Ask the Artist: gnatkip
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Ask the Artist: gnatkip |
| Interviewer: | |
| Interviewee: | gnatkip |
| Date(s): | June 25, 2007 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Fan Art, Supernatural |
| External Links: | interview is here, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
gnatkip was interviewed in 2007 for Supernatural Roundtable.
Some Excerpts
I've been watching Supernatural from the beginning, but I didn't get involved in the fandom until sometime last fall. Round about the time we met Ash and his "CLOWNS. WHAT THE F-." Aww. This is my first tv fandom, and it presents some issues I haven't considered before. (How closely do I want to emulate the visual style of the canon? Which traits belong to the characters and which to the actors who portray them?) It's been really interesting, seeing how different people deal with that.I draw almost entirely in digital media. Partly because I find it unfair that the real world lacks an undo button, when I need one so desperately. And partly because I get such a kick out of fiddling with new software. Like -- ok, I realize that this is a questionable artistic decision, but -- I tend to evaluate software on the basis of its sound effects. I'm not kidding. I mean, ArtRage goes "glub glub." Glub glub! You cannot beat that with a stick.
My biggest art kink is probably fictional ephemera, but I'm also crazy about parodies and takeoffs. I find myself talking about the process of things a whole bunch, and I love it when other people share theirs. The story of the process holds so much more meaning for me than just the end product; there's so much more context to appreciate.
So! Talk to me if you're so inclined. I should tell you, though, that I'm not really an Artist With Answers so much as I am a Goofball With Tablet. But I always enjoy chatting about art in general and SPN in particular.
...up until a few months ago I only had a mouse, as well. And yes, trying to mouse-draw... Well. It really is the pits. But now I have a tablet and digital pencil type thingy, right! Mine is a Wacom CTE-440 which is just about as small and cheap as they come. I love it, though, and would recommend it to anyone wanting to get their feet wet. It functions just like a mouse, in that you move the pen around on the tablet, which causes the cursor to move around on the screen. And it's pressure-sensitive and everything; it's like MAGIC.That's something that I find fascinating, the differences between fic and art. From the way our brains are wired to interpret visual images vs. language, to the (I think differing?) legal status of fan fic vs. fan art, to the recent discussions on lj about how we as a community define the word "art" and what's included and what's not.
I'm especially interested in how the form of the canon influences the forms of fan production (gah, if that makes any sense). Like, I started out reading fic in a book-based fandom, where the forms were the same. It was only later that I got interested in the art in that fandom. Then when I first started reading SPN fic, it was kinda thrilling, the novelty of it, because the only way I had encountered these characters up to that point was by watching them. And now I'm able to read them and get inside their heads and... I don't know, does that make sense? I RAMBLE.