I don't use the phrase "spitting mad" nearly enough.
It's not like I don't have occasion to. Take this Livejournal entry. A fairly typical demonstration of female objectification, notable primarily for the excellence of the visual aids, and the obtuseness of the commentary. Spit-inducing enough in its own right.
But scroll ye down to the comments section. Therein, you will find similarly familiar responses--and the inevitable admonition that we're all taking this too seriously, because it's "just fiction."
Excuse me? When did you join the human race?
I run into this every single day. Not just in a context of feminism--everywhere.
"It's just fiction."
"It's not important."
"It's not real."
"It's just art."
"Spend your time doing something important."
Well, sorry, but fiction is important. Stories are important.
Art is important.
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Art Ramblings
Finally found some acceptable desktop pictures.
As much as I love the actual game, one of my favorite moments in D&D was when I realized that the art had signatures on it. I went through all my books and I discovered that the same handful of guys had done most of the art. I became aware of the style of the pieces.
The art is one of my favorite things about the books. I love character art. I like drawing it, too, so having a lot to study is handy. The galleries on the D&D website are nice, but it doesn't quite compare to having the actual piece in a book in front of you. Resolution's better, for one thing.
And I've recently discovered that I really love pictures of magic items. One of my favorite things about the Magic Item Compendium (more on it soon) is the art, though I expect that to change once I actually get to use some of it in-game. The pictures convey a sense of possibility that the words don't really quite capture.
The pieces with a lot of magic items are particularly cool. Just the idea of having all these awesome things in one place--I never thought about just how interesting a magic item shop must be. (Or just how cool magic rings are.) Also: I want to make a store that sells only magic boots. And only magic boots.
Actually, I like any kind of art where a lot of things are lined up against each other. I don't know why, but those are often my favorite character pieces--those ones where they show all the races lined up against each other, or a bunch of different character options, all in the same picture. Like the pictures in Oriental Adventures of samurai and shugenja from all the different clans.
More miscellaneous favorites include depictions of an angel-killer weapon, from the BoVD, the mystery afraid of the dark, from the Tome of Magic, and "Faces of Evil" from Savage Species.
That last one, particularly, is much better when viewed on the page, because then you can read that the papers read "Plan A," "Plan B," "Plan C," and "Plan D," and that the book is titled "How to Pick Up Chicks." Which is particularly funny if you assume, as I do, that the character reading it is an incubus. The only other option that I can think of would be a half-demon, which isn't nearly as fun--and this was a 3.0 supplement, before they'd removed mention of incubi from the core game.
Entirely unrelated rant: Why'd they take out the line about succubi sometimes appearing as male in 3.5? Did they need to cut thirteen words that badly? It's not like you can't still use them that way (the stats are exactly the same, this no longer being 1973, *cough*) but it's no longer suggested. Maybe they figured it was self-evident. Maybe they got a lot of complaints.
It's all very mysterious.
As much as I love the actual game, one of my favorite moments in D&D was when I realized that the art had signatures on it. I went through all my books and I discovered that the same handful of guys had done most of the art. I became aware of the style of the pieces.
The art is one of my favorite things about the books. I love character art. I like drawing it, too, so having a lot to study is handy. The galleries on the D&D website are nice, but it doesn't quite compare to having the actual piece in a book in front of you. Resolution's better, for one thing.
And I've recently discovered that I really love pictures of magic items. One of my favorite things about the Magic Item Compendium (more on it soon) is the art, though I expect that to change once I actually get to use some of it in-game. The pictures convey a sense of possibility that the words don't really quite capture.
The pieces with a lot of magic items are particularly cool. Just the idea of having all these awesome things in one place--I never thought about just how interesting a magic item shop must be. (Or just how cool magic rings are.) Also: I want to make a store that sells only magic boots. And only magic boots.
Actually, I like any kind of art where a lot of things are lined up against each other. I don't know why, but those are often my favorite character pieces--those ones where they show all the races lined up against each other, or a bunch of different character options, all in the same picture. Like the pictures in Oriental Adventures of samurai and shugenja from all the different clans.
More miscellaneous favorites include depictions of an angel-killer weapon, from the BoVD, the mystery afraid of the dark, from the Tome of Magic, and "Faces of Evil" from Savage Species.
That last one, particularly, is much better when viewed on the page, because then you can read that the papers read "Plan A," "Plan B," "Plan C," and "Plan D," and that the book is titled "How to Pick Up Chicks." Which is particularly funny if you assume, as I do, that the character reading it is an incubus. The only other option that I can think of would be a half-demon, which isn't nearly as fun--and this was a 3.0 supplement, before they'd removed mention of incubi from the core game.
Entirely unrelated rant: Why'd they take out the line about succubi sometimes appearing as male in 3.5? Did they need to cut thirteen words that badly? It's not like you can't still use them that way (the stats are exactly the same, this no longer being 1973, *cough*) but it's no longer suggested. Maybe they figured it was self-evident. Maybe they got a lot of complaints.
It's all very mysterious.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Thoughts on Superheroes
I'm thinking about building a superhero universe. Not like I don't already have enough going on, but I'd mostly be working on it in art class. Which has been going weirdly well this year. It's nice to have one area of my life where I have just flat out, easily measured improvement. (Hey, that figure doesn't look nearly as wonky as those older ones.)
I like superheroes. Hate the format they're published in, but I like the concept.
I hate the format for a lot of reasons, but the basic reason is the bizarre time dilation that it produces. Time advances in some ways but not in others. Or it advances at a different speed. You end up with series of issues that cover maybe a couple of weeks of time, but take years to publish. Technology and current events advance faster than plot. Some characters age, some don't, and it causes weird things to happen to their relationships.
But I like superheroes. I like superpowers. They have interesting metaphorical implications; they have interesting "hit you in the face!" implications.
I like superheroes. Hate the format they're published in, but I like the concept.
I hate the format for a lot of reasons, but the basic reason is the bizarre time dilation that it produces. Time advances in some ways but not in others. Or it advances at a different speed. You end up with series of issues that cover maybe a couple of weeks of time, but take years to publish. Technology and current events advance faster than plot. Some characters age, some don't, and it causes weird things to happen to their relationships.
But I like superheroes. I like superpowers. They have interesting metaphorical implications; they have interesting "hit you in the face!" implications.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Light Years Behind . . . Painting
Not too be too down on BBC News, but their tech guys are idiots. Complete and utter maroons.
They've got this article about how, according to the industry "experts," we are at most two years away from photo-realistic humans. Which is total nonsense. We may be two years away from photo-realistic movement, but that is not the biggest challenge standing in the way of photo-realism in games.
That, hands down, is skin. Human skin absorbs and scatters light in a way that we don't really have the technology to do, even in pre-rendering, let alone real time. You'll notice that a lot of games, like Oblivion, with high quality graphics have characters that kind of glow. It's a way of tricking you into letting computer people be pretty, and not freakish. We may not be able to simulate subdermal refraction, but we can at least make people glow!
That's not my favorite part, though. My favorite part is down at the end. After the article has made a big deal about how, in the future, computer characters will be totally indistinguishable from humans, it quotes Ian Livingstone of Eidos: "We will be able to play with people's emotions - we can make them laugh, we can make them cry, we can make them sad."
Because, y'know, you totally can't affect people emotionally, unless your characters are totally, perfectly human. We're totally impervious to anything that doesn't look 100% real. Without the perfect visual experience, without being able to see every nuance of the characters action, no one ever feels any connection to a story.
Because no animated movie, or novel, or radio show has ever made anyone feel sad.
Honestly, I think that games would be better off if they went less realistic with their graphics. Not lower quality, mind you. Just less realistic. Characters drawn with broader strokes can actually be more effective, emotionally, because it's for people to invest in them. It's easier to imagine them as being exactly what you want them to be.
Eventually, computer games are going to figure out that there are other kinds of art out there. Naturalism isn't the only way to make pictures look good. Someday, video gaming is going to discover impressionism. And they're going to realize that suggesting an image, and capturing a feeling, and making it really pretty, are all way more important goals than "realism."
They've got this article about how, according to the industry "experts," we are at most two years away from photo-realistic humans. Which is total nonsense. We may be two years away from photo-realistic movement, but that is not the biggest challenge standing in the way of photo-realism in games.
That, hands down, is skin. Human skin absorbs and scatters light in a way that we don't really have the technology to do, even in pre-rendering, let alone real time. You'll notice that a lot of games, like Oblivion, with high quality graphics have characters that kind of glow. It's a way of tricking you into letting computer people be pretty, and not freakish. We may not be able to simulate subdermal refraction, but we can at least make people glow!
That's not my favorite part, though. My favorite part is down at the end. After the article has made a big deal about how, in the future, computer characters will be totally indistinguishable from humans, it quotes Ian Livingstone of Eidos: "We will be able to play with people's emotions - we can make them laugh, we can make them cry, we can make them sad."
Because, y'know, you totally can't affect people emotionally, unless your characters are totally, perfectly human. We're totally impervious to anything that doesn't look 100% real. Without the perfect visual experience, without being able to see every nuance of the characters action, no one ever feels any connection to a story.
Because no animated movie, or novel, or radio show has ever made anyone feel sad.
Honestly, I think that games would be better off if they went less realistic with their graphics. Not lower quality, mind you. Just less realistic. Characters drawn with broader strokes can actually be more effective, emotionally, because it's for people to invest in them. It's easier to imagine them as being exactly what you want them to be.
Eventually, computer games are going to figure out that there are other kinds of art out there. Naturalism isn't the only way to make pictures look good. Someday, video gaming is going to discover impressionism. And they're going to realize that suggesting an image, and capturing a feeling, and making it really pretty, are all way more important goals than "realism."
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