Am i insane for this? Here are some of my artfight "hot" takes
This is gonna sound rude because im just saying my barest thoughts i aint censoring any of them to be polite because it wont get my point across
Revenges, rules, profiles, character descriptions, mass attacks, commenting on attacks
My biggest one is that revenges are not guaranteed, in fact im likely not going to revenge you. I think that the attacks i give people are things that i would want to recieve myself. I want to attack someone if i have an image or cool thing in mind for their character, and if im not passionate or excited about the thing that i am drawing, then i dont want to draw the character cuz tbh while i appreciate every single one and they look lovely, i kinda just... recieving a generic pose shot of the character is kinda... idk how to say without being rude but kinda boring. This is NOT about what i recieve, every piece i recieve makes me giddy and happy and extremely appreciated, im talking about what i like to personally give out to people, i find drawing that boring and i dont want to give that to people. I like creating a scene, a dynamic, a cool pose and so i have to be excited about the character to draw them like that and feeling obliged to revenge will judt have me drawing images that i dkmt have fun with and end up being a still generic standing pose and i dont wanna draw rhat and i dont want to gift that, i want it to be something i would be extatic recieving, something i would display on my wall. Ive attacked people who explicitly and guaranteed do not revenge just because i really liked their character anyway. I judt dont say this on my page because i know for a fact ill never recieve anything because for some reason this game is super transactionary rather than gift-y. If someone does attack me i always look at their characters and pages to find anyone that interests me but if i dont, then im not going to revenge back. Same goes for friends, jut cuz ur my friend doesn't guarantee an attack, ill look at your characters but if i dont get inspired then im not attacking because i want to draw things that i am excited to draw rather than ruining the fun of the event for myself.
Brooooo the rules are really not that big a deal. This is a game, a fun event, this isnt the professional art industry opportunity, this is a GAME. The rules dont need you crashing out like this. Tracing has never been allowed, and they defined what tracing means on their site. What you guys are doing has always been fine and it was always pretty clear imo. Yes people with aphantasia or dissabilities might find it hard but tracing an image line for line is not for this game. Im sorry, i get that it is a tool for learning and a tool to make drawing faster but while artfight is a fun tool to practice new skills, it is not the time to be tracing over images and posting it and passing it off as your own (which!! The art community at wide has always agreed on!! Allowing tracing like this is just explicitly going against what you all always say.) Yes using a base, even one that you made, is cheating because each drawing has part of the drawing sped up significantly for you, and if your made that base before the event starts, that is drawing before the evnt starfs and is considered cheating. Make a base/3d model during the evnt time is a grey area for me because generally you are also just copy pasting your previous drawing technically and significantly speeding the rate you can oump out art which is tbh not the spirit of the game at all. Also, art forms like collaging are very much art forms however this is again a game, it is an event with rules. Artfight doesnt have a syastem to grade these attacks and also IT IS A GAME, NOT THE DEFINITIVE DECISION ON WHAT COUNTS AS REAL ART. If there was a free for all yearly sports game where you could do antrhing with the ball apart from use your feet doesnt mean that football isnt a real sport, it just means that that form of play isnt allowed in that individual event's rules. You guys need to calm down, its really not that serious you dont need to get so butt hurt about it its actually weird how worked up everyonenis getting about these, tbh, very trivial rules.
Um. Profiles. Tbh, artfight is a game for drawing your characters, Its not a social media. This one i dont actually care to much about cuz i dont look at the user profiles i just skip down to their characters but like. It doesnt have to be that much, i barely have anything on mine i prefer very very simple profiles for my eyes. Mine has my pronouns, my t&c of what you can do with art i gift you, my previous year badges, a small sized gif displaying attacks ive made and a list of the three characters i want art most of. Tbh i dont care about what your personal likes and dislikes are, what your hobbies are or what you sexuality is or any of that stuff because it doesn't help me draw your characters. I dont need any of that information because im drawing your characters, not you, im sorry. I dont actually care too much ultimately it judt means i gotta scroll a bit longer to get to the characters and i dont mind that, i just prefer my profile to be functional rather than pretty looking
One that is similar but i care a bit more about is character profile descriptions. Man, ultimately i am drawing your character, not their entire story. Yes story does matter but i dont need every detail and every story beat of the character, at most the story should be explained in three bullet points, the bare basics so that i know who your character is, their personality, what they've been through or might think about it/a key moment that can be described in one or two sentences, and their likes and dislikes kept brief in a list rather than each one described in such detail. Then another paragraph for design notes and such, maybe very brief why your character exists/what they are based off. Im drawing your character visually, im not reading an entire novel because ultimately i wont be depicting that unless there is a key moment or theme in their story which should be explained in a sentence or bullet point. Again i think character profiles should be functional and short, and im likely not going to read it if its more than a chunky paragraph/3 small paragraphs long. If i decide i really really wanna draw the character then im gonna skim read to be respectful to the character and make sure i dont miss anything huge but if its not clear then im likrly not going to decide to draw the character.
I used to love making mass attacks and im glad when i do recieve one but i understand why it is dissapointing. Especially if its just one where a ton of tiny characters are drawn in a vague background and not interacting whatsoever. Last year i did a handful of mass attacks (each really containing like 5 characters at most, each varying the amount, or it was just a collection of seperate but similar quality attacks i submitted as one to not clutter my attack page, yes the battle ratio doesnt really matter) but all of those were because the characters were interacting/ had a reason to be drawn together and be in the same space. I usually draw them interacting or doing something to warrant them being in the same attack. This is similar to my note abiut dynamic vs still images for character but its extremely dissapointing to just see your character be standing in the bg, even if they are doing a cute post cuz like yeah, i think mass attacks should be made because the characters are interacting not just because they are from the same series so imma draw them all standing in a lineup where i can barely see them. I also think smaller mass attacks are better for this reason
I think you should comment on attacks you recieve if you are active on the sight. Commenting takes two seconds and it lets the person know that you've even seen the attack they worked so hard to make. I do think that people are valid for being sad that no one replies because they work real hard on a piece and no reply just feels like the person shrugged and walked away, that's hurtful! I dont mean that you should check artfight every day to check in case you got an atrack to reply, if you dont go on the website much then you dont go on the website much, but bro, if you do log onto the website and see you have an attack then reply. Its nice. I hear people saying "well people are sometimes busy with work" and yeah valid thats what i mean by if you dont log on but even if you are busy, if you have the time to log onto artfight then you have the time to litterally just say a "thank you" in the comment because that takes litterally no time and you aren't just dosmissing the person entirely. Yes "they arent obliged to kake you art so youre not obliged to reply" but if you were gifted any art then at least acknowledge that it exists dude.
Artfight "controversy" is so silly like what? Bro its not rhat serious its a game. If you dont actively engage with ppl like this, you wont see any of it. I did not see a single profile of ppl saying "beginers cant attack me!" Blah blah, people are chill. Just calm down this isnt real if you dont engage with it you wont see it its so easy to avoid it.
Two tiny ones to calm down a bit: character thumbnail images i hate when they are just a headshot, they seem to be the only type of thumbnail i find the vast vast vast majority of the time. The thumbnail is what makes me decide to click on your character and consider drawing them so when i cant see anything other than their face then i have no idea what they look like and i just skip over them. An image where i can actually see a lot of the design is most likely gonna make me click on it because i cannot tell anything from just the face
When ppl go on their attacks from the previous year and change the thumbnails of all their attacks to something like "old art ew" like bro. Stop being so mean to yourself, your art is litterally not "ew" what the heck do you mean? I usually see this happening ince the rhemes for the next year are revealed, the old attacks get covered up with such unessesary self-hatred and it kinda bums me out to see it
Anyway here is my artfight account please dont cancel me its litterally just my opinion you dont gotta interact with me or attack me if you dont like my approach/philosophy of the game