i'm going to post one random hot take in this thread per day, of varying lengths and coherence

Digital art can never and will never be as impressive as hand-drawn art. The intimacy of pen on paper, oil on canvas, etc. on top of the additional skills required to master those methods, like knowing how much pressure you have to put on the graphite as you're drawing, or knowing what specific two colors you need to mix in order to make the perfect shade, tint, or hue that you're looking for, among other things, are aspects that will forever be lost on digital art.

In hand-drawn art, making a big enough mistake means your piece is ruined and you have to start from scratch, and people did this for centuries. You also have to pay quite a hefty sum for all the materials required, some of which may not even be available to you. Digital art removes all of these problems, which may be an objectively good thing and all, but as a consequence, art made on a system where you never have to worry about running out of supplies or making any mistakes at all means that digital art cannot ever be truly impressive.

Show me a perfect and evocative self-portrait made with digital software, and I'll be like, "Cool." And then I'll forget about it the next day.

Show me a self-potrait like Jean-Paul Laurens, which was made during a time before any of the cushy technologies we use today were created, and I'll be fucking floored. It's fucking INSANE how people were able to make such realistic pieces with absolutely nothing to make the job easier, except for a mirror.

Talent isn't that cool. There are other factors going into this that I find a lot more interesting. Your art should have me wondering how the fuck you even made it in the first place. A wow factor, a je ne sais quoi. You don't get that with digital art because everybody understands how you were able to make it. You spent many hours on your tablet and pressed "undo" for every error a million times until you had it just right. It certainly takes talent, and a lot of perseverance, but it still doesn't leave me wondering, and that's part of what makes art of this kind beautiful.

they both require different skills.

its easier to draw "straight" lines on canvas because the resistance of the paper stabilises the pen. digital art requires a much more steady hand.

digital art fascilitates animation as well. on top of that it can result in a more polished product for things like promo art.

i do prefer cel shading to digital shading in my animation, though. my ideal system would be digital genga followed by physical cel shading.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a 7/10 album, and may just be the most overrated album of the decade.

The singles may all be really, really good. "Runaway" is my favorite, and "Monster" boasts the incredible feat of having a good Nicki Minaj feature which is pretty incredible. "Power" is good but it's hard to listen to it because of its status as the go-to lazy movie trailer or car advertisement song.

But "So Appalled" is the only standout track that isn't a single, and every other track (besides the intro, which has my favorite line on the entire album: "So many Urkels on your team/That's why you're wins low") ranges from completely forgettable to kinda mediocre.

I don't understand why people think this is one of the best or most important rap albums.

Professors and teachers who try to inject their own personal beliefs into their curriculum rather than attempting to be balanced should be fired. If they have tenure, it should be revoked.

hey dumbass you still havent done one for today

As it turns out, if you love music, one of the worst things you can ever do is try to learn how to make your own.

What makes music interesting to me is how, unlike other art forms (such as film), it's actually pretty difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes a song so appealing to you, even if the reverse isn't true. It's much easier to shit on music you dislike, because people tend to know exactly what they don't like to hear.

I couldn't really tell you what I like to hear in music, though. I just know it when I hear it. When I listen to "She Loves Us" by Swans, I can try to describe all the things that make it wonderful—it's an aggressive, malicious, spiteful, slow-burning 17 minute track with an extremely repetitious guitar riff with loudly barked vocals and vitriolic lyrics—but unless you 1.) hear the song yourself, and 2.) actually enjoy it, you probably won't understand the appeal of it. I can only describe to you how the song sounds, and why the song appeals to me. But I can't describe to you why I think it's a good song, objectively speaking, so I can't tell you why you should enjoy it.

This isn't similar to film, where I can pinpoint to you all the reasons why The Godfather is a masterpiece. Nobody who appreciates film as an art form dislikes it, and even if they do, they still respect it. That's because we have somewhat of a real palpable standard for what makes a movie good, or at least, more so than we do with music.

Music is probably the most subjective art form ever, if such a thing were to be quantified. There's no technical standard for what makes a good song, and there are so many artists out there who go out of their way to shatter any attempt to bottleneck the art form into any set of arbitrary rules. The bottom line is that music, first and foremost, is about how it makes you feel, and that to me is what separates it from other forms of art in this day and age. It's a very traditional way of looking at art. Those who want to think read books, and those who want to feel listen to music. In general.

It gives music sort of a precious and almost magical quality to it, but this all goes out the window once you actually start learning how to make music.

I've been wanting to learn how to play the piano for a long time, but I've just been too intimidated by the sheer amount of practice. I hate practice and work more than anyone else. I just wanna be good at stuff. If I could be a natural talent at just one thing, I could've been a happy person. But I'm not a natural talent at any one thing, so I have to waste time learning shit, and it's the most frustrating and miserable thing in the world for me.

Anyway, so I've been teaching myself a little bit about how piano playing works, and I've decided that music is kinda ruined for me forever. Not that I can't listen to it, not that I can't ever play it, but I'll never think about music the same way again, and I kinda detest the shit out of that.

Without getting too much into the technical aspects of it, music theory is basically just us trying to apply math, science, and objectivity into the abstract of music as a means for us to understand how it all ticks. Normally, I'm all for that. I do that with other art forms, so why would it matter with music?

Well, I kinda forgot what I listened to music for in the first place. I don't listen to music for the technical aspects of it. I listen to music because it makes me feel a certain way. When you try to apply math to a feeling, you kill the feeling. That's kinda why they tell you in high school not to do book reports and shit about your favorite stories, because you might wind up hating it in the end, because you've just sucked out all of the wonder and mystery and nuance. You know why you like the story, so when you analyze it for hours, it loses all meaning and you become numb to it.

What I've learned from studying music theory is that nothing is sacred. Music isn't magical or special. It's all just math. The more I get into this stuff, the more disillusioned I become with it. Everything has a name, no concept has been untouched.

Most people who enjoy making music don't seem to go through this crisis, so to understand how I feel, try to imagine yourself as a kid watching a magic show. And it's so cool, when it's over, it inspires you to become a magician yourself. You believe in magic. You saw that dude pull a rabbit out of an empty hat with your own eyes. You wanna be able to do that when you grow up.

So you grow up and discover that magic isn't real and it's all just sleight of hand bullshit. Either you give up your dream, or you become a magician anyway, but if you become a magician, you have to find a way to existentially reconcile the fact that your childhood wish never really came true, because magic isn't real and you never really could learn how to perform it.

I always struggled with reading sheet music when I was in high school choir. It wasn't that it was too difficult for me, or anything. I think my mind was just rejecting it, because I want music to maintain its mysticism for me so dearly.

My options as of this moment are to either stop trying to learn how to make music, lest it all becomes ruined for me forever, or try to find a way to reconcile my inhibitions. I'm just not sure if that's a real possibility for me.

kinda more of a blog than a hot take but w/e we'll take it

As it turns out, if you love music, one of the worst things you can ever do is try to learn how to make your own.

What makes music interesting to me is how, unlike other art forms (such as film), it's actually pretty difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes a song so appealing to you, even if the reverse isn't true. It's much easier to shit on music you dislike, because people tend to know exactly what they don't like to hear.

I couldn't really tell you what I like to hear in music, though. I just know it when I hear it. When I listen to "She Loves Us" by Swans, I can try to describe all the things that make it wonderful—it's an aggressive, malicious, spiteful, slow-burning 17 minute track with an extremely repetitious guitar riff with loudly barked vocals and vitriolic lyrics—but unless you 1.) hear the song yourself, and 2.) actually enjoy it, you probably won't understand the appeal of it. I can only describe to you how the song sounds, and why the song appeals to me. But I can't describe to you why I think it's a good song, objectively speaking, so I can't tell you why you should enjoy it.

This isn't similar to film, where I can pinpoint to you all the reasons why The Godfather is a masterpiece. Nobody who appreciates film as an art form dislikes it, and even if they do, they still respect it. That's because we have somewhat of a real palpable standard for what makes a movie good, or at least, more so than we do with music.

Music is probably the most subjective art form ever, if such a thing were to be quantified. There's no technical standard for what makes a good song, and there are so many artists out there who go out of their way to shatter any attempt to bottleneck the art form into any set of arbitrary rules. The bottom line is that music, first and foremost, is about how it makes you feel, and that to me is what separates it from other forms of art in this day and age. It's a very traditional way of looking at art. Those who want to think read books, and those who want to feel listen to music. In general.

It gives music sort of a precious and almost magical quality to it, but this all goes out the window once you actually start learning how to make music.

I've been wanting to learn how to play the piano for a long time, but I've just been too intimidated by the sheer amount of practice. I hate practice and work more than anyone else. I just wanna be good at stuff. If I could be a natural talent at just one thing, I could've been a happy person. But I'm not a natural talent at any one thing, so I have to waste time learning shit, and it's the most frustrating and miserable thing in the world for me.

Anyway, so I've been teaching myself a little bit about how piano playing works, and I've decided that music is kinda ruined for me forever. Not that I can't listen to it, not that I can't ever play it, but I'll never think about music the same way again, and I kinda detest the shit out of that.

Without getting too much into the technical aspects of it, music theory is basically just us trying to apply math, science, and objectivity into the abstract of music as a means for us to understand how it all ticks. Normally, I'm all for that. I do that with other art forms, so why would it matter with music?

Well, I kinda forgot what I listened to music for in the first place. I don't listen to music for the technical aspects of it. I listen to music because it makes me feel a certain way. When you try to apply math to a feeling, you kill the feeling. That's kinda why they tell you in high school not to do book reports and shit about your favorite stories, because you might wind up hating it in the end, because you've just sucked out all of the wonder and mystery and nuance. You know why you like the story, so when you analyze it for hours, it loses all meaning and you become numb to it.

What I've learned from studying music theory is that nothing is sacred. Music isn't magical or special. It's all just math. The more I get into this stuff, the more disillusioned I become with it. Everything has a name, no concept has been untouched.

Most people who enjoy making music don't seem to go through this crisis, so to understand how I feel, try to imagine yourself as a kid watching a magic show. And it's so cool, when it's over, it inspires you to become a magician yourself. You believe in magic. You saw that dude pull a rabbit out of an empty hat with your own eyes. You wanna be able to do that when you grow up.

So you grow up and discover that magic isn't real and it's all just sleight of hand bullshit. Either you give up your dream, or you become a magician anyway, but if you become a magician, you have to find a way to existentially reconcile the fact that your childhood wish never really came true, because magic isn't real and you never really could learn how to perform it.

I always struggled with reading sheet music when I was in high school choir. It wasn't that it was too difficult for me, or anything. I think my mind was just rejecting it, because I want music to maintain its mysticism for me so dearly.

My options as of this moment are to either stop trying to learn how to make music, lest it all becomes ruined for me forever, or try to find a way to reconcile my inhibitions. I'm just not sure if that's a real possibility for me.

kinda more of a blog than a hot take but w/e we'll take it

this is a really interesting insight

Quote from: Verbatim on February 23, 2018, 10:34:10 PM

Well, I kinda forgot what I listened to music for in the first place. I don't listen to music for the technical aspects of it. I listen to music because it makes me feel a certain way.

I like to get into the technicalities of my favorite songs to really find out what clicks with me. Its had the opposite effect for me where ive started to appreciate it more.

Its made me excessively critical though.

I used to decompose songs into pieces, usually it`s division by instruments, and I usually end up more liking song, because I don`t notice everything in the song unless doing this and it`s actually surprising how for example that muffed guitar in background adds so much more to the song.

Video games are the lowest art form, but it has the potential to be the highest.

Video games are the lowest art form, but it has the potential to be the highest.

Can you elaborate on how it’s the lowest and what the next lowest might be

Quote from: Mardy Bum on February 25, 2018, 02:16:54 PM

what the next lowest might be

blacksmithing I guess

I was gunna say porn

Quote from: Verbatim on February 24, 2018, 10:53:45 PM

Video games are the lowest art form, but it has the potential to be the highest.

Can you elaborate on how it’s the lowest and what the next lowest might be

When compared to other art forms, video games tend to leave the largest amount of room for error, because of how interactive they are.

You can't really get away with making mistakes in literature, film, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other stuff. They're fairly easy to point out, and it takes a little bit away from the overall quality of the piece, because it's that far away from being perfect. The greatest pieces of art are the ones with the fewest noticeable mistakes and the most impressive accomplishments.

Video games tend to be riddled with flaws, errors, glitches, and logical inconsistencies. It's understandable why, but as a result, it's extremely difficult to make a "perfect" game, simply because of how easy it is for a player to fuck with stuff. You can't really fuck with a movie as you're watching it, or fuck with a story as you're reading it, because they're static in that sense. But when you're creating a world from scratch, if you want to make that world perfect, you as a developer have to account for an infinity's worth of things that could be messed around with as a player.

As a result, people are more forgiving with video games. If someone points out something dumb in a game, it's easy to just say, "yeah well, it's just a game," but if games are to be taken seriously as an art form, it makes more sense to stop saying things like that and push developers to continue ironing out all the imperfections that exist in their art, just as we do with other things.

The next lowest is probably serialized anime or television shows.

The highest IMO is film, from a modern perspective, but painting/literature from a traditional all-encompassing perspective.

There is no scenario where appealing to the lowest common denominator could ever be beneficial to your work of art (unless your work contains some sort of social experiment or something of that nature that requires you to do so to achieve your artistic vision), and if you appeal to it enough, you may well not be making any sort of art at all.

For example, calling Marvel films "art" is about as far as I'm willing to stretch the definition of art. Any further, it's probably not art. It's a factory product not unlike a bag of Doritos or a 12-pack of Mountain Dew, just in movie form.

Modern art is awesome and you're stupid if you don't appreciate some of it.

Art is a product of human activity, which is innovative in any way.

art is anything that strives to be art. intention is the defining trait.