Greetings to everyone, regardless of whether you celebrate Easter or not. (My apologies to believers, but Easter seems rather a shaky thing to celebrate.) But it is a wonderfully bright and sunny day out where I live, and everyone is smiling, and calling out greetings--which I hate, because I don't feel comfortable calling out greetings back at them!
I have been working on Concerto, and I took a break, and went out for a walk.
I have joined DeviantArt, a peculiar site for artists: that is, graphic artists. I'm actually looking for cover art for these books of mine, but they seem to be charging more than I can afford. Bear in mind that I have earned just about sixty dollars, lifetime, perhaps partly because my covers are not that wonderful!!
But these guys and gals at DeviantArt are just amazing! They produce beautiful work, but many of them are totally immersed in some specific fantasy sub-culture; sometimes it is a game, sometimes a particular manga series; sometimes it is an anime series, sometimes it is a specific character from a movie. Many of them are faithful to some character from the Marvel Universe, for instance; others focus on drawing millions of cute teens with pussycat ears! I mean, that's fine, but . . . it doesn't seem sane to draw so many of them. Some of them put pussycat ears on every girl they draw.
Thinking about that, I haven't seen this feature on their pictures of guys. So they live in a world in which the sexes may be equal, but they're certainly different. (I can hardly complain; almost all the couples in my stories are girl-girl couples.)
Another strange feature is that many of the members of the website do nothing but artwork. If they haven't posted some artwork for a few weeks, they feel terrible, and apologize to their colleagues, and their Fans.
Some of them have personal problems, such as being transsexuals, and having unique problems related to that situation. (I don't mind transsexuals, but I strongly disapprove of parents of really young children, who encourage their infants with their obsession of identifying with the other sex, such as little boys who insist on wearing dresses, and being called girls, and vice versa. Let them wear whatever they want, but I do not think encouraging them to plan to have surgery or hormone treatment makes sense until they're at least sixteen. That is somewhat arbitrary, I know, but without an arbitrary age of consent, judges will find it difficult to rule, if a legal challenge comes up, such as if the child were to sue its parents.)
Going on to more interesting things, I have noticed that the artists in DeviantArt often draw superheroes, or goddesses, or female fighters; and often these are drawn with heavy chests, and extremely narrow waists. This is depressing to me, since I prefer waists that are not too narrow, and slim breasts! If one of these superheroines had nursed twins for several years, I suppose it would make sense to draw them amply endowed. But for these young fighters, wouldn't it be better if they were slim? Why do these artists pander to the taste of guys who like big breasts? Even the female artists seem to have adopted this ideal.
And another thing. Many of the female heroes depicted wear armor. But the armor has holes that would help an enemy to pierce them in numerous awkward places. It is almost as if the artists have not understood the point of metal armor. (It could be magic armor, which protects even if it does not cover. That is possible, with good magic!)
There is a particular artist several, of whose pieces I really like. Unfortunately, her characters seem to always wear the same expression. If it were a neutral expression, such as a friendly smile, that would be fine. But often her character wears a bewildered look, that makes her appear to be permanently off-balance.
There are cosplayers, who dress up as interesting characters from movies or videos, and take pictures of themselves, or have friends take their pictures for them. Some of them are brilliant, and most of them are beautiful women, and good actresses, who can portray emotions really well, emotions appropriate to their chosen character, in her chosen pose.
I would encourage my readers to visit the site, and see the millions of pieces of art you can look at for free. There is a small risk that you may never make it out again!
Kay H. B.
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