Mayshing: The popularity contest topic  comes up again, and again, I feel I should share this information that I wrote about the REASON behind any popularity contest in the artistic world on DA.

Once you understand the logic behind how a human mind works, I hope artists will pay less mind to these games that WILL NOT stop bothering them, and just let it go and NOT LET IT bother them.... go to make good art with ease, let's promote art others fail to see, lets make the community better as a whole.



1. The reality of Brand name

Every business men and women would know it... artists' name and their product name become their brand name.

In the begining when artists all start out, sometimes they need to borrow other people's brand name... like Mario, Sonic, link, for example, to step upto the platform so people know Their name.

That's why often popular artists are also good fan artists.

How many people would google your name vs popular anime?

Soul Calibur borrowed the brand name of others so they could bring their work to a greater awareness, that's a good example.

If you think about it... there's nothing unfair...
This process is quite similar to...

"let me introduce you... this is John, he's my classmate."
"Oh hi! Nice to meet you, John."

VS

You see John on the train, you didn't even bother to ask his name.


People need something familiar first to connect with something unfamiliar. That's merely a natural, almost animal, learning process.

That's why with artists, often their own original work get associated with other "brand names" For example: "Your character look like Inuyasha!"
Don't get mad at them... Because it's very much like...

"Mommy! Cow cow!"
"No, dear... that's a horse."

--------Translate to:

"Hey! That look like Inyuasha!"
"No... it's my own character, just because he wears RED chinese clothing and has long hair...doesn't make him Inuyasha. OK?"

When your work get popular... others will say the same thing in the opposite way.

"So and so copied your work!"
"Hmm....really?"

Brand name takes time to build, patience and investment are nessary. Unless you find a carrier, which is a big name company to bring out your work, that's if they want to invest in you, you usually have to work for them like one of the soldiers in the army.

The artist will get "stereotyped" by their own work, so try to do more variety of work if you don't want to get stuck into one category.




2. The building of momentum.

If you have made a work that's a hit, and you bring out a similar work with similar quality, your established audience will continue to favorite it, or buy it.
You can continue with this steadiness for a while, until your audience lose interest in you slowly. Many many companies have chose to survive this way in the money game.

An artist with good consistancy with their work will build a steady, growing momentum. Of course, basic decent art skill is required for that.
On the other hand, if the artist didn't follow up with the popular picture that hit their gallery with visits, and chose to terminate their gallery and only come back a long while later.... the momentum will drop. They might become a normal artist, not a popular one.


An experiemental artist.... as long as s/he preserve some quality of the same kind to the past pieces, his/her audience will support her. But if it's completely off the chart to the established audience... s/he will loose support from the previous audience, and have to build a different audience for different taste. (like an anime artist drew an abstract painting... you will see a great drop in attention.)
Another example of this is famous artist moving to another country hoping for success, finding that they have to build their fame from ground zero. It's the same principle moving from site to site.


So catching your own momentum and flow with it is very important to become successful. If you missed the momentum, you will have to create a new one.

To add... Momentum works like a volcano, pressure builds up gradually first, then when it hits a point, it exploses,(your hit picture or serie) often catching the artists off guard when they are suddenly hit with attention, those who didn't learn how to handle it with gradual learning process will become too stressed and get pulled away from their usual path.

After the explosion, everything is just rolling down hill, the artist basically loose control of the popular work they have created. This is the stage where: "The art has a journey on its own."


3. Market Share

I prefer the term, Market share compare to "hierarchy"

Every category of art has a different market share on DA.

Anime/fanart having the most of the share (because of rule one, people associate with what they know first)

Then its personal, individual original art, such as beautifully drawn fantasy pieces, realism, anime styles, landscapes...etc
The things one can see and relate to in reality. (again back to the first rule)

Finally... it's the art for art sake kind of work, abstract, experiemental...

Among these... you have different skills and audience preference in play too.

Just a personal observation:
Have you noticed on DA... mostly the more femine pieces get more attention? Even very good musculin pieces can't beat really well drawn, fanart, beautifully colored, feminine pieces.
My explaination is...because girls percentage is higher here, (perhaps they favorite more?) go to a CounterStrike game forum, that could be a different story. ;) Higher percentage of guys hang around game forum more often.


Some Q&A that might be helpful to you: (taken from other's feedback)



1. I tried and tried, magic hit hasn't come.

A: Magic doesn't happen easily, hard work, basic training is only a part of the ordeal. If you feel that your training is still lacking in anyway, focus on your basic skills instead of getting attention, it will get you onto a better path.

On the other hand...
Some maybe good, but just because the trend isn't in their favor, they will struggle...they have to find the right group to support them.
For example, some fine arts' only get very few audience in their gallery per day, but if they sell a piece, that one piece beats however many prints we sell online, but online, they may get no attention because their work is more favorable to a specific audience.

For example, after Anime/manga hit the market in US, it's undoubtingly that some cartoonish American artists suffered from the shifting attention to that genre.

So a backslash happened, and conflict between American comic style and manga continued to exist until today. But there are some that embraced the change and moved forward to merging them. So it all depends on the situation.

My take is... it's better to be flexible than rigid. But I pay great respect to those who like to keep the traditions. We need both types.



2. What is the audience thinking?

A: Just don't forget to make yourself an audience. (viewer) You are still a part of the massive thing called "audience"
Critically anaylze why you would favorite an artwork but not the other, even if they are good, then go to understand different people's different taste, look at what other work another person favorited...then you might know what your audience is thinking.


Oh well that's it for now... just personal evaluation in response (or adding to) another person's opinion. Nothing meant to harm. Just hope to share a bit of my observation so people can look at this with a mind at ease.