Fedodika the Koala

[Fedodika]

Deer: Thx heeh

Alrighty, well, I don't have any art to post today, but I do have some interesting thoughts I discovered today... On the 25th of February, that's when things kinda clicked for me like, you gotta love what you draw. So, likewise, I said I don't know what I love to draw, so i thought I'd try to find it this month. 

Everything at this point feels like this grey, like I feel like I could draw anything and have about the same level enjoyment doing so, in any style. I don't think that's a good thing to be honest, because it feels very passionless and unfocused. I could draw an anime girl or a crazy face, or a naked lady, or a tank, or a building or an animal, it'd all kinda feel the same.

I think it stems from my ability to impersonate things. That's something I'm extremely good at is mocking things and doing like impressions. So a lot of the time I forget who I am because I'm so good at pretending to be something else, and wearing multiple hats from day to day based on how I interact with people. 

So, that's more a cause of circumstance really, I have little real passion for a particular visual subject, just art itself. I love the fundamentals of art, and exploring them, but the subject matter is something I could care less about. This isn't good because people care about subject matter, i mean that's what attracts people to someone's art. I've fallen into the very same thing Dave Rapoza and Dan Warren warned many times about in livestreams, where you forget why you even started doing this. 

And I acknowledge that's a huge problem I have right now, and it's a very bleak feeling. I admire great art, but it's rarely for it's subject matter, and more for it's technical executation. So I tried to think of what artist(s) excited me the most on the subject matter alone. And that was Serge Birault. Dark, Sexy, Funny. He had those three things I love. So it's like, Gothic, funny, and mildly sexy pinups. So I wrote down the word gothic, since that's the first thing about his work you'd notice. (But even with this, I still don't feel excited seeing this particular subject matter, it's more a memory of a feeling.) 

Why am I so drawn to that? I think it's because as a kid, I was in love with gothic looking characters like Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, and any character who wore dark things, like Raven from Teen Titans, or some other video game characters. Particularly female characters, it was a bit of a sexual attraction, and the gothic look was something I liked about women in particular. I never really cared for the candles or skulls or all that other stuff you can buy at hot topic. I like (naturally) pale skin, dark hair, eye makeup, dark clothes etc. 

So I did a LOT of research today, reading stuff about goth culture, and finding a lot of interesting things that actually held my attention. I don't imagine reading stuff about anime or ancient Roman History, or trivia about Korean politics would interest me like this does, so it must be resonating. I think I genuinely enjoy it, i mean, I hope I do. 

However, I am approaching it very academically; I'm taking a lot of notes, and bouncing off different searches for things I don't understand and trying to form an opinion on it. It's tough, because I don't really care. I wished I could care, it's wierd... I wished I were like a kid again who got excited about things, like anything. I feel like my personal happiness is like a flatline, I mean I love to laugh and I don't feel depressed, it's just hard to find enjoyment in kind of the novelties people seem to enjoy. In visual things at least, I have no problem ejoying the novelty of music or audio content. I think slaving to fundamentals for these years has done this to me, so I don't think it's permenant. 

But maybe I don't have to care, it can just be something I laugh at because let's face it; gothic subculture can get silly. It's very melodramatic and corny; very consumer and materialist oriented along with some liberal ideas about sexuality and expression, and you know, the purity of "being goth enough." 

One thing I really just am in fear of is that homogenous look that things seem to get. Like if you look at everything that's kind of made it to the top in anything visual, like photography for example; If you type in "pretty woman" all the images look the same on google images, same format. If you type "Suicide girls" individually these women look different, but then amongst others they're nothing special. "Goth," "Emo," Anything you can think of that has a visual element has this homogenous look online. A kind of professional, Amazon ready look you know. Very evident in Youtubers as well, or any kind of headshot people take for their website. 

I hate it with a passion. I know what I DON'T like and that's it. I like stuff that has grit and not just a photoshop filter to add grit, but real grit and story. I love bedrooms in movies that have tons of stuff laying everywhere, and I love things that aren't too clean. I hate the look of minimalist things that are very immaculate and perfect. I like things that look like they've been lived in, it adds a sense of realism and I want things to feel like they really exist in someone's life. 

And when I go to look into goth things it's hard to drill past that sterile homogeny, but I am getting deeper, finding interesting things that actually do keep me reading and looking. So yea, that's been my day, still got a lot of stuff to figure out, maybe if I sleep after all this I might come up with a cool visual idea. But I'm not holding my breath.