Hello friends!
I thought it'd be fun to create a thread so people can share stories of their artist pet peeves. What do you hate about the community? what do you hate about some people in the community? Is there something you absolutely hate but was never really able to say it out loud? Your chance is now!
Personally i really dislike it when people gatekeep stuff. Art is for everyone and should be for everyone. If you want to draw something then go for it unless it's outright hateful. You don't have to have amazing skills to do art. You don't have to be a certain way. You're an artist alright? alright.
2021 edit: Thank you all for being respectful of each other! Its great seeing the differentiation of opinions and have an open minded discussion about it. Thats what i wanted. So thank you!
Adding on to what cid said:
I also can’t really find many good art sites. I mostly use Instagram but it sucks, Amino scares me too though I used to be active there, DA is too big for me, Discord is terrifying and confusing. I miss PaigeeWorld, has been over a year since it’s death but I miss it so much still. It was so good, it had chronological feeds, awesome contests and wasn’t too large to overwhelm me.
When an artist favors the mirror tool all the time. Like they draw half the thing, copy/paste/flip and its perfectly symetrical.
All.
The.
Time.
I don't think the mirror tool is that bad, especially for references and designing, but when the ONLY thing drawn is with the mirror tool, it can be an issue... that's my personal take tho
All my peeves are directed at myself oof.
I hate how I don't consistently put up my work and how socially awkward I am about posting up personal or commissioned pieces. It's not about only putting up my best or something, it's more like I don't always remember to ask the people who commission me if they want it put up on social media and then I get too self-conscious to ask them later, so I don't end up putting it up at all. Then with my personal stuff I'm such a harsh critic that most of my work doesn't see the light of day.
I hate that I always forget a detail when I am working on a piece, even for my own characters! When people I've drawn for bring it up I correct it right away, no harm no foul, but it's so embarrassing when it happens!
For something not directed at myself er...I guess one of my biggest art peeves is, and this is purely a peeve and not a criticism, the prevalence of anime styles. I used to like the style when I was in highschool but now I find it pretty homogeneous and tiresome to look at. I find myself way more attracted to artist's individual styles that they've developed on their own, over time.
Big agree^^ people can like whatever they want and i wont care too much.... but online there is a huge preference for anime styles i find, whether it be on here or just in general. I’m definitely a bit biased though, i’ve fallen out of love with anime since being a teenager and i find a lot of western/western inspired art styles more interesting. Anime is nice to look at of course (theres a reason why it is super popular in the first place) but i feel like no one really bats an eye unless you draw anime
EDIT: yea i agree that anime styles can be very diverse! there are several anime art styles i like that aren't too unique but have a little something to em, like i LOVE the hunter x hunter art style. Theres nothing super special about it but its so good... I should have specified that i kinda meant the "generic" anime art style (which i define is not being particularly memorable or unique enough to stand out against others), as there are many really nice styles out there. I also agree with the same face syndrome thing too, i like to vary my faces a lot but using shapes and different body types to differentiate silhouette is important too and severely underrated imo. I think its mostly the combination of both same-face and same-silhouette that leaves characters looking very boring and repetitive (even tho i used to be really into love live and still think of it fondly, its a huge example of this).
I'm not a fan of "anime style" being what sells either-- if it's not pure, perfectly-drawn anime in any community, you're going to get shafted, that's for sure, but I'm also going to defend it here; there's a lot of interesting ways to do it, and saying it's samey or whatever feels like it's doing a serious disservice to the stuff that does stand out?
On the opposite end, I do find "iS THAT ANIME" pretty irritating, since I've consciously tried to move away from being too "anime" for what I think people are probably critical of here? Definitely not denying that there's issues with sameface and a lack of body diversity, but I still stand by the idea that anime styles can be perfectly interesting.
v it's defo not as huge a problem as it's made out to be, but i think it's still a problem and what people think of when they go "anime bad". i
vv second edit bc i saw ur edit- yeah i've defo been there, i had a professor tell me i drew "too Japanese" and it fucked me up, and since then i've been stuck being both veeery critical of 'anime' styles while trying to defend them at the same time, and my own style used to reflect that? i'm going to leave my sameface statement up but more-or-less rescind it, because i think you've made a solid point.
No, that's fair. Anime styles can be diverse and interesting. I guess I'm just tired of a very particular one? And when people say they're looking for art in an anime style it's hard to determine what they're expecting. What makes something quintessentially 'anime'? Even the eyes aren't consistent throughout the genre. Is it the type of coloring/shading? The lack thereof or the exaggeration of particular features? Maybe their expressions?
Just realized another peeve is doing something in a neat new way, then later when you try to apply this new technique somewhere else it's a mess or you totally forgot how you did it. ;-;
^ can get on board with that, there defo seems to be one specific "anime" that's popular on here and it's hard to tell what people want when they ask for anime despite that. like, are you looking for something like Naoko Takeuchi or are you looking for something like Kentaro Miura??
when people ask for critique but don't link any of their work - please make it easier for others to help you!! also, it'd help a lot to be specific about what you aim to achieve or what you aspire to - you're going to need very different advice if you aim to be a background artist, portrait painter, or character designer for example. i understand not really knowing where you want to go, that's when you look to artists you admire; if you don't have any, time to find some!!
-Artists who talk down to non-artists. Respecting artists is important, but if talking about artist support & respect is drawn-out tutorials of "how to talk to an artist" or reposting/making nothing but "what's respectful/what's not" tutorials and comments it's condescending as hell & bumps the idea that artists are some mysterious god-like entities & not people.
-People assuming just because they draw or have anthro characters they're a furry or part of the community. imo someone is a furry if they call themselves a furry & you don't have to be in the community to be one. And tbh with some of the BS that happens within the fandom I don't blame anyone for not wanting to be labeled as one
-imo the term 'Anime artstyle' isn't great. Mainly because it's not specific/lumps all anime into one thing. +most of the time 'anime artstyle' refers to either Moe or mainstream shonen and feels like it's writing off anime with unconventional/unique styles as 'not anime'. And even then anime have different styles too? So if anime artstyle to one person is 'anything similar to SAO or Naruto' than is artstyles similar to Madoka not 'anime'? And if a style's similar to an anime with an unconventional one like Kaiba or PSG than shouldn't that be considered 'anime'? idk i'm over thinking. Feel free to ping me on this btw