AuthorTopic: Winning at pixel art  (Read 13180 times)

Offline lachrymose

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Re: Winning at pixel art

Reply #20 on: March 25, 2015, 07:50:30 pm
Takes too much energy worry about whether someone else is better than me.

Unless we are running from a bear. Then I'd be worried as to whether or not they are a better runner than I am.

Offline Helm

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Re: Winning at pixel art

Reply #21 on: March 25, 2015, 08:45:15 pm
I don't know, re: music composition communities, I've never been as public with that as I've been with visual arts and I'm not looking to change that. Music production seems like something where more than one head would help, though.

Offline Probo

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Re: Winning at pixel art

Reply #22 on: March 25, 2015, 09:58:26 pm
All that said, I don't think there's any merit to try to advise anybody that they should try to be 'more like this' and not like how they are, as I didn't make any conscious choice to be wired this way.

One of the great things about humans is our malleability. We can change most of our behaviour, so if a persons behaviour is being detrimental to their own best interests then advice to change is merited i'd say. Also just because you developed a behaviour unconsciously, doesnt mean that you should say 'thats just the way i'm wired' and not try to change, if youre having a problem.

Offline cels

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Re: Winning at pixel art

Reply #23 on: March 25, 2015, 10:13:20 pm
@ PixelPileDriver: "Attempt to balance the rest of your life.
And then it will be easier to place importance on each part of it."

That was really well put. In general, of course, not just in regards to sports, exercise or isolation. And as I asked Cyangmou, do you personally have the same mindset that you're advocating? Also, what do you mean that bad competition can be healthy?

@ Joe: This is something I often wonder about when I see athletes. Now, athletes are different from artists. Most sports are in fact a zero sum game, you can't have multiple winners. Never the less, you can say there is some competition among artists as well, so maybe a comparison can be somewhat useful. Some athletes seem to be driven more by external goals than others. It's almost like they don't enjoy their sport at all, unless they're the best. And while we teach our children that internal motivation is what really drives people to excellence, I'm not sure if that's strictly true.

Now, I only follow one sport, and that's MMA. If you look at the greatest fighters of all time, one name that inevitably is considered as a candidate for the greatest is GSP, Georges St Pierre. He left the sport while he was the champion for several reasons, but one reason was because he was so consumed by the pursuit of excellence that it basically made him unhappy. He wasn't able to relax and appreciate his accomplishments as much as he would have wanted. He trained himself to exhaustion because he was constantly feeling inadequate. But there's no denying that his extreme work ethic helped him be perhaps the greatest fighter of all time. You can say "Perhaps he could have been the greatest of all time even without putting that extreme pressure on himself". And that may be right. But it may also be wrong. Maybe torturing himself was the reason he made it that far.

I'm playing devil's advocate here. I don't intend to torture myself to perfection. I rack disciprine.

@Probo: Oh, kudos isn't my main goal at all. Otherwise I would only be pixelling Super Mario clones, RPG items, and chibi / anime characters, or whatever else gets the most attention in the pixel art community. So I'm definitely trying to pixel the stuff I like and follow my own dreams. But I also have this competitive focus that comes along with it.
How about you? How do you approach pixel art, or art in general, in terms of competition and rewards?

@Friend: Very interesting statistic about "kudos-tracking", if true.

@Kasumi: How can you expect to reach people and hear random people talk about your art, if you don't even publish your best work? And could you tell me what the game is, or PM it to me? :)

@Helm: Do you mean that you look to influence and inspire people in a profound manner? In other words, are you talking about art that carries a certain depth and touches people more deeply than, say, a bunch of 16x16 pixel RPG icons? Or is private kindness just an arbitrary metric you've set for yourself, without any consideration in regards to whether the art is profound or banale? I don't mean to sound critical, I'm just not sure I understand you correctly.

@ Friend:
" if we go back a little more than a decade ago before the world of likes and statuses, what else would have inspired an artist to continue, or even to create? money or fame does not inspire what i would consider an artist.  i think this new world has messed up some things, such as skewing how we view self worth based on number of llikes etc."
I think you have to go back centuries or millennia if you want to remove this element. Technology has made it a lot easier to track and measure, but the principle is older than that. Of course, the pursuit of art in the modern sense of the word isn't something mankind has done forever, perhaps, so it's hard to discuss what is 'natural' and what is 'new'. Even if you read Plato's dialogues, you'll read about famous artists in Ancient Greece. I imagine fame was an important factor, even when it was harder to measure in numbers.

Jerry Seinfeld had some nice jokes about popularity, and the significance of the blinking light on the tape recorder receiving messages from his phone. "It's important for us to be liked by a large group of people we don't really care for", I believe he said. I always found that kind of funny, and true.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2015, 10:20:20 pm by cels »

Offline Kasumi

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Re: Winning at pixel art

Reply #24 on: March 25, 2015, 10:25:22 pm
@cels: Like I said, I draw in restaurants. It's public,  people talk to me about it. That's enough for me. My thinking would likely be similar to Helm's if I did post more.

I wonder if the PM request is a test.  ??? ;) But whatever, sure. Spoiler: It doesn't look like I've been working on it for six years, but there's a reason for that.
I make actual NES games. Thus, I'm the unofficial forum dealer of too much information about the NES

Offline Probo

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Re: Winning at pixel art

Reply #25 on: March 25, 2015, 11:08:32 pm
@Probo: Oh, kudos isn't my main goal at all. Otherwise I would only be pixelling Super Mario clones, RPG items, and chibi / anime characters, or whatever else gets the most attention in the pixel art community. So I'm definitely trying to pixel the stuff I like and follow my own dreams. But I also have this competitive focus that comes along with it.
How about you? How do you approach pixel art, or art in general, in terms of competition and rewards?

maybe not the main goal then, but definitely it shouldn't be such a driving force. Personally i just want to pixel and get better. i want a career making my own games so that maybe gives me a practical attitude. Competition-wise.. you mean like other pixel artists right? when i first started looking at sites like this i found myself jealous of people's skill and deflated about my own. but i trained myself not to feel that way and now its all good! I love seeing other people's art, it gives me inspiration to get better and ideas about whats possible. If i do show someone my art, of course i want them to like it, but its not required. You learn more from your mistakes than your successes. If its met my own barometer for quality in enough areas i will still be somewhat satisfied. although never completely, there's always plenty to improve!

Offline RAV

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Re: Winning at pixel art

Reply #26 on: March 26, 2015, 06:25:42 am
I like that creativity provides identity, not only for yourself but for the group of people you're sharing it with. It gives opportunity to interact with others on a matter that feels more meaningful and intimate. Your thing is your home. You're a host. Sometimes people come over to party. They need it. you need it. At its best it looks like a Demo Party. Crowd goes wild, because that's what everyone's here for. I sometimes also like to imagine an audience, their naive eyes, what they'd feel like, to find excitement in my work.

Offline Helm

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Re: Winning at pixel art

Reply #27 on: March 26, 2015, 07:56:04 am
Quote
@Helm: Do you mean that you look to influence and inspire people in a profound manner? In other words, are you talking about art that carries a certain depth and touches people more deeply than, say, a bunch of 16x16 pixel RPG icons? Or is private kindness just an arbitrary metric you've set for yourself, without any consideration in regards to whether the art is profound or banale? I don't mean to sound critical, I'm just not sure I understand you correctly.

I mean with something more than 16x16 rpg sprites, but perhaps even a huge lot of 16x16 sprites, arranged in a certain manner can be inspiring as well (they call them video - games I think). It's just about doing what you're doing long enough, getting to the core of what it means and trying to communicate it that will get to people I think, aside from subject matter.

Offline RAV

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Re: Winning at pixel art

Reply #28 on: March 26, 2015, 08:16:53 am
But I just must create, as the sun must shine and the wind blows, no matter what. I think about a project in phases. There are many moments I need much alone-time with my work, undisturbed by thoughts about others, or I couldn't do what needs doing. But then there comes the time I need to step back from myself and my work. And so I scrap together the parts of what I've done, and use the mere idea of an audience as a directive pretence to create a milestone. To get it off my chest. to look where I'm at. to set myself a point of orientation. to see if I'm on track. The audience is assumed but not required to this purpose.

Offline Vagrant

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Re: Winning at pixel art

Reply #29 on: March 29, 2015, 11:58:23 pm
I'll begin with the essential core of my perspective in this matter... Time to be brutally honest.

I am selfish. Without equal.

The subdivision to that fact is that the selfishness is concentrated around myself, rather than others. My views, my judgements, my decisions. The things and styles that -I- like. While I recognize that in this world there is an infinite amount of perspectives and views, the only ones that concern me the most are those in a similar vein to mine. Likewise, I support others who do work that is to my taste, for it aligns well to my self- the things -I- prefer. 

To me, winning at pixel art (And everything else) is to focus and perfect the techniques and skills that will allow me to push my preferences towards goals- set upon a background which I perceive, is infinite in potential. Without a limit cap, I can improve and improve, reap the personal satisfaction and admire what there is to have (Including what others create), and be inspired to push my yardsticks yet further.

The recognition I receive from someone I deem to be worthy is worth more than a thousand praises from people I don't care about. But the way I see it is that there are no negatives here; worthy praise just gives more points than average praise. It all adds to me, and feels good.

Troubling myself over things I don't care gets me nowhere however.

Therefore, there's no such thing to me as losing in pixel art. The act of creating yet another piece is a productive win in any case, no matter how ignored it may be. The challenge is to make your wins bigger, both internally for you and externally for others- whichever you value most.

That being said, I love competition, despite it depending on external circumstance. The more the conditions of the competitions align with my own taste, the more love I'll have for it.