Sounds to me like you have never had to go through legal at a developer or publisher. So to me what you are saying does sound far fetched and it does sound like pure speculation.
Why is it so hard to believe that artists all got together and posted their art at the same time? I think you see the images with a cluster of renders from HZD and red flags rise and alarms go off and you suspect the worst. Who do you think supplies all of this art for the Blasts that ArtStation does? The artists do it.
ArtStation isnt going to post the art for them, the developers wont do it, the artists have to go in and post their own stuff on their own accounts, cuz logins.
Sure, it is in a studios interest to attract talent and one of the ways to attract talent is to, well, show your stuff off. Naughty Dog does this extremely well, I dont think I have ever met a single student who didnt tell me they wanted to be at Naughty Dog, props to them for the reputation. Guerrilla is going to have a lot of people applying now because they have a hit and they have publicly shown they are encouraging artists to post their renders and their game looks top notch and is fun to play. All of this only works because the games are solid and the art posted is solid, not because of some pay to post scheme that doesn't exist.
When I worked at Trion on Defiance all of the Character team and some of the environment artists were working on their renders for an art dump. No one told us to, we just did it because we were excited. Plenty of artists on the floor didnt post anything for a while. There was no chatter from upon high the we needed to get the renders done by a certain date to satisfy a 3rd party.
Activision hasn't ever done of these Art Blasts for a Call of Duty game. Huge publisher / developer / IP not showing a Blast on Art Station. How does that fit into the speculation? It doesn't, because it doesn't exist.
@TeriyakiStyle I don't believe your apocryphal tale that you've seen this done in the industry, partly because you seem like a conspiracy theorist with an axe to grind against Artstation, but also because no game studio is going to do that because there is almost 0 upside in the tiny slice of the 3D Art industry and on the other side of the coin, a ton of downside if somehow a it turns into negative PR somehow. Artists who are passionate about sharing their work with the world upload to Artstation to strut their stuff and share knowledge. Period. No collusion, no back channel shady BS, etc. We do this because we love this, and we share it because we love our peers.
I don't even know what this thread is about any more.
Are we seriously arguing about assigning blame as to why our artwork hasn't had more people click "like" on it? Is that the level we're at here? Did I miss the part where Artstation became Instagram in peoples minds?
what's the gain for a studio when participating in one of these coordinated 'blasts' though? i recall several places i have either been at or heard about where they were very conscious of their staff being lured away. this included not having credits in the game or manual at all or omitting job titles, not giving direct phone or email access to employees from the outside and in one case a little panic frenzy, when an artwork from a then current game got headlined at cgtalk and people from other studios pmed about opportunities at their places. is it all about putting your place on the map for job seekers then?
on the other hand seems pretty clear that it's a nice thing for artstation and the artists involved.
Art blasts are not really bad and it would get attention in any kind of algorithm anyway. It's just that IMO artstation could actually coordinate that and make a different tab for that kind of stuff for a while because when this happens, it makes the whole trending wall be the same for quite some time.
But well, it could be just a waste of effort anyway since it's not something that happens everyday.
I don't think @TeriyakiStyle is going off on a conspiracy theory rant, I think it's a fairly logical conclusion to come to. At the same time, I don't know whether the Art Blast thing is a paid for service. If it is, I don't care, and here is why:
ArtStation is a business, not a charity. This is one of the primary differences between ArtStation and Polycount (PC is technically a business as well but structured more like a charity). AS has a business model that enables them to be financially solvent and continue to roll out features and generally maintain and improve their website, which most of us here would agree is a great service. They have various levels of paid-for promotion content and advertising material on their website. I think of all the sites on the internet, they do a very good job of keeping this content relevant to the user base and relatively unintrusive to the experience. This sort of advertising is what enables them to offer free accounts to the masses.
So if the latest art dump thing was paid for, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. It was excellent artwork that most people would have wanted to see anyway, and it would help support ArtStation as a service. Now, theoretically this could turn foul if ArtStation started promoting things that are not relevant or interesting to the community at large.
Theoretically, AS could turn their various advertising systems to ill-use, they could change their ranking system for the worse, they could make all manner of poor decisions like adding a FredH style donate button to the site. But I don't really see the point of getting too worried about bad things that could happen. I think AS has shown a knack for managing the balance of user experience extremely well (and the internet agrees, just look at their Alexa ratings). So, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt before ringing the alarm bells, and if they fuck something up someday in the future, I'll let them know and give them a chance to improve it. Alienating their user base does nothing positive for them, so it is very much in their interest to continue to make choices that are good for the whole of the service.
One last thing: accepting money for a services is not a bad thing. I think it's sort of hypocritical for artists who would be the first to say "Fuck you, pay me." to take exception to the fact that ArtStation could be taking money in exchange for services. I personally hope that AS makes a shit-ton of money, so they will continue to be a pillar in the 3D community that I can rely on to showcase my work. If there was legit competition for them that would be great too, but any competing company would face the same issues and would definitely need to accept money for services to create a viable, sustainable alternative.
I would say Polycount is the closest thing to the idea of a non-profit .org for this sort of thing. There are a lot of problems with this model though. We're volunteer based, none of us have the time to dedicate fully to Polycount to make it what we would like it to be. Funding is a serious problem, PC makes some money from ads and other streams, but the vast majority of funding for Polycount over the years has come out of Drew's pocket, speaking of which you can help support here: http://polycount.com/discussion/181801/polycount-and-patreon#latest - so while the idea of this seems enticing, I think it's a little misguided.
We're five pages in and no-one has made that the joke that a gun is a phallic symbol and that while Artstation is (was) full of tits, it is actually also full of hard, shiny metal cocks.
Super interesting ideas proposed in here! I for one have never had anyone internally try to influence me to contribute to a scheduled art dump event, and have honestly never heard of it until now. (Oh no maybe I'm shit at my job! hah O___O - sad realization ensues)
But I will say ArtStation offering to sell an "Art Dump" product, ensuring the work is boosted to the top row and marketed in multiple ways/channels is definitely not out of the realm of possibility. Seems like a smart move tbh. However, I will say based on the fact that they are individual user accounts posting, this would require devs from the AAA studio to volunteer and coordinate to have their work approved, and ready to post by a particular date. Maybe not a stretch? But tough to do in bulk.
So in order for that AS product to be worthwhile to a studio who is currently unable to force them to participate 'afterhours', to make it worth their investment, the studio would have to alot in-house studio time, and make it part of their job description/duties to ensure participation. And when you start to add up the manhours necessary to take shots, pass them through legal, brand them, and then post, from an entire art team. The costs associated seem pretty huge for a marginal benefit/audience. It would be a pretty expensive recruiting tactic maybe? And I dont think it would sell many more units of the game.
So for sure it is a possibility, but nothing I've come across as of yet.
It appears that there is coordination between Artstation and Art Managers at large AAA studios. Personally, I think it's great that an Art Manager at a larger studio would take time out of their own day to work with ArtStation to ensure the Artists get a great opportunity to show the work they worked real hard on.
But I will say ArtStation offering to sell an "Art Dump" product, ensuring the work is boosted to the top row and marketed in multiple ways/channels is definitely not out of the realm of possibility. Seems like a smart move tbh. However, I will say based on the fact that they are individual user accounts posting, this would require devs from the AAA studio to volunteer and coordinate to have their work approved, and ready to post by a particular date. Maybe not a stretch? But tough to do in bulk.
@shabba Take a look at the Hero's of the Storm 2.0 Art Blast post. Seems pretty coordinated to me. That post went up around the same time the HOTS art was on trending.
“A few weeks ago we launched Heroes of the Storm 2.0 to overwhelmingly positive community response. This release is a culmination of all of the ways we’ve transformed the Nexus since launch, plus plenty of fantastic new additions such as a more powerful progression system, Loot Chests, a new Battleground, and new Heroes!
Today, we are excited to share with you the work of our very talented artists in an ArtStation Art Blast. The Heroes of the Storm art team posted their concept, character, environment, animation, and UI work today in their ArtStation portfolios, and a selection of their work can be found below.
Special thanks to ArtStation’s Daniel Wade and our own Kajfa Tam for helping us bring this Art Blast to you. I hope you enjoy viewing our work as much as our artists did creating it.”
Kari Sutherland
Senior Art Manager Blizzard Entertainment
To see all of the amazing artwork in one place, try the Picks and Trending wall!
yeeah im not a big fan of coordinated dumps , but at the same time i am , im very conflicted on this one heheh
the biggest problem I see with dumps like the injustice one done today is the fact it is a spam blast on latest which is the best chance for most individual artists to get noticed, to have your stuff so quickly spammed down the latest page by a huge body of professional work all at once kind of screws all the artists trying to build a following and get noticed before them.
if they sectioned off a studio part for dumps like these it would be better.
Im confused. Should it happens in waves? Should the artists not post at all? Should there be a professionals only ArtStation? If the art from games gets its own section we will be back to the other argument of favoritism being played and that's unfair.
The posts from these dumps go and trend for a day or two usually. Whether it's a kick ass piece from an artist or from a games art dump. If the art being posted is good it won't get forgotten because artists share amongst themselves.
The artists working on games go for years sometimes without getting to post any art from the game so let them have their day in the sun. Most developers won't go out of their way to promote the artists work. They are often times putting together these renders at home without pay.
You can't have it both ways. There are many types of fish in the sea and the sea is big enough for everyone.
Are you guys still going on about artists getting some actual recognition for shipping a product and being proud of their work?
Excuse me for a second but isn't that the fucking point? I don't know about you guys but working on a project for 2-3 years or more and not being able to show any of it, then being given the green light when the product ships as a way to promote myself, my awesome art team and game sounds like a no brainer.
The problem I see some people bringing up is that other people's good art gets buried under all of the tagged images. Um ok. So. That is how it goes. It has been that way on Polycount for years. These aren't studios posting the work. These are the actual artists being given permission to do this. Guys this is what we want as artists. We want to be able to stay relevent, to stay competitive and be able to show off our skills and what we work on. It shouldn't matter if its a persons work from "Game A" or persons work from "home art project #3". They have just as much of a right to show off their work from 2-3 years of busting their asses.
Man sometimes I just don't know what to think of some people.
PC does an art dump promoted on the front page, NBD. AS does an art dump promoted on their trending page (or whatever), the world loses their minds.
Lol yep.
Even with no direct coordination with AS the end result would be the same. Most artists are excited to post their professional work. Sometimes when you do paid work you have to wait years to show it off, sometimes you're never given permission to claim it as your own. So naturally, as soon as the gag order is dropped, artists are going to post their stuff. If it's a coordinated "Art Blast" or a 100% organic effort on the individual level, the net effect is the same. High quality, high profile work is going to fill up trending. A lot of it will get "picked".
If this sort of thing pushes your work out of view, that's a personal problem. Work your ass off until your stuff is on that level, and it won't get ignored. It's as simple as that.
I have never had a problem with the art blasts, but some oif the stuff that got picked just cos it was part of said blast irked me, but having spoken with Leonard, they are going to stop blanket picking everything and get back to a more subjective eye. Blast away and all that.
I like the art blasts, though I sometimes don't look at all of them carefully, due to the amount.
Tits are not a problem either, I have a problem with tits that don't have nipples. That just looks super strange, especially if the drawing quality is extremely good. Is there any specific reason behind this? (serious question)
Tits are not a problem either, I have a problem with tits that don't have nipples. That just looks super strange, especially if the drawing quality is extremely good. Is there any specific reason behind this? (serious question)
A couple of guesses on my part: - Nipples are fairly superficial features. Like fingernails or something. I mean, on the spectrum of things, they don't inform structure, or play a major part in a character's pose. If the focus of the drawing is the breasts, I'd say add them. If the focus is the face, I don't see the need, really. But do what thou wilt. - Anime inspired art is popular, and animes often include nippleless breasts as a sort of way-around-the-censors or something. I mean, sailor moon's opening would be full of explicit nudity if they included nipples, and probably wouldn't be allowed on TV. But by not including nipples, it's a kids show. I don't know. - I mean, instagram and facebook are fine with female breasts, until you show a nipple. Then the photo will get removed. But male nipples are fine? So for some reason female nipples are offensive and unsuitable. Not sure that plays a role, but I wanted to vent, because it's a dumb double standard. - Also could just be a stylistic choice.
I don't know what kind of Sailor Moon you have seen I would not expect seeing any nipple through her sailor costume and bra, of course it depends on the cloth, not talking about drawing nipple where it doesn't make sense... might look funny though.
Censorship was something that came to my mind too.
And that's precisely why Kill La Kill is so brilliant. I am sure that a lot of people might be offended by the flesh on display, but at the end of the day :
1 - it is awesome 2 - it is a very clever deconstruction of the Sailor Moon trope of "now-you-see-panties-now-you-don't" , cranking it up to 11.
I think it's a little more complex than just avoiding censorship, and more along the lines of catering to two audiences at once : for Sailor Moon, on one hand you have the cute stuff aimed directly at (I suppose) young girls, and on the other hand there are nippleless sideboobs which are more sexually charged. It's pretty unique and weird for a western viewer, but very interesting. The same applies to series like Ranma 1/2, Lamu, and so on.
And again that's why I think Kill La Kill is so brilliant, because it stretches the irony of it to absurd levels. And if the Kill La Kill henshins were actually showing nipples and penises, not only would it fall under a different category of media, but it also wouldn't work at all as a deconstruction of the Sailor Moon trope.
This stuff does require a certain mindset for sure - something along the lines of "outgrowing maturity". That is to say, getting to the point when one can appreciate a dumb movie like the new Baywatch just as much as more serious "critically acclaimed" work.
If you really want to get people to look at your artwork on ArtStation,
throw the mature tag on it, I've clicked on so many dumpsters and
barrels that were labeled mature, get's me every time.
Replies
Sounds to me like you have never had to go through legal at a developer or publisher. So to me what you are saying does sound far fetched and it does sound like pure speculation.
Why is it so hard to believe that artists all got together and posted their art at the same time? I think you see the images with a cluster of renders from HZD and red flags rise and alarms go off and you suspect the worst. Who do you think supplies all of this art for the Blasts that ArtStation does? The artists do it.
ArtStation isnt going to post the art for them, the developers wont do it, the artists have to go in and post their own stuff on their own accounts, cuz logins.
Sure, it is in a studios interest to attract talent and one of the ways to attract talent is to, well, show your stuff off. Naughty Dog does this extremely well, I dont think I have ever met a single student who didnt tell me they wanted to be at Naughty Dog, props to them for the reputation. Guerrilla is going to have a lot of people applying now because they have a hit and they have publicly shown they are encouraging artists to post their renders and their game looks top notch and is fun to play. All of this only works because the games are solid and the art posted is solid, not because of some pay to post scheme that doesn't exist.
When I worked at Trion on Defiance all of the Character team and some of the environment artists were working on their renders for an art dump. No one told us to, we just did it because we were excited. Plenty of artists on the floor didnt post anything for a while. There was no chatter from upon high the we needed to get the renders done by a certain date to satisfy a 3rd party.
Activision hasn't ever done of these Art Blasts for a Call of Duty game. Huge publisher / developer / IP not showing a Blast on Art Station. How does that fit into the speculation? It doesn't, because it doesn't exist.
Are we seriously arguing about assigning blame as to why our artwork hasn't had more people click "like" on it? Is that the level we're at here? Did I miss the part where Artstation became Instagram in peoples minds?
is it all about putting your place on the map for job seekers then?
on the other hand seems pretty clear that it's a nice thing for artstation and the artists involved.
But well, it could be just a waste of effort anyway since it's not something that happens everyday.
ArtStation is a business, not a charity. This is one of the primary differences between ArtStation and Polycount (PC is technically a business as well but structured more like a charity). AS has a business model that enables them to be financially solvent and continue to roll out features and generally maintain and improve their website, which most of us here would agree is a great service. They have various levels of paid-for promotion content and advertising material on their website. I think of all the sites on the internet, they do a very good job of keeping this content relevant to the user base and relatively unintrusive to the experience. This sort of advertising is what enables them to offer free accounts to the masses.
So if the latest art dump thing was paid for, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. It was excellent artwork that most people would have wanted to see anyway, and it would help support ArtStation as a service. Now, theoretically this could turn foul if ArtStation started promoting things that are not relevant or interesting to the community at large.
Theoretically, AS could turn their various advertising systems to ill-use, they could change their ranking system for the worse, they could make all manner of poor decisions like adding a FredH style donate button to the site. But I don't really see the point of getting too worried about bad things that could happen. I think AS has shown a knack for managing the balance of user experience extremely well (and the internet agrees, just look at their Alexa ratings). So, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt before ringing the alarm bells, and if they fuck something up someday in the future, I'll let them know and give them a chance to improve it. Alienating their user base does nothing positive for them, so it is very much in their interest to continue to make choices that are good for the whole of the service.
One last thing: accepting money for a services is not a bad thing. I think it's sort of hypocritical for artists who would be the first to say "Fuck you, pay me." to take exception to the fact that ArtStation could be taking money in exchange for services. I personally hope that AS makes a shit-ton of money, so they will continue to be a pillar in the 3D community that I can rely on to showcase my work. If there was legit competition for them that would be great too, but any competing company would face the same issues and would definitely need to accept money for services to create a viable, sustainable alternative.
I would say Polycount is the closest thing to the idea of a non-profit .org for this sort of thing. There are a lot of problems with this model though. We're volunteer based, none of us have the time to dedicate fully to Polycount to make it what we would like it to be. Funding is a serious problem, PC makes some money from ads and other streams, but the vast majority of funding for Polycount over the years has come out of Drew's pocket, speaking of which you can help support here: http://polycount.com/discussion/181801/polycount-and-patreon#latest - so while the idea of this seems enticing, I think it's a little misguided.
But I will say ArtStation offering to sell an "Art Dump" product, ensuring the work is boosted to the top row and marketed in multiple ways/channels is definitely not out of the realm of possibility. Seems like a smart move tbh. However, I will say based on the fact that they are individual user accounts posting, this would require devs from the AAA studio to volunteer and coordinate to have their work approved, and ready to post by a particular date. Maybe not a stretch? But tough to do in bulk.
So in order for that AS product to be worthwhile to a studio who is currently unable to force them to participate 'afterhours', to make it worth their investment, the studio would have to alot in-house studio time, and make it part of their job description/duties to ensure participation. And when you start to add up the manhours necessary to take shots, pass them through legal, brand them, and then post, from an entire art team. The costs associated seem pretty huge for a marginal benefit/audience. It would be a pretty expensive recruiting tactic maybe? And I dont think it would sell many more units of the game.
So for sure it is a possibility, but nothing I've come across as of yet.
Holy spam Batman! another co-ordinated hamfisted blast #BringBackTheBoobs
Take a look at the Hero's of the Storm 2.0 Art Blast post. Seems pretty coordinated to me. That post went up around the same time the HOTS art was on trending.
https://magazine.artstation.com/2017/05/blizzard-entertainment-heroes-storm-art-blast/
“A few weeks ago we launched Heroes of the Storm 2.0 to overwhelmingly positive community response. This release is a culmination of all of the ways we’ve transformed the Nexus since launch, plus plenty of fantastic new additions such as a more powerful progression system, Loot Chests, a new Battleground, and new Heroes!
Today, we are excited to share with you the work of our very talented artists in an ArtStation Art Blast. The Heroes of the Storm art team posted their concept, character, environment, animation, and UI work today in their ArtStation portfolios, and a selection of their work can be found below.
Special thanks to ArtStation’s Daniel Wade and our own Kajfa Tam for helping us bring this Art Blast to you. I hope you enjoy viewing our work as much as our artists did creating it.”
Kari Sutherland
Senior Art Manager
Blizzard Entertainment
To see all of the amazing artwork in one place, try the Picks and Trending wall!
if they sectioned off a studio part for dumps like these it would be better.
AS does an art dump promoted on their trending page (or whatever), the world loses their minds.
The posts from these dumps go and trend for a day or two usually. Whether it's a kick ass piece from an artist or from a games art dump. If the art being posted is good it won't get forgotten because artists share amongst themselves.
The artists working on games go for years sometimes without getting to post any art from the game so let them have their day in the sun. Most developers won't go out of their way to promote the artists work. They are often times putting together these renders at home without pay.
You can't have it both ways. There are many types of fish in the sea and the sea is big enough for everyone.
Excuse me for a second but isn't that the fucking point? I don't know about you guys but working on a project for 2-3 years or more and not being able to show any of it, then being given the green light when the product ships as a way to promote myself, my awesome art team and game sounds like a no brainer.
The problem I see some people bringing up is that other people's good art gets buried under all of the tagged images. Um ok. So. That is how it goes. It has been that way on Polycount for years. These aren't studios posting the work. These are the actual artists being given permission to do this. Guys this is what we want as artists. We want to be able to stay relevent, to stay competitive and be able to show off our skills and what we work on. It shouldn't matter if its a persons work from "Game A" or persons work from "home art project #3". They have just as much of a right to show off their work from 2-3 years of busting their asses.
Man sometimes I just don't know what to think of some people.
Even with no direct coordination with AS the end result would be the same. Most artists are excited to post their professional work. Sometimes when you do paid work you have to wait years to show it off, sometimes you're never given permission to claim it as your own. So naturally, as soon as the gag order is dropped, artists are going to post their stuff. If it's a coordinated "Art Blast" or a 100% organic effort on the individual level, the net effect is the same. High quality, high profile work is going to fill up trending. A lot of it will get "picked".
If this sort of thing pushes your work out of view, that's a personal problem. Work your ass off until your stuff is on that level, and it won't get ignored. It's as simple as that.
Tits are not a problem either, I have a problem with tits that don't have nipples. That just looks super strange, especially if the drawing quality is extremely good.
Is there any specific reason behind this? (serious question)
- Nipples are fairly superficial features. Like fingernails or something. I mean, on the spectrum of things, they don't inform structure, or play a major part in a character's pose. If the focus of the drawing is the breasts, I'd say add them. If the focus is the face, I don't see the need, really. But do what thou wilt.
- Anime inspired art is popular, and animes often include nippleless breasts as a sort of way-around-the-censors or something. I mean, sailor moon's opening would be full of explicit nudity if they included nipples, and probably wouldn't be allowed on TV. But by not including nipples, it's a kids show. I don't know.
- I mean, instagram and facebook are fine with female breasts, until you show a nipple. Then the photo will get removed. But male nipples are fine? So for some reason female nipples are offensive and unsuitable. Not sure that plays a role, but I wanted to vent, because it's a dumb double standard.
- Also could just be a stylistic choice.
I would not expect seeing any nipple through her sailor costume and bra, of course it depends on the cloth, not talking about drawing nipple where it doesn't make sense... might look funny though.
Censorship was something that came to my mind too.
1 - it is awesome
2 - it is a very clever deconstruction of the Sailor Moon trope of "now-you-see-panties-now-you-don't" , cranking it up to 11.
So I just assume that it is mostly done to avoid censorship, when I see it.
Should watch more anime...
And again that's why I think Kill La Kill is so brilliant, because it stretches the irony of it to absurd levels. And if the Kill La Kill henshins were actually showing nipples and penises, not only would it fall under a different category of media, but it also wouldn't work at all as a deconstruction of the Sailor Moon trope.
This stuff does require a certain mindset for sure - something along the lines of "outgrowing maturity". That is to say, getting to the point when one can appreciate a dumb movie like the new Baywatch just as much as more serious "critically acclaimed" work.