Ask Lemmy

Art is a form of expression, and an artist doesn't exist by itself but within its community and social environment. I've heard that so many times while studying art and I always thought it was BS and then life happens and your perspectives change, many, many times and finally you get it. It's true. The standards are set by the culture or subcultures you interact with, and you can't get that from a single person. Everyone here will have a valid answer yet none will be enough to answer your question.

Personally I believe good art is that which resonates with its audience in a positive manner. But I don't have a single set of standards, most art is good or bad according to something. It really depends.

Is your rich friend using your art to launder money? Then it's good. Did you get kicked out of art school? Probably decent still, I don't know just don't invade another country.

It's very much subjective to each person! For me it varies based on a person's knowledge and execution of the fundamentals as well as what they're trying to convey. For instance, even though I prefer an airbrushy style when I draw art for myself, I enjoy seeing other people's art that has visible brushstrokes, because it's more fun for me to look at and imagine the artist drawing it based on how the brushstrokes look. Colours are also a big factor and I have my own preferential biases towards greens and turquoises.

The drawing you've presented here has a good composition and bright colours but one thing that stands out to me is the pixelated white edges between the colours and the outlines. This is due to using the paint bucket/fill tool on the same layer, and where your outlines have anti-aliasing. It's easy to remedy this though if you create a separate layer for the colouring and either create a layer below the outlines (be sure that the layer with your outlines is a transparent layer first though!) or create a layer above the outlines (if the layer with your outlines is non-transparent) and select the "Multiply" layer blending mode. This will result in a much cleaner look for the colouring, though I recommend the former option since it's much easier to apply shading and highlighting that way!

I'm always open to offer feedback and give advice to other artists so if you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask! 😃

The part of the brain that does art isn't on speaking terms with the part of the brain that likes to categorize. Trying to make them get along is just going to be an awkward waste of time.

The blocky white outline on everything in your example I'd say is a technical issue (common with beginners) not one that others who have used a digital art program would likely consider a stylistic choice. Home Movies is imperfect and minimalist, but it is well-presented... and even season 2 is much smoother due to the switch to Flash, which may be part of it.

Weird stuff was either successful because the good outweighed the bad (the really bad stuff gets lost to time)... or because seemingly-bad choices were deliberate, had technical benefits, and were skillfully done.

In other words, there's a big difference between something being "experimental" and it being early practice.

Though I will say sometimes style/proportions just bother people especially when common, see the hate for cal-arts memes.

The reason Home Movies gets away with it, is because it's a cartoon.

They had to draw THOUSANDS of images, write a script, get voice actors, match the visuals with the sounds, and do it all over again before next week's episode.

When Coach McGirk comes to life, you forget how squiggly he is and just follow the story.

These kids aren't coming to life, they aren't telling me a story, so I have plenty of time to notice how none of them are standing in the same plane of space, and how the proportions don't match.

Draw 300 more of these in sequence, and add a voice over and I don't think those things would bother anyone.

I feel like it's in the eye of the viewer but if it makes me feel something, it's art. If it looks very interesting and is intentional, art. Did the people you made it for like it? That's the main concern, if you have a commission, and the person actually paying for the piece is satisfied, everyone else can fuck off, right?

I don't love the one in the post, no. It looks like a first draft, sloppy in a way that lacks rhythm, somehow. Don't hate it either. But if it's what your 'customer' wanted, it's perfect, right?

It is a combination of skill and emotion. If it isn't technically impressive, it should still invoke emotions.

For me good art needs to have a clear intent to invoke an emotion - classic sweeping landscapes do this, abstract paintings like guernica do this - portraits generally don't.

I also think art should be fully intentioned to that emotion. In a lot of traumatic art pieces jagged edges and chaotic lines are used specifically to invoke the uncertainty of the moment.

Bad art is usually art that's transparently trying to be artistic and uses styles without understanding them to produced a confused hodgepodge... of course sometimes this sort of chaos is used specifically for subversion, but that's usually clear by topical choices. Bad art may also simply fail to strike a chord with me.

So for me, good art invokes emotion... I can connect with it and it gives me something.

You may have noticed that's a very personal statement and I think it's absolutely the case that different people can find different things artistic.

It's made by a working class proompter using an open source model or stolen software in their spare time and not some pretentious posh knob.