

>>20
Not really, my band was playing at a show not to long ago and met a few furries I had no idea were furries there. Infact I meet most of the furries I know through concerts and shit. Not the Net. Infucking fact all my bandmates are furry.

>>22
Good point.  Here it is.

http://internettrash.com/users/chainbreak/schmsp.htm