about the fanart contest...

[basala]

I entered this pic for January's fanart contest.
As far as I know there were too few entries for this past month for it
to be considered as a contest, therefore there will not be a winner.
Nonetheless, I would like to post it here so I can talk about it and get some feedbacks.





I was not going to participate in the january contest. However, having discovered that there might be a danger of not having a single participent for this month, I decided to enter on the 26th, which was one day before the deadline. At the end my fear became true, as there were only 1 other entry.
This drawing took me 4-5 hours to complete, done in pencil, except for the effect of the snow flakes. Those were done with photoshop.
This was the first idea that came to my mind after I saw the word "cold"
in the "theme" column. To me "cold" was not a easy theme to come up with a drawing. I had very little time to consider for any other idea so I just worked on this one.
On a cold, snowy night, a little girl was sellling match on the street. However, to escape the cold, people hide inside their shelters. And the one on the street, are busy heading back home as well. No one paid attention to the little girl, The most that she get was a look and a turned away. Not been cared for, not be treated right, not having what other children of the same age have, not a place of return.What accompanied was the silent loneliness and the darkness that encompassed the way in front.....that is the feeling that I wish to convey through the drawing.
I thought about using different structure and components, as well as different angles. i considered having the little girl standing by the street and have people walking by, but having too many people is not too good an idea, and I don't have time for that as well.
The most important elements to this drawing are the expression of the girl and the man. For the girl, I want her expression to be timid yet longing. For the man, coldness, as it is part of the "cold" components.
I don't know if I have done it good enogh, I will let you tell me
Also I have greatly used the method of contrastisim( yeah, I made this word up). Adults vs child, 2 vs 1, and of course, light vs dark.
The window was meant to give the feeling of warmth and light inside the building, in contrast to the dark and cold street. I was going to draw people inside the window, to further strengthen the contrast, but decide that its going to ruine the atmosphere and trashed the idea.

That should be all I want to say. I myself think this was not too bad a piece, given that I have not been drawing this type of picture before. If I had more time I would choose to do a cg,becuase much more could be told trough the use of colour. but with limited time, pencil was the best choice.









One other thing I want to talk about is the art contest. I don't understand why is no one participating. Is it really that hard? I have to admit that the new rules have made it more difficult, but it should not be that difficult. I really hope that all of us will participate in the Febuary contest.
There are two major differences between this years rules and those of last year. First, the artist are limited by the theme. Being able to draw beautiful lines, able to select and use color nicely, or even able to get to the detail well....that might have be fine for the last year. If you came up with a cool charactor, you might win a weekly contest. But for this year drawing skill alone is not enough, one must be able to convey "feeling" and "thought", and I believe thats why each month has a specific theme.
Having said this much, I like this idea very much. It has make the contest harder but isnt that what we want? Yes, we are looking for a challenge! Artists don't always get to draw what they want to draw. therefore, I aspire to become one who is able to draw anything and everything. And to me to participate in this years contest is one way for me to achieve this goal. It will force me to think and to creat with a theme that might have never come to my mind.
Though we are limited by a certain topic, our mind and thoughts are not, they are infinte and ever so free. Don't be intimidated by the rules, its a wonderful chance for us to challenge ourselves and thus showcase our creativity.


the second difference is that the artists are give a period of one month to come up with a piece of work for this year, instead of a week. This is quite a nice rule too. Why is it good? first of all it allows people to have enough time to think about what they want to draw. you look at the theme and start to think. Then you come up with many ideas, then you select the best idea and develope around it....all these take time. Secondly, to acually draw needs time too. I know many of us like to do things in a fast pace and are easy to be satisfied with rough sketch-like incompletion of drawings(myself included). But give a month to draw, it forces us to spend more time on one single drawing. This in turn, would help the participants. I used to just draw rough sketches a lot. When I look at some other very complete drawings with amazing details I said to myself, that I could also draw like that as long as I spent enough time on a drawing, only to realize that I was badly wrong after I tried it myself. I realized that to be able to perfect a piece of drawing I need practice upon practice. Again, to enter into the contest will help forcing me to practice make a more complete drawingsand thats why I like it.

All in all I like this year's rules very much and would like to encourage everyone to participate.




Now I'd like to talk about the Febuary theme-love a little. In my own opinion, love is an easier topic to draw compare to cold, even though cold was meant to be an esay one to get people going. So about love, waht can we draw? There is just too much to draw!!!!If you can't think of anything then Think about your favourite anime, there must be the elemet of love in it. If you like the light-hearted comedic style, full-metal panic would not be a bad choice to extract ideas from. Other anime like "Ah my godess", "love hina" or even "vandread" or "Chobits" or......man, the list just goes on and on!!! If those does not suit your taste how about Otogizoushi? Gunslinger girl? Even the gundam series. There are simply too much anime that could become a good ideal pool, not to mention all the romance oriented series such as kanon, kimi ga nozumu eien and Air.....Also don't let your thoughts become one dimensional, think it reversely. How about draw a pic that tells the story of Garra? The story of how he became a self-loving demon? How about the full metal alchemist, the father before the grave? The father of edward left his wife becuase of his love for her(though that is a hard one). And it does not have to be the love between individuals. I want to draw a pic of some of the nba ballers with the quot "I love this game".....The most important thing is try to embody your feeling in your drawing.




Drawing is way to communicate, I have realized it as other formsof art are, too. Anyway lets all rise up to the challenge of our skills and heart!!!
Let your mind run wild on the paper, let your zeal for art made konw through the colours and shadings!!!Let this contest be a fest of love, a display of creativity, a transmitter of emotion, and most important of all, a race with yourself. Be it win or not win, I want to draw with a passion and devotion. Yes, drawing is why we are born, its what makes us feel alive, its what we live for!!!!Let's rise up to this awesome event!!! give the contest a boost and make it flurish, make it the future of a-sourse!! Make it such an important event that eventually a-sourse will have to build a real gundam to reward the winner


Anyway I sincerely hope all of us can participate in the contest Thats why I took 4 hours typing this words. I can't wait to see what kind of idea people will come up with the theme each month. If things does not go well then that contest for this year will be shut off soon, and thats a very shamful thing. So this much will I say, the rest are up to you.

[gnownad]

very thoughtful words, I second all that.
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[bakanekonei]

hehe, coming from the only other person to enter something for january, i agree with you completely basala!

[onizukapwns]

holy CARP!! (mmm carp)

u came up with ALL that and made it in 4-5 hours?!?! i call that amazing! lol
im even more amazed at how long ur post is

yes, the theme thing is kinda limiting ppls, and now, ppls have to think more before drawing. im thinking of entering, but no ideas are popping into mi head right now. -.-

someone should start an "brain storming" forum (maybe il try that later), to maybe help ppls come up with ideas.

newayz, ur definatelly getting better at drawing i think.
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GG

[atikiN]

Well said basala. You've inspired me to spend the one free hour I've had my entire day on working on the fanart site.

[AlDim]

I found the lack of submissions last month quite surprising. I hope that what you said here will help inspire people to send their work for the contest!
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Is that the best you can do, you pansies?

[winterymint]

Holy moley that's an essay lol..but nice drawing nevertheless! ^^

[Kaijiin]

that is a awesome draw i love it

[Yebyosh]

Who cares about CG when you have basala's mad pencil skills!

The use of 'cold' in both physical and relations is good. On the subject of you wanting more people but lack the time ( nor the effective space ) to do so, you could have used footprints instead.

Have the footprints of the little matchgirl moving within a small circle where she is, reflecting where she spent her time marking her ware. Even better, is to make it a flattened out circle instead. This will give the image of her moving about there in long activity.

Now have footprints going in paths around her. The footprints should mark a walking pace ( hence no two footprints should be beside each other as to mark standing ). This should hint that everyone is ignoring her, a sign of marked coldness.

A lot of details and information can be conveyed even through absence of the source bodies.