Artstation and tits
polycounter lvl 7
WTF? I just went on Artstation to get some inspiration and to see what's new, and the front page is riddled with tits, asses and chicks in suggestive poses with little to no clothes. My question is - do artists do these kind of pieces for views? I mean, you look into any of these pieces, and they have thousands of views and likes, then there are some stunning environments, sculpts, and some beautiful art in general, that once you hold for more than a second and appreciate the work and thought that has been put into it, and they have little to no views and likes, like wtf? Do people just scroll through works, see tits and upvote? I mean, if I want people to notice my work, should I add tits to everything? It's just the idea that I'm getting from watching Artstation feed.
What are your thoughts on this matter?
What are your thoughts on this matter?
Replies
Ordinarily, anyway... I've heard that people who commission pornographic works make obscene amounts of money, whereas normal commissioned artists often struggle to get by.
Just try keeping your sanity with requests like that, though. I've heard some things... Sonic-themed pseudo-bestiality is just the sprinkles on top of a many layered cake of exponentially increasing insanity.
Sadly like and comment give you visibility and visibility give you jobs, I heard loads of story of people finding jobs right after being picked or top-rowed on zBrush Central.
I'd frame it another way. These people who got that job, got it because their work was so good that it got them to front row. The quality is the enabler, and from there anything goes. Sure, nicely rendered tits and asses might get one to the top of the Artstation page. But that's not going to interest an art director who is looking for a weapon concept artist. So I think that worrying about the filtering/curating system of popular forums and art websites is kindof a moot point. Kim Jung Gi only needed only a few Facebook posts in korean to go from unknown art teacher to world famous gallery artist ...
I find this is more of an issue with 2D art on AS, people like to draw boobs I guess. Drawing boobs isn't really a problem but the lack of diversity gets boring, I dunno if there are just proportionally that many more T&A drawings or what. The 3D section tends to have more diversity with a wider range of styles, themes, and subjects, though it tends to trend heavily towards character art as well:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork?medium=digital3d
probably you only browse around community and trending,
Artstation Editor picks and top row just doing fine . thanks to Artstation robust editorials
As it turns out though, most of art station isnt actually tits and arse, but a lot of it hits the front page because its what a lot of people like
Lets get real now: You ask if you should add tits to make your work stand out? How about doing some work first. Your artstation has the default unreal character with 4 triangle batman ears tacked on with some emissive text, a room, a corridor and a playing card. hardly engaging, enthusing or amazing artwork. Less moaning, more arting
The simple question was, do artists post artwork highlighting boobs, suggestive poses, etc, to get likes and views? The obvious answer is yes, of course. That is generally the reason everyone posts any kind of artwork online. So, a secondary question exists there, is posting boobs/etc an easy way to get more views than other subject matters? Yes, of course it is (if you're any good at it - that's certainly not easy), it prays on the basic carnal instincts of humans. This is not inherently bad, but it is the reality, especially with an industry and community so heavily inclined to disproportionate male participation (this is also not to say that women do not also draw or enjoy looking at such images - before someone tries to throw that one at me).
Artwork that displays boobs, suggestive poses, etc, always has and likely always will be a popular topic. We can come to this conclusion while completely separating out any moral aspect of the conversation. So let's stop with the ridiculous black/white moral argument before this thread becomes a total shit show.
It's always going to happen though, this kind of stuff. Sex sells! No point worrying about something out of your control, just focus on replacing it with badass art you yourself want to see by liking and commenting lots (people don't comment nowhere near enough on Artstation, I think that is a bigger issue!).
I myself don't model that kind of stuff, perhaps to a disadvantage popularity wise
The concern is that images of naked women seem to get disproportionally more views/likes than anything else without regard for the actual quality or complexity of the work, at the expense of such higher quality works.
There's a finite amount of space on that front page, and if it's filled with random "Oooh, boobies!", then that's less room for higher quality work that by all rights should be there.
ArtStation's staff does a pretty good job with their curated sections, like Picks, where they tend to highlight a very nice range of work, while still showing the occasional T&A when the quality merits it.
But yeah. I'm pretty sure this has been a thing not only throughout the history of online art galleries, but throughout history in general. We can't control what other people like, but we can control what we like, where we look and what we want to see. Like I said before - fave and comment more, share artwork you like to other people so they can also fave and comment and push it to the front page, and post artwork you have done that you want to see on the front page.
Or, just make your own art gallery website and heavily curate it. Either way :P It probably wouldn't be too popular though.
EDIT- In fact, one of the few things I liked about deviantART was the "More Like This" section, which features more artwork similar to the one you are looking at. That way, you always have stuff similar to what you already like shown to you that you've never seen before. This could be nice for Artstation, to showcase more unknown work.
Just wondering as I've scrolled down a couple of pages of artstation and there is no tits and arse.
Maybe two of these 98 are tits and arse.
The average UK girl dresses more suggestively, than most of these artwork.
I agree that artstation is full of stuff I would consider boob/butt art, but that screenshot isn't showing it.
If you're doing something for just the views what becomes the end goal? To keep making the same stuff over and over just to be on the front page?
Still gotta remember when overwatch was just released, Tracer's ass was all over the place haha.
Idk, still most of these arts are pretty well drawn so I can't really complain.
Like, it does nothing for me. In that screenshot there may not be that much tits and ass, but there's alot of pictures of girls. About 1/3 of the pictures?
The content is quite one-sided. I mostly look at Artstation for inspiration for my own work and as a non-character artist I don't get inspired by that stuff, or atleast very rarely.
Anyway, I don't care and there's only so many times you can see dressed down versions of the Overwatch characters or whatever, haha.
I don't think it's a problem, I understand that through all of history portraits and sculptures of women have been an effective way of portraying alot of different emotions and narratives. I just wish I had more control over the filters on Artstation.
If you start adding boobs to your artwork I'd say that's fine :P I'm not sure how you'd add them to a sci-fi corridor but, hey! Whatever you do to get by in this industry is fair game if you ask me or don't go against your own moral standards.
doesn`t have to be tits and asses.
in the end stuff that aren`t good won`t get many likes even if it`s tits and asses.
Would love to be able to filter out what I don`t want see at the moment though.
As for finite space and 'higher quality work': what, boobs make it inherently lower quality? Come on. It's about popularity not quality, and it's measured by how many people clicked the button, its not some conspiracy is it? For what it's worth, go look at the picks section, where artstation editors specifically choose what goes there, and see a good balance of all kinds of content.
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As for Earthquake's suggestion that people post sexualised work to get views - yeah some perhaps but I don't think people spend 100 hours on a tits if they don't want to make tits. Generally these people that are on the front page have large back catalogues of work, its not like its tits on a whim they generally have clearly studied the female form because that's their thing. You imply that people do it for clicks but I've not met a decent artist that works for other people's attention in that way, crap ones yeah but those that get decent enough to make the front page are generally so far as i can tell making the work first and foremost because thats the work they enjoy making and that is clearly evidenced by them having done a hell of a lot of it. some of these people have 10 years worth of work. I don't know if you make work with likes in mind, but I just make what I like and I think a lot of us do.
As for people's reaction to OP? It's easy and alt-cool to complain about sexualisation or similar things, but unless you've got a strong, well thought out and substantial argument, you're going to get ripped apart because it isn't really a valid complaint. He's complaining about things people popular that are popular. Mcdonalds is popular despite my mum's fantastic home cooking, and gordon ramsey's fantastic restaurants.
It's not only tits and ass that is popular. I mean, someone with alot of followers can post a beveled cube or intentionally bad art and get lots of likes and comments or whatever and hit the front page. Quality is often popular, but not always.
I don't think we're going to come to a conclusion whether or not this is good or bad for the industry. It's not like this is a new or unique topic, people have forever been asking what they should put in their portfolios and everyone has to market themselves to what people want and find popular?
Those threads has mostly been answered with "Do what you enjoy doing, but it has to sell.".
I don't see any T&A
I wouldn't rule out the possibility that you notice them more because you are looking for them more.
Take a screenshot of ArtStation and post it with the caption "I don't see any tits"
Just do you.
As I said, people post all kinds of artwork on ArtStation to get views and likes, that's the whole point. Certain subject matters, like the female form, tend to be more likely to be popular than other subjects, even when looking at pieces with equivalent quality. Again, we can come to this conclusion without attaching any sort of value judgement to the merit of the work.
Let's try a basic thought experiment. Take a badass, well known artist. Have him or her draw two female characters. One is exceptionally attractive, wearing skimpy clothes, and posed in a suggestive manner. The other is a normal looking woman, dressed in modest clothing in a more natural, every day pose. Let's say both pieces are executed to the same level and equally interesting. Which one do you think will be more popular?
The answer is pretty clear to me. Honestly, I don't even see this as a problem, that the general public will tend to react more to the sexualized image. It's more like a phenomenon, which is interesting to think about detached from any moral discussion.
I do think it has the potential to become problematic when work is created specifically to pander to that reaction. IMO creating work to pander (be it sexy girls or any subject matter) is bad for a number of reasons - it's a cop out, it breads monoculture, it reduces individual creativity, etc. Luckily I don't think we're at any real danger of this overtaking the art community, there are enough artists out there that do their own thing that it really isn't a big deal. Now before someone takes this paragraph the wrong way and flips to some absurd conclusion let me clarify one thing: I do not think that drawing sexy girls is pandering it its own right, drawing sexy girls specifically to get views would be. Drawing Starwars fan art specifically to get views is also pandering, as is <insert any other topic here>.
Someone wondering how come there is quite a lot of [insert name of the thing] somewhere, doesn't mean that this person is against [insert name of the thing], enjoys [insert name of the thing], would like to see less of [insert name of the thing], or enjoys rubbing their face against [insert name of the thing]. This is just a question, without any value judgement besides the one one wants to apply to it after the fact (and of course since this is The Internet Of 201X ... be offended by it).
So as said, while I don't think there is any point in being concerned by it I think it is still a fascinating phenomenon to observe. If anything it shows that when not directed by a strict set of limitations guiding their hand (art direction, or being paid to do something specific as EQ pointed it out), lots of artists kind of revert to similar topics which I suppose is only natural - but arguably, not always super exciting. And while the individual pictures definitely all have their own merits, seeing such a juxtaposition of eerily similar work, especially in thumbnail form, does look repetitive. It simply brings up the good old question of whether artistic expression is about depicting something pretty, or, focusing on the effect regardless of the subject matter.
Or maybe we will still be seeing only boobs and wooden floors after that.