legitimately though i am again astounded at the level of talent of SP fanartists and writers. i have 92 posts in my queue right now that are almost all fanart, a lot of stuff i remember liking back in the day but also a lot of stuff completely new to me and just BLOWS ME AWAY. i have never ever reblogged or consumed so much fandom content than i have while being a parkateer, and if anything in recent years i've avoided fandom content altogether for the things i'm interested in because i'm too stuck to my own tastes. that's hardly ever a problem for me with SP, admittedly it used to be and i'm sure there's still a lot of stuff out there Not For Me in multiple senses, but i really respect that, like... every artist's art is like a thumbprint, even if you're drawing the same thing it's going to be different based on your life experiences and tastes and skill, etc. that's just a general rule of art. and with SP that feeling is magnified 1000x, because there's inherent creative freedom with stylizing and portraying these characters... it's really nice to return to.
a lot of my art up to this point has been very "literal", i'm good at replicating other styles and chameleoning my own style--partially bc that's my job as a storyboard artist! but sometimes i get too in my head about preserving the "integrity" of the characters or series or legacies i'm drawing and don't feel i have as much room to experiment. with SP fanart, it essentially is ALL experimentation, ALL taking liberties, etc. i'm just really wowed by the breadth of everyone's abilities and interpretations, and even if there are some things that i personally may disagree with (talking more aesthetically rather than morally lol) i can appreciate it so much more now than i think i was once able to. lot of different thumbprints, so to speak. it's super inspiring!
