I'm making this post to address two topics. The first is a rumor that I didn't draw the linearts for my most recent pictures. I don't have much to say about this, other than, well, false. I have absolutely no idea where this came from, but apparently the fact that I've been working in essentially the same style for around 4 years now isn't convincing enough, and now that there are comparisons with another artist's work my pictures aren't mine. If you are going to make any lineart comparisons, compare them to the linearts of my old works. Just because I've tried realism doesn't mean it's the only thing I do. Obviously not, I have done like 4 actual realism pictures, ever.

That segways nicely into my next point. The second thing I'd like to address is people telling me that I used to be talented and that I showed potential or something when I worked on realism for a little while. I'm not sure what it is about "realism" that impresses people, but it doesn't make sense to me at all. Maybe some realism works take more time than anime works, but it's not like I was any better when I was drawing in realism than I am now. Those pictures show the same anatomical mistakes that are characteristic of my art, and the facial expressions are all the same and blank.

My goal isn't to impress anyone with my artwork. I've been drawing for a long time now, but it's always been something I do for fun, on the side. I've explained this before, but I'm not aiming for a career in art. My aspirations lie elsewhere. That's not to say that I don't want to be good at drawing, or that I don't want to improve myself. And I'm fairly sure that I have improved technically, fairly significantly in fact, within the past year or so. You are entitled to your opinion about my artwork, about which were my best pieces, about whether I've improved or regressed, and whether I suck or not. I'm not here to defend my artwork, I know it has it's share of issues. But whether it's bad or not, it's still mine. I'd like to improve, but that doesn't mean I'm going to change drawing styles to please anyone. There's potential to be good in any style, I don't think there's any reason to blame my style for problems in my artwork.

I don't really think this is going anywhere, but I just wanted to leave a response since I had a few minutes available.

By the way, as a sidenote, if you are offended by the fact that I haven't responded to your comments, I apoligize. I honestly don't have time, I'm taking 18 credits this semester+20 hours of lab research+tutoring for a class, so I have very limited time to be online. I leave my online status visible so if you are extremely bored you can watch it and see how ill-frequently I sign on. But I promise I at least am reading all the comments I receive, but if you are looking for a response you probably won't get one, and I'm sorry about that.

edit- just a quick edit, I wanted to mention that if you have critique for my artwork, I don't have any problems with hearing it, but there are certain things that I'm not particularly interested in changing. But certainly anatomical issues are something I'd love to sort out, so if you have any helpful advice that I can work on, let me know. Thanks.

I initially planned to ignore this issue of Otakon and just let things move forward, but it is becoming a problem of people spreading lies and rumors and not actually knowing what happened at the convention. Since I was actually there and this is all about me, I think it's only fair that I get to tell you what really happened.

First of all, there's a bit of confusion about the rules of artist's alley. Otakon's rules state that artist's are allowed to sign up for up to four tables, which is the number that I signed up for. There were several reports that I had 14, 16 or more tables, and that there were duplicates of all my prints being sold everywhere in the artist's alley. As a result, I was called out on Friday to speak with a lawyer at the convention since I was obviously not allowed to have more tables than my four. Several other artists including my girlfriend were mixed into the issue and also questioned, but the lawyer and the entire artist's alley staff went through everything we were selling on all the tables for several hours and determined that there were no duplicates, we were all separate artists and that none of what were doing was against the rules of the convention.

Now I understand that you may be thinking that 4 tables or 14 are all the same, and either way it was selfish and unfair for me to stop other artists from having a chance to sell. In reality, there were about 15 unused tables at the convention because they added several extra islands and many tables throughout the artist's alley hall, so even people who were not on the waitlist at all but tried to get tables at the convention itself were able to. In fact, the staff made it very clear that there were still tables available at the convention itself, and I actually have a friend that I was planning to share with who managed to get tables for herself at the convention so I know that what I'm saying is true. Also, there's a weird rumor that I tried to pay off people $200 for their tables, which makes no sense at all because I got my tables in the first registration wave and didn't need any more.

A third thing that I wanted to talk about is the fact that people keep saying that I have illegally signed up for extra tables at conventions in the past. The most frequent report I've seen is Sakuracon, which is extremely silly to me because I actually had just one table at that convention. It is very easy for new rumors to start to circulate once someone comes up with an accusation, and people just jump on the bandwagon, but I can assure you that I've stayed within the rules at the conventions that I've attended and only signed up for tables that I'm allowed to have. It's frustrating to me that people assume that anyone with a similar style is automatically me, especially when I feel that the styles are not actually that similar and if you took a minute to look at the pictures you'd realize it. I feel that my pictures are very easily distinguishable from those of others. In fact, people quite often complain that all my faces/pictures look exactly the same. So if you just take a second to look through my art and compare it to other artists with a similar style, you'll be able to notice differences that distinguish my pictures from theirs.

On the note of my pictures, I wanted to address one more point, which is the fact that people seem to love labeling my artwork as "mass produced shit shiny desu art" or the like. I'm not going to try to argue that my pictures are better than anyone else's. But don't tell me that I don't work damn hard on my work when you don't actually know. For three weeks before the convention, I was drawing for just under 16 hours a day. Not because I was trying to mass produce shit artwork, but because I wanted to finish new prints for the convention. Some people come to me at each convention and expect new artwork, and I love doing it. I spent over 20 hours each on my new pieces, some of them much more than that, because I care about my artwork and wanted it to be as good as it can be. I have my limitations, I know that there are many clear weaknesses in my artwork, but that doesn't mean that I don't try. Also, the term "dodge/burn art" that people are using to classify my pictures is amusing to me, considering that I exclusively use a simple round brush to paint. Dodge and burn tools give very distinct color combinations that are not visible in my pictures at all.

If you have any doubts about me as an artist or anything else, I'll be at AWA with one table, you can visit me there and I'll be glad to talk to you.

By the way, on a separate note, thanks so much to everyone who came to my table and supported me at Otakon, I loved meeting you all and you made the convention a lot of fun for me despite all the issues that happened

Hm, I'm a little confused still, but it seems that deviantart made some changes to the system already, but I'm not really sure what they are yet. Also, just to clarify, I did NOT say that photography and literature are not art, I said that they were replacing drawings completely on the front page. Plus, literature is STILL underrepresented under this new system, so it's not really being fair to anyone. But this change looks promising, maybe. If anyone has any info, let me know.

I don't care if this comes off sounding awful, but this new system on dA SUCKS ASS. So basically, I read through the whole schpeel, about how this new system is more fair to lesser known artists, but that's completely FALSE. This system is just a way of ensuring that artwork is kept completely off the front page, only to be replaced by tons of photography, literature, and DESKTOP SCREENSHOTS? Like seriously, WTF. Under this new system, there is nothing randomized, it's working under an algorithm that is based on the category of your pictures. What does this mean? That if you are an artist, you're screwed. If you are posting in the anime category for example, you're still competing against the popular artists in that category, so it doesn't help you at all. Not that it means anything, because those artists aren't getting on the front page either, so don't worry, it's not just you. Why? Because the "average number of favorites" in those categories are high, so they get ranked lower. I understand deviantart wanting to make literature get attention or something, but why at the expense of artists? For example, this picture [link] was on the front page with over 4000 favorites, obviously well liked, obviously a great picture, and then it disappeared from the front page completely the second the new system was implemented, only to be replaced by this [link] -----uh, WHAT? And it's not like the person who posted this screenshot was pleased about it either. I quote:

"Disabled the comments for now because I think it's just risible that my SCREENSHOT got onto the front screen of DeviantART. It's absurd and it makes me kind of sad because the rest of my drawings never got that much attention."

And what about the front page right now? 4 photos as the top 4 pictures. I thought the whole point of making it one per category before was to keep it varied. This is deviantART, not deviantphotography, but with the number of subcategories in photography, the average number of favorites in any one is going to be so low that photos are inevitably going to just completely demolish any hopes for aspiring new artists to become popular in any form on this website.

Now before you think that I'm just another popular artist complaining about the fact that I won't make the front page anymore, please understand that I don't really give a shit. I have over 35000 watchers, I know my pictures are going to be seen PLENTY, with or without this new change. But that's not the case for a lot of artists who were relying on getting into the popular section for a few hours to increase their exposure in hopes of eventually making the front page. Their pictures will never grace the first 20 pages of the popular section again under this new system. Those are the people who are really getting screwed over, and ironically, those are the people that this new system is supposedly helping.

Screw the algorithm, dA. Peace out.

EDIT: Please don't leave comments defending photography and literature as art forms, I said nothing against them in this journal. If you think I'm bashing them, please reread.

Happy New Year everyone

Turned 19 yesterday, was quite the big deal if I do say so myself. Pretty fun stuff.

Also, if you're interested, I did a few pictures for newspaper articles, they can be found on this website: [link]

Not in my usual style, but I thought I'd share nonetheless. I did a few others for the same doctor but they aren't on the website yet (you can check back in the future, they might be up later)