Eccentric Flower talk:201002/Words
From Eccentric Flower
Comments on Eccentric Flower:201002/Words
Howard Taylor didn't let his inability to draw ( http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20000618.html ) to stop him from drawing a webcomic (and he improved quite a bit in just two years ( http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20020609.html )). I also hear you about me saying this. So let me take a slightly different tack here---growing up, where you praised (or even acknowleged) for being smart? (and I don't mean by everyone, by people that you trusted).
I ask, because I grew up being praised for being smart, and in time, I grew to associate being smart with the ability to do anything, and if I couldn't do something, it meant that I wasn't smart. Not being smart meant I wouldn't get praised for being so smart. So I avoided doing those things I found difficult (and I didn't do this consciously while growing, up, but I recognize the behavior now as an adult).
It also doesn't help that Dan Brown makes millions for his scribblings and here we are, our brilliance going unrecognized. What went wrong? (another data point: my best friend has two published books to his name and you probably have never heard his name)
About electrical (and plumbing) work: yes, it's relatively straightforward and quite logical. But not everyone thinks that way. I learned that lesson about a decade ago when a friend of mine mentioned she wanted to take a class on Microsoft Word (or some other application, I don't recall the exact one but it doesn't really matter for this point). "Why not just get a book and play around with the stupid program" I asked, and got a blank stare back. She doesn't learn that way. She needs someone to tell her what needs to be done. The concept of self-study was alien to her. The concept of non-self-study was alien to me ( http://boston.conman.org/2009/11/02.1 ).
-- 22:49, 1 March 2010 (GMT)
I think both of those points - about being told I was smart growing up and what that translated into, and self-study vs being handed a process - are profound. The latter I had unfortunately already learned about - which is related to one of many reasons I don't do tech support anymore - but the former is a new insight, and I will want to chew on that for a while.
-- 22:58, 1 March 2010 (GMT)
I sort of agree with you, in spots. A bit. Which is to say, if this was lj, you would not automatically be getting my "think so, do ya?" icon for this comment.
I think that some people clearly pick up certain things more quickly than others. And I think it's more satisfying to keep working on things when you see progress. I expect that those two reasons play into most (though not all) of the greats in whatever field being naturally talented to at least a certain extent.
I also think that there are plenty of people who have a raw talent for something but who do not, for whatever reason, have the gift of the kind of sustained, intense interest it requires to get really good at it. I think the two things are handed out separately. And I think you have a much better chance of becoming a good artist (for example) when you got only the determination than when you got only the raw talent. I think the people who got raw talent and no particular will to work at something very often overestimate how close they are to being really good at it, because breezing through the intro levels is not actually as rare as they think, and not at all the hard part.
It's hard to say chicken and egg on, for example, my piano skills. I am a competent pianist, but I felt from the time I was 9 or 10 that it was clear that practice was going to make me a competent pianist rather than a great one. And when I practiced more than, say, an hour a day, I wasn't thinking about the piano past the hour mark, I was thinking about whatever story I was working on or other things in my life. Whereas my ability to work on fiction is a lot more limited by "are my other life tasks getting accomplished and am I burning out" than by "am I bored with this now." If I had been more naturally talented, would I have been able to sustain the amounts of practice it took? Maybe. Maybe not. If I had been less naturally talented but more dedicated to the piano, would I have gotten there a harder way? Again, maybe. Hard to say.
You can make somebody do a lot of something, but you can't make them pay the kind of attention to it that makes them improve. When I was a teenager, the neighbors across the street played driveway basketball *all the time*. And they *never improved*. Part of it was that they were stubby little people with no natural gift for the game. But part of it was that they were not actually thinking much about driveway basketball. They were not working at it. Work would not have made them famous basketball stars. But not everything is as body-type-dependent as basketball.
-- 23:36, 1 March 2010 (GMT)
"Already too late at birth" is a little harsh, but it won't do to argue. Can I say things you won't think are glib or condescending? Several of these brilliant people around you would tell you that they think *you're* excellent and equal company, but, of course, they probably all have, quite coincidentally, the same blindspot regarding your skills. I don't think you're a dilettante at all. I will say that the "I'll be the best or nothing" polarity will leave you with nothing to do.
Do not worry about age, unless you think people stop learning.
Do you think you've lost the ability to form new thoughts and synthesize different things? What do you think practice *does*? It gives you the opportunity to see how your muscles might change in a new direction, move with some new force, move with some new subtlety, notice some new sensation. If the student isn't prompted, critical areas might go undiscovered. Helpful teachers can do this, but of course not everyone needs teachers. Some students who have different starting blocks internalize those prompts and constantly search outward for things to indicate a need for change in technique, and search inward for the means to move differently in order to achieve it.
I hate to talk of innate limitations, but I would have to respect that people are wired in all sorts of ways. I don't know about how permanent certain roadblocks to creativity might be. In someone's case who wanted to draw, I won't say "just draw more" but I do wonder if the pathways are more firmly tangled than might be understood, rather than simply absent. It's true that early teachers struggle with a pack of students because they get into trouble that the new teacher has never had to climb out of because their path had different trouble spots! So, maybe a drawing student simply has not found anyone who understands the existing degree of tangled.
I have seen people struggle, and if I'm ever useful to them (at least in ceramics) it's because I questioned their assumptions about how to move their arms/hands/fingers/whatever, and alterted them to good news signals coming from the clay. My guess is that the plastic arts which involve moving keys on a piano, smooshing clay, waving a brush, cutting hair, etc. have to do with interrupting your assumption process about how you move, how you're interpreting the goals, and start again to gauge reasonable expectations.
I am unhappy about people having limits, but I do not think many of us reach them.
-- 06:39, 2 March 2010 (GMT)
i would agree with Mrissa: some people can, some people won't, and some people can't. i know that i could probably learn to draw passably, but unless i can do it like any of these people i'm probably not going to even try. i have two original pages from DREAM SEQUENCE with the company office and McNeil makes it look easy! though she does light-box all her final so you can't see the work...
i swim and i'm fairly good, but at this point i no longer have any chance at making a national team. the goals change a little though: "how many Olympic Trials can i qualify for and be the oldest swimmer in my event?"
-- 16:24, 2 March 2010 (GMT)
OH MY GOD WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE TELL ME KALUTA WAS TRYING TO BRING STARSTRUCK the comic that failed because it was too good for most of the universe BACK
(I have the original graphic novel AND the first five issues of the original run AND a bound script of the Elaine Lee play with original cast photos.)
ahem. sorry. little squee there.
(If you like Michael Kaluta you will also want a look at Charles Vess. Which you probably already have. Also, Chris Bachalo is my dream illustrator except in the places where Kaluta or Miguelanxo Prado is more appropriate. Actually M.Prado will remind you of Bachalo in places.)
There was a guy, in the days of Epic magazine (like Heavy Metal but actually good - like "Starstruck," too good to succeed - I have a box of them) named Kent Williams. At the time he was an art student at Pratt. He set some kind of record for having stories in successive issues. He just kept sending them stuff and it was ALL GOOD. And each was in a different style. These days he seems to have settled on a very Schiele style. He has accolades and all that. He's only six years older than I am, which means that when I was a teenager and was reading those Epic issues, he was only just barely not a teenager himself.
Tom Lehrer: "It's a disconcerting thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age ... he had been dead for two years."
-- 16:51, 2 March 2010 (GMT)
You know, the Starstruck history link seems to imply that Vess was connected with Kaluta from the very early days. (Certainly Vess is credited on the new covers.) I guess that would go a long way toward explaining their similarities.
-- 16:58, 2 March 2010 (GMT)
as a long-suffering Starstruck fan, i always assume that nobody else cares! you always seem cool to all but a specific range of comic book things anyway. ;)
it's been a fabulous representation so far (sometimes the colour styling is a little... too assertive) with the extra material and everything. IDW will have a beautiful hardcover (as is their habit) when the 13 issues are up and someone is supposed to be doing some readings of the play soon with an official recording available afterwards. Kaluta has expressed interest in continuing it if it's financially viable. he's actually done a bunch of interior work lately over at DC, including five full honest-to-jove-monthly issues of Madame Xanadu.
Kaluta was in a studio at one time with Wrightson, Barry Windsor-Smith and Jeffry Jones (draw a straight line back to Rackham and Dulac). i seem to remember reading that Vess was "that kid who hung around for a while" or something like that. he inked/is inking the Girl Guide stories in this reprint (no word on if the 'lost' Linda Medley drawn ones will show up).
i have a full run of Epic (and of Cheval Noir and a lot of fun 80's stuff when things were different and weirder in American comics). Kent Williams was always really impressive! (also comes to mind painted work in Epic from Marc Hempel which is very different from his linework) i think he's probably the first name and style i started to recognize when i discovered painted comics (i was drawn to all that red...)(and then there was Ted McKeever, which is a different story). then i figured out how he fit together with Jon Muth, George Pratt, etc. (blow mind, repeat) the last big thing Williams did was an adaptation of Aronofsky's original script for The Fountain. i think he discovered that it was a better living selling paintings. he's married to another impressive artist, Sherilyn van Valkenburgh , with a completely contrary style (not much work out there on the internets).
um. :) sorry about the weird paragraph. really, everything comes back to Archie Goodwin who ran the Epic imprint at Marvel, doesn't it?
Prado i've seen a little, but haven't actually experienced a big chunk. probably only the little Sandman thing he did.
(edited better Cheval Noir link)
-- 21:40, 2 March 2010 (GMT)
Iain:
OH MY GOD WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE TELL ME KALUTA WAS TRYING TO BRING STARSTRUCK the comic that failed because it was too good for most of the universe BACK
If you like Kaluta -- as opposed to simply liking Starstruck -- then you ought to see if you can find the "Madame Xanadu: Exodus Noir" trade, where Kaluta went back to a character he apparently co-created. (It's also the chapter that got Madame Xanadu what even I will consider a reasonably well-deserved nomination in the GLAAD Media Awards this year. At least, this year's nominations did not bring out the urge to beat the nominating committee vigorously about the heads and shoulders with many more deserving titles, so I suppose that's something. But I digress. Again.)
-- 19:51, 5 March 2010 (GMT)
Mel:
I'd never heard of this Kaluta person but (we are all geeks in our own ways)... look at the Tolkien calendar!! Squee!
(http://www.kaluta.com/pages/tolkien/calendar.html)
-- 09:43, 10 March 2010 (GMT)
That calendar is actually one of his rare works I don't care for; I feel he's trying too hard to be Barry Windsor-Smith there.
(Do an image search on him. There's plenty.)
-- 15:30, 10 March 2010 (GMT)
how odd. it's like someone took Kaluta-people and Kaluta-props and made Parrish or Leyendecker pieces with them.
-- 16:48, 10 March 2010 (GMT)
I think Maxfield Parrish is what he was trying to invoke (or was commissioned to invoke) there, but it doesn't ... quite ... work.
-- 19:07, 10 March 2010 (GMT)
i can't remember if this will catch the proper attention, but:
the audio recording of the Starstruck play is due October 31st
and
the hardcover collection of the recent representation of the comic is due in March 2011. IDW does a bang-up job with their collections, and it will be larger than standard 'comic book' size (probably the same as magazine width). if i remember correctly, the Galactic Girl Guide stuff will be left out of this and collected separately.
-- 16:11, 6 October 2010 (BST)
Ysabel:
I'm not sure you're wrong about everything (in fact, it seems unlikely) but I do believe you're wrong about most of this.
-- 19:59, 1 March 2010 (GMT)