(no subject)

[kradeelav]

I think i've successfully resisted the idea that my artwork has to be within a "brand" (at least compared to 2-3 years ago), and i'm really loving the ... bite? that i'm seeing grow in my art year over year. "sleaze" is one of the few words that I'll consistently use to describe it.

but i'm always a little curious as to what's like. that thematic thread that loops it all together. not "technical" wise so much (a fondness for inky darks, neons, expressive emotions etc), but the "feeling" themes, abstract tropes that keep popping up. Some artists are deliciously obvious where there's a sense of adventure and happy-end freedom, sometimes it's as short of a word as "defiance", sometimes it's a keen sense of, mm - story-with-taboo when the artist plays with achingly close fraught relationships and the fuckery within.

it's hard to see from the inside because I always think I'm wildly swinging from like, gunplay one day to, say "vanilla" fire emblem drawings but I know there's something that links both, because what would the appeal be otherwise?

anyway if you have the bandwidth and have seen my shit, i'd be curious as to what you think it is. :v

Comments

[kaasknot]

I'm looking through your gallery now, and the main thought I'm having is "I can def see the fashkink"—by which I mean there's a lot of implicit threat, casualness/comfort with having power over others, and affable evilness. Almost all the villains are smirking: they control the outcome, they're holding all the cards, and they're going to enjoy watching their victim squirm. If the subject isn't a smirking, in-control villain-type, there's usually some element of being loomed over, or bound, or otherwise visually restrained—e.g. the hellsing cover with the character reading in a chair? The chair is massive and looms over her almost like a hulking, smirking villain. There's a strong sense of power dynamics in your art, specifically power dynamics that are grossly uneven and either held in abeyance for amusement or very soon to be abused.

ETA: it's the exceptions that prove the rule. The one of Vau creeping through the swamp: there's clear power, but it's in the form of competence, and it's not being held over another person. Then the other one, under the hellsing tab, of the two ppl kissing up against a building: I don't know the characters or context, but going on pure visuals there's no power imbalance there either. Also no one was smirking in either of these pics :P

[kradeelav]

I may have cackled outright at the last smirking line xD

oohhhh lord tho this was fascinating, revealing, and I thank you for it. the threat and lopsided power dynamics, yeah, I can see it - ironically even in that last picture you were talking about, exception proves the rule, as it's technically that kind of ship anyway, just less obvious.

it's fascinating to think about favorite, mm, media, shows games etc, and have them viewed in that angle of power dynamics. even repcomm - since we're both more familiar with it - has that in spades given how much can be talked about the various degrees of unhealthy-but-oh-so-interesting-lol bonds.

you've given me a lot of (good stuff) to think about~!