Website Review: ConceptArt

Alright, I'm not sure how one reviews a website--is such a complex of links and pages really a single "website"?--but I'm going to give it a shot.

I'm not much of an artist any more--peruse my posts and you may find a basking polar bear I drew, and I can assure you it isn't stellar. At least, I'm better with a shutter than a pencil. Certainly my digital painting skills aren't up to professional standards. Actually, unless you count Facebook Grafitti digital painting, I've never done it. However, this does not mean that I don't appreciate veiwing good examples of digital painting, and if you want that, ConceptArt might very well be the place to go.

I spend most of my time at ConceptArt perusing the weekly contests: Character of the Week; Creature of the Week; Industrial Design of the Week; and Environment of the Week. The genre of these tends fall under Speculative Fiction, but this is not always the case. If you're a moderate nerd like myself, that genre is not such a bad thing. This is especially low-stakes, as you needn't commit as much time and emotion to looking at these pictures as you would to reading a book or watching a movie, either. So we can indulge in the somewhat stigmad genre without fear of being labelled a conoisseur of that genre. (I swear I'm not a snob; I don't ming fantasy or sci-fi. I just cannot stand bad sci fi and fantasy and since there is so much of it I am worried that any association with the genre as a whole will reflect poorly on me.)

I admit I spend very little time with Industrial Design of the Week, actually. It is not my favourite. If you like the idea of space ships and probes and mechanized devices and seeing a literal interpretation of "Hell's Bells," then this might actually be for you. I prefer narratives, though, and IDoW doesn't provide that for me as much as the others do.

Creature of the Week was where I first learned to enjoy ConceptArt. My brother introduced me to this site by spending time over the summer looking at all the creatures. These are generally fantastic; the emphasis is indeed on developing not only interesting images but also concepts for images that people will find interesting. I suppose I ought to discuss the very genre of concept art itself: concept art is the work visual artists produce when asked to represent something a movie, novel, or video game producer asks them to draw. That's a clumsy construction, so I'll give you an example. You can buy big books for Star Wars' concept art, which contains the pictures artists drew to help the film's producers visualize what they want on the screen. They say, I have this sequence where the characters navigate underwater in a boat, and we need many large carnivorous sea creatures that try to eat them. The concept artists then draw assorted creatures and refine them with the director's guidance, and then the visual effects people and the screenwriters etc. pick those they like and make them using special effects. So the idea behind CoW is that admins for ConceptArt will give a concept and the artists in the community submit pictures that match this concept. Since you have to develop ideas of new animals, it is pretty much limited to speculative fiction.

Environment of the Week is less restricted to fantasy, though this is a recurrent theme nonetheless. Sometimes the genre is said to be 'open'; the subject of the drawing may be "A Deserted Saloon," and if the genre is open the artist is free to have the saloon in the old west, in ancient China, in a fantasy kingdom of their own making, in Stephen King's Gilead, or in outer space. These can be breath-taking images, and I sometimes find them evocative: the best artists present hints of narrative or unanswered questions in their environments and I like developing stories around these. They are often like Chris Van Alsburg images.

Character of the Week is my favourite haunt. These, to me, are the most evocative of narratives and I admit that I go through these contests like catalogues, looking for characters that I want to borrow and remake as my own in my writing. Obviously I would vary them enough that I would not violate copyright--I don't want other people's characters but rather something to ignite my own. I would still likely credit the artist's avatar, though, if I did borrow the concept for a character. Only fair, right? Like the others, these can be menacing, ugly, beautiful, fantastic, or funny, but there is the added possibility of being noble, innocent, or sexy.

If such rigid, themed subjects do not appeal to you, there are also galleries of artists' work. You can go through profiles and follow links to artists' sketchbooks and blogs. The admins and the best of the best have their avatar in the banner at the top of the main page. Click on these to see some of the most professional images on ConceptArt.

Problems I have with the site include stylistic and thematic focuses I disagree with. The emphases on sexuality and violence are, uh, problematic for me. Certainly I consume lots of culture which has these two emphases; they make for most of the world's most famous and enduring narratives. But I'm sure we all know the difference between honest portrayals of sex and violence, moderate portrayals of sex and violence, and 'exploitative' portrayals of sex and violence. Some artists venture well into the latter, moving from pretty girls and implied violence through pretty and teasing girls and explicit violence to nude women and gore. There are ideological issues about the conflation of the two latter which I will not get into here, but let's just say that if this bothers you excessively then you may want to avoid these images. If this intrigues you more than anything, I suppose I'll have overhyped it by now. So I'll move on.

Overall, I find it an interesting site and have collected images from it onto my computer. I have saved most of those pictures I have found either intriguing or particularly conducive to that elusive "inspiration." I have obviously peppered them throughout this post, largely without credit. For those whose artists I have recorded, I will post the information here:

(from top to bottom)

1) Cheshire Cat by deadred (ChoW); 2) Orange Sea Leviathan by Tyranx (CoW); 3) Flying Bazaar by Corrick (EoW); 4) Huge Deep Sea Creature by duddlebug (CoW); 5) Rufus-breasted Cavediver by Dave Neale (CoW); 6) Swamp Forest Skull Island by Gaius (EoW); 7) Pirate Cove - I do not remember where I got this, but it wasn't a contest that I recall; 8) Siamese (ie Conjoined) Twins by Chate Noire (ChoW); the description asked for conjoined twins who were guides through a post-apocalyptic wasteland; they were to be part mercenary, part warrior, part shaman, part guide, or some such thing; I liked this one because it gave both a sense of their different characters but didn't have exaggerated polar opposites 9) Supervillian Self-Portrait by Villa (ChoW); the artist was to draw themselves as a supervillian; 10) Spike the Dragon Dentist by Stephen_R (ChoW); I like this one because the artist decided to use tiny dragons, not big ones; the dragons are cute; 11) this is from the profile of Matt Dixon; 12) this is Duq's interpretation of the Cheshire Cat (ChoW); obviously this contest allowed for a lot of free reign, and Duq used that to create something quite interesting; I find this image very evocative of a narrative, and I see this Cheshire Cat as a sort of freedom fighter; 13) WIPs for CHOW 139: Jiao-Long, by Adam Schumpert (ChoW); Jiao-Long was supposed to be a sentient velociraptor found in the forests of the Ming Empire and raised as a counsel to the Emporer; I like the WIPs for the narrative, again.

A List of Things

1) It has been mentioned to me that the behaviour exhibited by the nine-year-old girl in the previous post suggests that she likes me. This is both problematic and hilarious. The problematic side comes up because I need to watch my behaviour around her to insure nothing untoward happens. The hilarious side comes up when I recognize that the first girl to like me in donkey's years is in grade four. Perhaps I am confusing "hilarious" and "depressing." But it actually is funny, because this girl is one of those gossipy manipulative types and it always amuses me when they get themselves into situations that they can't make how they want it.

2) Marianne Moore has problematic and difficult poetry, but some really nice lines.

3) I have re-discovered how depressing a good Kingston rain can be.

4) I saw The Illusionist at last. It has that guy--Paul Gulliani?--who was in Shoot 'Em Up. He was such an easy character to hate in the latter movie and I thought he would be a similar jerk in the first. Well, was I wrong. I quite liked his character in The Illusionist. [Spoilers begin] Now, I am a little upset with the ideologies The Illusionist puts forth: it was shaping up to be nicely anti-materialist but then everything shifted and it was a rational-materialist piece of work after all. I suppose I ought to have expected this, and I am happy with the ending as far as narrative is concerned. [Spoilers end] I have not seen much with Jessica Biel in it before this. Actually, I may not have seen anything with her.

5) I can be an arrogant jerk sometimes. In small group last night I talked about how I wear humility as a badge: I do good things and don't seek credit for them and then am pleased with myself for not taking credit; people praise me and I act all humble (sometimes) and then they praise me for being humble; I get on my high-horse when people are self-concerned and think, Look how selfless I am, am I not awesome? I also go through periods of intense self-deprecation as well, but I am good at turning humility into pride. It doesn't help that people feed me compliments all the time.

6) This Sunday at Navs we are having our pastor come by to give us a sex talk. I made a box for anonymous questions and have typed them up and sent them to him, but he will also perhaps respond to questions that we bring up there. Pastor Mark has given a series of sermons like this already at church, which is why I thought to invite him to Navs. It developed from a situation I've gone through before: someone asks me why Christians believe that pre-marital sex is wrong and I do not know how to answer as I don't know where the theology comes from. It says no where in the Bible that it's wrong, that's for sure. (Lots of folks will tell you it is in the Bible. I would be very suspicious of their Biblical knowledge if they say this. It may be implied in the Bible, but I am fairly sure that the theology is logical deduced from some things in Paul's epistles. The Bible doesn't mention pre-marital explicitly.) This could be interesting, though my co-unofficial-leaders are worried about how some of our members might respond. Having typed up the questions, I can tell you there are some interesting ones.

7) I have other stories to tell, but I don't really feel like it now. If my Internet cooperates I may write more later.

Blog, Running and Reading, and Ale with Profs

1) I've updated my profile information somewhat. There was finally a new random question I found interesting.

2) Reading and Running today was insane. Two of the coaches for my team were absent, so it was only Sarah and I with a bunch of relatively misbehaving children. Abbey admitted to me that the best part of her day is annoying me; she doesn't really annoy me, though, as I'm too amused by her antics at this point to be annoyed. Sarah says that Abbey behaves well with her, so I'm starting to think that Abbey has transitioned from behaving poorly to behaving poorly around me. This likely bodes well, as it means that she likely behaves better when I'm not there. I can take her nonsense, so I don't mind if she misbehaves when I'm gone. Maybe she will win a prize for good behaviour after all.
On which note, my buddy Kurtis is mad at me. I didn't pick him for the prize this week. Hannah, who is quite rules-oriented, reminded me that I have to consult Sarah about who gets the prize. I didn't need this reminder as I always do consult the other coaches; I think Hannah wanted to ensure I didn't engage in favouritism when picking the winning kid. I don't care if I spend a lot of time with Kurtis--he's still not getting a prize until he's earned it, and today he was not on his best behaviour. So he got angry when I didn't pick him after all his begging, and he wouldn't talk to me. I am sure he will have forgotten about it by next week.
Overall it was a crazy week. When I did consult Sarah, she seemed to have trouble thinking of anyone who would be deserving of a prize.

3) The English Department Students' Council is hosting Ale with Profs tonight, and I shall be attending. It starts at 7:00, though I likely won't arrive exaclty on time. Also, it's not far from where I live, so no problems there. It should be fun. It does mean I have less time to work, though. I need to brush my teeth first too. I had garlicky food for supper.

I think that is all for now?

Mousehunt video

G'day.

Check out this video: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=67765605922. It's a time-elapse of a digital painting of the Golem Mouse from Mousehunt.

Also, Blogger apparently decided I'm no longer Following any blogs. Grrr.... Now I have to re-follow everything.

EDIT: And now I am again. Odd.

xkcd Is Delightful(ly Evil)

This would cause a furor, wouldn't it?

See the original at xkcd for the scroll-over.

Incidentally, I am not happy that my student government went and joined that Canadian Campus Alliance thing or whatever it's called. Did you know that student governments which are part of that Alliance cannot support or acknowledge pro-life groups? That's right. It seems that the CCA thinks pro-life=women-hating or abortionist-hating or something. They consider pro-life groups hate groups. I wonder how the campus will respond. How many pro-choicers who would otherwise be on the freedom-of-speech bandwagon if any other group was ignored will in this case either ignore the issue or support the CCA's decision? More than the pro-choice and freedom of speech movements will care to admit, I bet.

Figures of Speech Part II

I've given a list of assorted rhetorical figures. Now the question is, so what?

This is what:

In one of my many English classes, I learned that in Shakespearean plays the figures of speech matter. For instance, characters who use metaphors may be trying to unify while characters who use puns (paranomasia) may be trying to show how language is inherently unstable. In an essay and in response to such discussion in class, I argued that in 1 Henry IV King Henry uses metaphors as part of his endeavour to rid the kingdom of internal differences. By the same but opposite token, Falstaff uses puns, which indicate how Falstaff and the tavern community in general can internalize difference. Metaphors are a yoking exercise, where two different things are equated. Metaphors attempt to negate difference or seperate identity. Puns, on the other hand, call attention to the differences inherent in them; they are words with multiple signifieds that seperate out these signifieds. Both, after a fashion, internalize difference, but while one tries to bring the two meanings closer together (metaphor), the other tries to call attention to their dissimilarity. This fit into my arguement that the court could not survive internal conflict while the tavern actually thrived on it.

That works for the tropes fairly well, since they have to do with transfering the values of one thing onto another. You can see how metonymy could be used for things like guilt-by-association, or synecdoche by those who value things by their parts. My previous post mentioned that calling a woman "a pair of legs" is synecdoche, and this certainly works ideologically: the sort of man to call a woman by her parts is likely to think of her as an assembly of parts that he desires rather than a whole which may, in fact, come together as a person who ought to be treated like one.

I ask, does it also work for the rhetorical figures? As a writer, could I use rhetorical figures as well as tropes to hint at the various politics and philosophies that my characters embody? Let's give it a trial run and see, shall we?

For my experiment, I'm going to use asyndeton, the deliberate omission of conjuctions to create a terse, concise, memorable phrase. The Bedford gave "Veni, vidi, vici" as an example, so I too will begin with a military general as my character. As a military general of the charimatic variety, he gives many speeches which are inhabitated with examples of asyndeton: "We live, we die by the sword"; "The enemy is cruel, untrustworthy, persistent"; "That soldier who is victorious will have riches, fame, women, glory"; "The fight is here, the fight is now, the fight is ours!" We can tell by his speech that he is more interested in impact than correctness. As a tactician he is concerned with frightening his opponents and heartening his men over using more pragmatic strategies, and so he has lots of shiny armour and medals on display, uses battle-cries and drums more than stealth, and goes for valiant and fool-hardy charges. His army is a collection of units under brave and generally autonomous generals; he lumps them together and worries little about providing support or communication between them. His organization is concerned more with shepherding them together. He does not care about structuring each unit's relation to other relations.

Do you see how the use of asyndeton relates to his martial style? The commander tends to think of each part of the sentence or army as impacting on it's own, and impact is his concern. He does not think about each part's relation to the other parts, as indicated by the lack of conjunctions. I'm going to guess that transitions between paragraphs are not his strong suit. Grouping the bits together is his best attempt at organisation. This being said, impressing people is his specialty.

You could do the same with a CEO who structures the company in uncommunicative but highly trained departments. A teacher who presents each class with lots of information, zeal, and memorable paedagogy but does not put the class into any general framework over the year, prefering to allow the student to infer the connections, would likely use asyndeton. TV shows like Friends which are very episodic in nature are more like asyndetons than TV shows like Lost which have tight connections from one episode to another.

Of course (you might object) it is unlikely that people who use asyndeton actually transfer their avoidance of conjunctions over to other aspects of their lives. This is likely true. That doesn't matter too much, since we're talking about literature. All we have is language, and so we're allowed to play with that as much as we like, either reading or writing. Of course, if what we surmise from a speaker's use of figures of speech is not born out in their behaviour, we discard that line of thought, or at least see where it derailed. As an author, though, I will keep an eye out for such things. No guarantees that every rhetorical figure will be a gold mine in pith, but it seems to be something to play with.

And a metaphor in one place (King Henry IV-->attempts at unity) does not always signify the same thing as a metaphor in another (gold mine metaphor above-->the assertion that fancy is truth). But it's something to look at.

That's all I've got for the moment. I will be back later for more discussions in literary theory!