Art and Big Bang

[lunabee34]

So as I'm wending my way through the last of the SPN Big Bang offerings from this year, something struck me.

Are the art and the fic treated as separate entities? I never click on the art posts (well except for that steampunk story last year because OMG! so freaking cool); I look at the art as it's integrated into the story, but that's pretty much it. However, I know that there are art communities just like there are fic communities and lots of people who interact with fandom in primarily that way which leads me to believe that people less lame than me *are* clicking on the art posts. So I'm wondering, does the art post ever get a ton of comments while not so much the fic?

And what happens when the story is crap but the art is good? Does the merit of the story predict the response to the art?

You artists on the flist--how do you make art for a story you think is crap? Or that you wish heartily you'd gotten the change to beta? LOL Is it along the lines of writing for a ficathon prompt that you would never in a million years have chosen and that sort of makes your eyes want to bleed a little?

Now I am all interested in the visual art side of fandom. I was late to the "icons are cool" portion of fandom and super late to vids given that this is the first year we weren't suffering with dialup and I'm starting to realize there is yet another amazing aspect of fandom that I haven't yet explored.

Comments

[tabaqui]

I look at the art, but to be honest.....a lot of the art i see is just not all that *good*, and i have a hard time coming up with something to say if i don't care for the art.

Some is awesome, it's true, but a lot is just...not to my taste. So i do click and look, but i only comment if i *really* liked it, and sometimes i feel bad 'cause a fic is *really really* good and the art is only so so.

Maybe i'm just spoiled, having been married to an awesome artist for so many years, and surrounded by artists all the time....

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I guess that's the inverse of what I was thinking, but now that you mention it, I have seen a lot of art I don't care for as well. How do you say, "thank you for drawing these stick figures; they're super awesome and stick like?" LOL

I think that being around talented people does spoil you. All my friends are good writers and it makes it that much harder for me to just jump balls out into fic because so much of it is horrible.

[tabaqui]

Yeah, that's the problem. I have a hard time articulating what i *like* about visual stuff, anyway - art is bad, vids are *impossible* - but when it's really something that's, yeah, equivalent to stick figures, i just don't know *what* i'd say. So i say nothing. Heh.

Yes, i'm a coward! But i hate hurting people's feelings.

*you're not a horrible writer, you goober*
*pokes you*

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

*you're not a horrible writer*

Well, no. Of course not. It is I, Lorraine. LOL I just meant, I can't read as freely as a lot of people I know in fandom because too much of the fic I encounter makes me want to bleach my brain. :)

I also have a hard time saying anything articulate about art. It's a vocabulary with which I am almost wholly unfamiliar. I can go, "Fire bad. Tree pretty," and that's about it. *snort*

[tabaqui]

Heeeeeee.
Oh gods, yes. Some stuff just....the wince is *painful*, it's so hard.

I kinda-sorta can articulate 2-d art likes and dislikes, but vids are just...omg. I *cannot*. It's so frustrating. And i *love* a good vid. A lot of what i write comes into my brain *like* a vid, little bits of images and motion and such and i just wish i could say what makes some vids make me *stare* and fall in love.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Somebody should (and probably already has) write a post about what the different techniques and themes in vids are and how to talk about them. Vids for Dummies. I would read the shit out of that.

I remember some of Art Appreciation and several of my friends are artists, so I know a little there, but not nearly enough.

[tabaqui]

Possibly it would help. But i've never been good at the academic approach to things, heh.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely into the academical approach to well, everything, but I was thinking along the lines of something waaaaaay more accessible like: this is called a high angle shot and we use it to make the character seem all woobified and alone; when the screen circles down in on itself, that's called an iris, and it seems old timey. *g*. Like that.

[tabaqui]

Ah ha ha. I think.....i would have a lot of trouble just *remembering*. I am so lame. Heh.

So far, i limp by on squee and incoherent flailing. :)

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

It's a good look on you.

[tabaqui]

*snickers madly*

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

And what happens when the story is crap but the art is good? Does the merit of the story predict the response to the art?

Simply said, if the story is crap, it's still crap. The art may be spectacular, but the story is rubbish. Why is there even a debate about this?

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Heeee.

I'm just wondering if the artist's feedback depends on the merits of the story or if people respond to the art post independently of the story. My guess would be that they don't and that a crap story with a spectacular artist gets fewer responses to the artist than a phenomenal story with a mediocre artist.

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

Words matter. They matter more than art, though art can provide visual description. Nothing, nothing in the world is the same as the right words, at the right time, in the right context. Pictures can't ever get quite get there.

[ariadne83]

So I take it you haven't heard of comms like art_word, where the picture is an integral part of the story?

Sorry, I don't mean to jump on you but I know a lot of people who work just as hard on their art as I do on my writing. They're two completely different skill sets; I couldn't draw to save myself.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I have heard of that comm; I think I saw it linked to the newsletter or something, but I didn't understand quite what was going on. Tell me more. *bats eyelashes*

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to demean art - I admire artists and can barely manage a stick figure myself - but Lorraine started from the point of the Big Bang, where the artwork is an adjunct to the fic, meant to enhance rather than replace. Without the words, there would be no art, in that case.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I get where you're coming from. I'm not really all that familiar with Big Bang; I've only read the stories, never the rules or anything, but it makes sense that in that situation, the art is a corollary to the fic.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree with you that words matter and I think that I am probably drawn to them much more than visual images. After all, I'm one of those rare ducks that doesn't make pictures in her head when she's reading. But I don't think that words matter more than art; I think art can be incredibly moving and arresting and propelling, just like words. I think they're just two different genres--like music and poetry--each with the power to move.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I would think that being an illustrator for bad fanfic is much easier than being an illustrator for bad profic!--because no matter how bad the story is, you can draw Sheppard, or Daniel Jackson, or Sam Winchester, who presumably you enjoy looking at if you're in the fandom.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I think it would too. There's a set of images that you can work with already and manipulate in unexpected ways.

And your icon is perfect, naturally. :)