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Joined: Jun 13, 2002 Posts: 49 Location: Bogotá, Colombia
Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:54 am Post subject: Re: Homogenization - Round Table
By the way I dont think poser limits the imagination, is like everybody say is a tool, you can use different props textures to built a character that already exists like Superman or Batman but is your own version, samething with comic artists they do their own version of a classic character.
But also you can create your own characters and stories you can check here that many people has incredible characters and props.
What can I add?.....Serenity has made my personal point and done it more consisely. Thus, my gridiron determination, to model in Bryce. I have unlimited creativity and originality when modeling in this software. nearly everthing I have made with B5.5, are my original models. Textures as well and actually, few Brycers can reproduce them. _________________
Yojimbo speaks sense, mostly. Concentrating on my limited field of comics, do pencil, ink and paper and printing technology homogenise comics? Obviously. Does access to other artists' work homogenise by influence? Yes, obviously. Would anything be where it is now if people hadn't taken what somebody else had found worked as a starting point? No. Obviously.
I learn from what others have achieved and exhibited here, and then I try to do my own thing on top of that. Some people here seem to like it and think some of it's good (not necessarily the same thing), but if they didn't, I'd still be doing it. Just posting less of it.
The thing is, I don't think there's anyone here arguing much that what we do is automatically inferior. Perhaps we could do with some of that, to see what their arguments and answers would be instead of us guessing them. And then find out whether we care much.
It might be art, it might not be art. It's still what I'm doing.
IMP. _________________ RIVER: skin on the outside. First chapter FREE from www.ianmpalmer.com
Oh, the other thing. I think posting WIPs is still worthwhile. I've just seen one up in the preview box by Aremis. It's not one of his (or her) best, but there's a certain effect going on there which is interesting and makes the picture worth looking at. These aren't the renders we're asked to pay for.
I've started selling my work, here and at the other communities. I've got more and different work on the way, and work with and by others I'll be selling too. Some of it looks more like comics than Poser, some the reverse; some is more for the girls, some more for the boys. These communities are only a small and very particular part of the general marketplace, but it will be interesting to see what people DO like enough to pay for (without going the Renderotica route and doing porn).
IMP. _________________ RIVER: skin on the outside. First chapter FREE from www.ianmpalmer.com
True Yojimbo, the artistic merit of such works wasn't the original topic of conversation. But you then drift onto that precise topic when you say that there are "good" and "bad" pictures and state what you think people should or shouldn't be posting. There's a value system inherent in that line of reasoning, which implies merit. And if that merit isn't artistic, what other measuring system is being employed?
That aside, you're right about whether I'd want to pay for some pics I've made myself. Well, probably not if the truth be told. But I don't ask others to pay for them either, and no-one also asks me to pay to see what they've put in the galleries. I probably wouldn't unless there was an exceptional piece that struck a chord with me. That doesn't mean I don't want to see them though; good, bad, beginner, experienced, WIP, original, homogenous. I don't go much for NVIATWAS pictures myself, but others do. The fact that many of them are homogenous seems irrelevent to the viewers, judging by the fan responses. So to steer back in that direction, I'd say that Poser et al clearly can lead to homogenized work, but perhaps it doesn't matter anyway.
Poser, despite the lazy or the lack talent of some of its users, is as storytellers medium, should be seen not as a drawing tool so much, for illustrating, but as a digital stop motion animation type tool, others can design characters and animators can animate them and tell stories with them. It’s a form of puppetry rather than freehand art. Poser actually reminds me of a movie studio in miniature with props, stages, scenery, what you do with it, as others have said, depends on levels of creativity, Orson Welles didn’t design the sets etc or even shoot the movie himself—if you have a script worked out, say, you stand a better chance of telling a better story, filmmakers depends on scripts, a tool for more imaginative play during actual filming, they don’t say it limits their creativity to work out a script or even a story board for that matter, it's not the end all or be all, however—none of these take away the creativity, if you want the challenges of being a traditional illustrator that’s fine too, we need you guys, Poser offers it own challenges. The great thing is that Poser artists will need the imaginative powers of traditional artists who gifts have blessed us so much already.
You might not have the gift to design any of the characters or props and figures but you can tell stories, create movies and comics with them—in a sense it offers opportunities for visual storytelling for talented writers mostly, who can’t afford to get illustrators to work with them, so many comic illustrators now want to do both the writing and drawing which is not easy—we know that stories can be told on a bare Ancient Greek–like stage with a few mask or on lavishly furnished film sets; as was mentioned about Jack Kirby, yes, in many ways he’s limited in some respects, he wasn't interested in the fine artists, but he’s a great visual storyteller, his scripts could’ve been better, for sure, but certain issues stand out—sometimes I think he created modern special effects before its time, just on paper—stories can be told with hand puppets and still be creative—or even films without special effects, look at Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf, a horror film without any of the clichés of horror, told basically with real sets and a few lighting tricks, the performances, the actors, told the story well, I think---the tradition of shooting on location is a testament to the fact that the studio arts, though more creative, more controlled, than location shooting, did not limit creativity—Poser is a real blessing and freedom to me, a form of the studio controlled environment actually; I now have the freedom to create basically my own films and comics.
As a reader and student of the visual artist, the one who ought to know their effects on the general public, being of that public, more so than the artists, I believe that what makes a picture interesting to the viewer, myself, not necessarily the artist, is the narrative it conveys, symbolic or not, the general public, not educated in the complexities of artistic creation, find pictures interesting if they communicate an idea and intrigues with a dramatic story—artists often have other concerns, ambitions, the originality of their conceptions, the beauty of their lines, the fulfillment of what was felt or dreamt in the mind’s eye—this ironically is why you can have, say, Harvey Peker’s comics and Love and Rockets both selling well, one consists of more polished work (Love…) while Pekar’s comics were often done by cartoonists whose styles were cruder in apprearance than Jaime Hernandez's, Crumb and others—each offers something different, but both styles have draw backs, the smoother, cleaner style ironically, reads too quickly and leaves little to the imagination, the cleaner the style the more like hieroglyphs it is, but the story better be compelling or it's all surface and no depth—the cruder style is less pleasing in some ways and definitely relies on the power of the story to make up for weaknesses in draftmanship.
I can enjoy both styles if the stories are appealing—I think it is the same problem, as a writer, why I’m disappointed by much online and alternative comics books, I see a lot of beautiful arts but the stories don’t interest me because alas, many artists cannot tell stories except as fans of existing materials, too many cliches, imitations, and many don’t understand how plot works. I’ve seen a crude stick figure comic that was very compelling as narrative—it really doesn’t matter what the thing looks like in terms of narrative. Peanuts isn't really much without the short but very importants bits of dialogue, it wouldn't work without the dialogue.
I certainly wouldn’t want AI machines to take over the writing of my stories so I understand the problem natural artist face seeing the proliferation of these technologies to fake and forge things.
Yes, it’s definitely the camera’s fault. One day CGI may put live actors out of business. The Talkies destroyed the silent film era and its artistic style, its unique storytelling flow—actors my one day be only voice actors—I think these are the changes that are unwanted, yet the market place, technology, the freedom of individual creators, now in control of a process like this may take us that way, nostalgic or not for past methods and tools. Still there may be room for both artificiality and naturalness. Poser artists who are not natural will depend very much, not only on the generosity of the Poser community but the powerful imagination of modelers and designers who work freehand and who share with the rest of us untalented puppeteers their gifts. It's very important to acknowledge this in our own work. For without them etc...
We should consider ourselves puppeteers bringing to life the creations of true artists in that sense. Ours is the narrative game rather than how the thing was created. We don’t’ have to worry about that. Poser might be better suited for animation than comics, some Poser suffers from the same problems that photonovels suffer from or it could be a matter of design. But the more real a poser image looks, the more one wants it to move. So it might be better if it illustrated in some traditonal manner.
Many artists had to compromise with the camera as it became ubiquitous, people preferred photos of themselves instead of painted portraits, even photographs of the corpses of their beloved; using photographic references, for magazine cover illustrations for the pulp and book covers etc. for the slicks, for that polished look. Rockwell, even Kirby and other natural cartoonists had to use references, morgue files, some more often than others, or for specific objects, even if the end result was an imaginative impression of a tank rather than real tank, they still needed to see or know what a tank looked like so art imitates life in any case. What does the tank do is the question, look pretty or participate in a story. The tank could be ugly or pretty, but what does it do in the story. If it’s just a tank for tank sake it could be a photorealistic painted tank, a photograph, fantasy tank but it won’t participate in a story if It’s just a single symbolic image.
But referencing is indeed a controversial issue among traditional freehand artists, some boast of not using any, will very gifted Poser artists be rejected by those who see it as artificial, fake—I read something in the Comic Journal where Jaime Hernandez (of Love and Rockets fame) says he doesn’t look at a photographic reference when drawing, so I wondered, does he look at it before starting to draw, is that a clever way of side stepping the issue. Some of this is an obsession with the geniuses of old, like Kirby himself, who apparently had this facility to look at something and convey his imaginative sense of it without copying it exactly. Kirby himself was rejected by magazine art editors because they thought he wasn't very polished in style. Eisner seems to resent cartoonist who rely on referencing.
In a way Poser and further developments in this area will give the individual creator God like powers—who knows maybe one day, the process will be so automated, the figures will be animated at the push of a button after one puts in certain instructions. Right now, it feels more like a virtual form of puppet theater, claymation but you use a mouse instead of your hands to bend and so on. Nobody says the people who do the bending are not creative if they’re using characters designed by someone else.
I’ve studied the history of the camera obscura, how it lead to the camera, how magicians, traditional artists, used it and developed it to create theatrical works. All of them wanted to improve the verisimilitude of shows and performances, ghosts for example could be made more real etc. Portrait painters were effected too by the camera, some adopted it, experimented with, and some rejected it and hated its intrusion on their world. Yes, Walt Disney’s animators disliked the rotoscope and yet had to use it because Disney wanted more verisimilitude—going as far as creating solid artificial puppets of Pinocchio and Bambi, not just paper models sheets, taking those and making 3d dimensional sculpture of those designs, as well as bringing in animals and models, retraining and hiring more realistic illustrators, and for some fans losing the originality of his earlier rubber hose animation style which depended on the imagination more—it is ironic that the creator of the early version of Poser is the grandson of Dave Fleischer or was that Max. I was amazed to read his interview at Renderosity. They invented the rotoscope and used it creatively, the Superman’s for example and yet some it is resented by and can used badly or obviously.
Jack Kirby in Eisner’s Shop Talk said he learned to draw by imitating his favorite cartoonists, taking a hand from this one, something else from another--Kirby’s phenomenal memory made this easy of course, they said he could start at one end of the board and thing just appeared. He worked hard though, long hours. But he used references when he had to.
Narrative is our art not the originality of our puppets.
Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:49 am Post subject: Re: Homogenization - Round Table
StreetandSmith: Yes; a form of puppetry or animation, either of which adds to the art form/medium, not taking away from it.
Your point is well taken, by me anyways.
Poser is a tool to aid in creating, a bigger picture, so to speak.
Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 3:43 pm Post subject: Re: Homogenization - Round Table
You're not breaking creativity and implementation into two seperate items.
Working on paper or screen brings limits to implementation, but doesn't limit the creative boundaries you set in a particular project.
There's a lot of things poser/bryce can't do. There's a lot of things nearly impossible to pull off in ink (except if you're Bernie Wrightson). I generally pick the medium based on the project.
For instance- By the Numbers- our current comic strip- has to be poser/bryce based for a variety of reasons. The magick stuff doesn't translate well to ink, and this is a story of dueling wizards. One of the jobs on my board right now is "Amity Steinway and the Deep Earth"- sort of a journey to the center of the earth story. If I did it in 3D, you'd see a largely black panel. Traditional comic art is needed to tell this story.
The message should dictate the medium.
Very interesting, y'all. I was particularly struck by the pros/cons of using existing Michaels and Vickies as they either a) all looked alike) or b) required mastery of techniques that, at least in my mind, take away from the focus of what is being created.
Sure you can morph/warp mike and Vickie so that they don't resemble the factory characters. But you spend MUCH time refining the character that you DO want... maybe even sometimes having to go WAY outside clay-like morphing and magnets to external programs (Lightwave, 3ds, etc.) to create your own morphs.
But... the work is just beginning! Now on to photoshop to paint the texture your imagination shouts at you....so you must not only be able to manipulate clay, but also an electronic paintbrush. And then master the arcane if you have to re-map the texture onto the mesh....
That's just the beginning. Add what all the art schools teach about - lighting.... but with a sadistic twist. How do you REALLY make fake/digital lighting look like the real thing (although it's getting better). Unless you are prepared to sleep between renders......
And of course there's composition... and.... well the list keeps going on and on and on and on.....
Quite different than awaking with this magical image in your head and only having to put pen/pencil/brush/mouse/ to paper/canvas/mousepad/tablet and translate DIRECTLY into the art piece you envisioned (with suitable changes along the way as reality faces the dreamworld square on).
In SUMMARY (whew, thought I'd never get here, right?) the PROCESS of creating art in Poser is a much more arduous, technically wide, and time consuming thing than the classical way of doing things. It's easier to get lost along the road, as more things can go absolutely wrong.
Yet.... if somehow that vision is strong enough, it is certainly possible, as we have seen often enough from the work of masters.
And of course, those hand-drawing/painting - challenged people like myself would otherwise never be able to express ourselves visually with any hope of creating more than cave drawings.....
Joined: Sep 19, 2001 Posts: 1 Location: El Cajon, Ca
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 10:08 am Post subject:
Personally I look at using Poser as providing both a convenient means of creating and as a source of creative ideas. Just browsing through the various galleries one can almost feel the creative energy, each person is putting something into their images which is unique. I do believe that poser and other programs offer a means for people to dabble in the arts at a reasonable price. What I have learned using poser has been as much from the help of the online artists as from any manual. Sometimes new products demand that a certain image be set up around them, sometimes the ideas come from a free flow conversation with programs.
The steps that one has to take to learn to take advantage of the 3d or digital art techniques have forced me to learn more about photography, digital image manipulation, technical aspects of color, or of lighting....what I understand now of my camera "manual" is enhanced and enhances what I can understand in terms of the scene set up.
I agree with the thought that absent poser I would not have explored so many different aspects of creative expression....
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:22 pm Post subject: Re: Homogenization - Round Table
I wouldn't go quite as far as bmoritz, because the thing about rolling out of bed and just drawing supposes that you've spent the years practising that you'd need to.
When I use Poser, I work toward exactly the same visual result as when I draw by hand: comparison of my Poser work and my drawn work done before Poser even existed (so before there was any possibility of my being influenced by Poser) proves that. It's just that with Poser I get there a lot quicker. When I had to draw by hand, I never had time to complete a comic; now, I make comics.
IMP. _________________ RIVER: skin on the outside. First chapter FREE from www.ianmpalmer.com
If it pleases you, why give a sh*t what someone else calls it or deems it?
Unless perhaps you are some lame fuc* who aspires to be something instead of following your spirit.
There's too much wasted energy in life put upon trying to live up to someone else's definition of 'authentic' when better energy could be spent upon pleasing oneself and not giving a sh*t if others think it's "art"
Why can't one take up Poser for the sheer pleasure of it?
Why does it have to live up to someone's idea of authenticity?
Why can't you produce something that gives you goose bumps and share it with others without having to worry about living up to some fake Fuc*'s litmus test?
Don't you all listen to music that you enjoy instead of listening to music that someone else says is 'real music' ?
Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 7:49 am Post subject: Re: Homogenization - Round Table
Have to agree with Finister on this one- you don't need to justify what you do to anyone, even yourself.
Only problem is that when you start putting your work into the public domain, there'll always be some effort by others to judge it or categorise it, or to ask you for that justification in one way or another. In a lot of cases, these and other galleries are designed to facilitate feedback. I suppose people's reasons for doing what they do have a bearing on how much notice they take of other's opinions.
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