Assuming you're still here, you might be wondering where the hell I've been for the past couple of months. Allow me to explain.
Believe it or not, but I've actually been trying to write up a journal entry explaining my lack of activity here for the past month or so. This is probably attempt #5 or #6. Every time I try, I feel like it might come across as sounding a bit condescending to the deviantART community, but I think I've finally found a way to say what I mean without sounding like a total dick. Maybe only, like, 1/3 a dick. And, as always, if you're reading this, chances are I'm
not talking about you
To be perfectly honest with you,
I just don't like deviantART anymore. I don't feel like I resonate well with the community anymore, and I would wager that they don't resonate well with me, either. As I've gotten older, my taste in art has changed rather drastically (I mean, compare some of my older stuff with my newer stuff, you'll see it). However, it would seem deviantART, in the aggregate, has not matured at all. I feel increasingly like an old man amongst a sea of adolescents (which I would bet is the primary age group of this site anyway). The older I get and the more refined my sensibilities become, the more I cringe at a lot of the art here.
Let me tell you what I mean...
Back in the day (about a decade ago), when I joined this site, I was 16 years old, still in high school. I was into what you might expect a teenage geeky nerd to be into; anime, video games, comics, cartoons, etc., and that's what I drew mostly. And that's what everyone else drew, too, so I blended in fairly well with the rest of the site. As years passed, I got better and better at drawing these things, even learned to draw in different styles (which seemed to impress a lot of people). Then once I latched on to a certain popular craze at the time
namely Pony, my "popularity", for lack of a better word, sky-rocketed to heights I'd never experienced before in my life. Well, relatively speaking, anyway.
But after a while, I noticed things started to change...
At this peak, I thought what better time to launch one of my own creations, rather than relying on drawing other properties all the time? This is when I started trying to focus more on creating my own something-or-others, such as
Sir Dufius and the Knights of the Unnecessarily Trapezoid Table,
Stone Punks, etc. I thought surely that with all of this newfound attention that some of that would bleed over into my original stuff.
It didn't, of course...
And this is where I first started to realize something was amiss. People seemed to really like my other stuff, why didn't they seem to care for my original stuff just as much? After all, it came from the same person, so why?
So after a long while, well after completing my first episode of
Stone Punks, I figured I'd start doing what I used to do, namely fan art, to see if I could garner a little more attention once again. This was about a year and a half ago or so. This time, however, my "style" had shifted from the bland, generic semi-realistic anime-ish style it was before to an all out cartoony style, which
I thought people would enjoy because I enjoy it so much. I just assumed most everyone loved cartoons.
Boy was
I wrong!
But why, though? Why was it that, despite my efforts of improving my technique and skill, refining my tastes and sensibilities, and just letting loose and having fun, none of that seemed to pay off? Even latching on to the popular trend of the time (namely
Undertale) I could not garner nearly the amount of attention I got in the past. What was I doing wrong? For the longest time, I kept thinking it was my fault somehow, that I'm simply not nearly the artist I thought I was. But the more I really thought about it objectively, the more it didn't make any sense, until I began thinking...
"Maybe it
isn't just me?"
So I began really looking at
where I've been uploading most all of my artwork, namely deviantART and Newgrounds. With my more refined tastes, I looked at the artwork here and there, and found it much harder to find stuff I actually really liked, or thought was executed skillfully. I found so much stuff that was plagued with unnecessary busy details, or used every color of the rainbow in a gross medley of what ended up looking like unicorn vomit. Other stuff used colors so bright and jarring it almost literally hurts to look at. Some, the composition was so bad you couldn't tell what was even there without looking at it for a second. Even stuff that was supposed to be funny just came across as cringey or simply unfunny, some stuff not even having a proper punch line. Basically, what I'm saying is that perhaps I've been "casting pearls before swine", so to speak. Or, to put it a little nicer, casting artwork before those who find it unpalatable or who lack the capacity to appreciate it for whatever reason.
Now I'm not for a second implying that I'm some pinnacle of artistic integrity or anything (I mean, just
look at some of the stuff I draw), but I do think I've improved and refined enough to know what's decent and what's not. At least, as far as this community is concerned. And I'm not saying that everything here is bad, not at all. All I'm saying is that the vast majority of stuff here simply doesn't resonate with my sensibilities, which may explain why my stuff doesn't seem to resonate with the sensibilities of the rest of the community. This would also explain why my old stuff
to this day still get's all the attention where as (save for my animated stuff) my more recent stuff is often completely overlooked and under-appreciated.
It would seem to me that deviantART is primarily a place for younger, beginner artists to come together to make communities with other younger, beginner artists, to display their artwork to. And I don't mean that in a disparaging way, not at all. A platform like this is absolutely necessary for one to develop as an artist. But what if you develop beyond the beginner level? Should you still stick around? In a teaching capacity, perhaps, but for any other reason just feels awkward to me, like a college student still hanging out with high schoolers or something.
In essence, what I'm trying to say is that
I feel like I've outgrown deviantART. I don't feel like I fit in with the vast majority of the community here, and I'm sure they feel the same about me and my art, so why stick around? So from this point on,
deviantART is no longer my Internet home as it's been for over a decade now. I'm moving on to other platforms, starting with
Tumblr. I've noticed a lot of former dA artists moving there, makes me wonder if I should follow suite (and also if they came to the same conclusion I did). But if you're not willing to follow me wherever I may go, fret not, for
I'll still upload stuff here, just not everything and not as often. I'm not saying I'm giving up my deviantART account entirely, just not making it my main place anymore.
Also,
I've decided never to announce what projects I'm working on ever again. I feel like it'd be better for you and me both if I just keep my mouth shut until I actually have something for you to see. That way, you'll be pleasantly surprised no matter what I do, and I won't have to feel guilty not delivering on something I said I would do but never got around to doing it. It's a win-win. Now I might drop little hints and clues here and there, or just let you know what I'm in the mood for, but as far as announcing some big project or anything, that habit's a relic of the past from this point onward,
I hope.
Whew! Glad to finally get all that off my chest. Now then, ONWARD TO DOING STUFF!!
Oh, and don't forget to follow me on
Tumblr if you wish to continue following my doings and things.
TL;DR Version- I don't get deviantART anymore, and deviantART doesn't seem to get me, either, so why am I still here? Moving to other platforms, starting with Tumblr. Also, I'm not announcing projects anymore, for your sake as well as mine.