Sweet sixteen and never been AV'd

[Uncle Yuan]

This thread was prompted by comments recently made on another thread to the effect that some avatars are extremely popular subjects for spontaneous redesigns by artists, while others never seem to get picked.  This raises the question of "why?"

So here's my question to our fine community's collection of fine artists:  What about an avatar interests you enough to decide to re-work it?  Why "X" and not "Y?"  Is it the basic design?  Is it the story/origin?  Is it related to board activity?  Having a personal realtionship with the member in question?  Or none of the above?

As this discussion progresses, a few ground rules that I think will delay the Mods locking this thread.

Artistic decisions are not right or wrong.
Artists are not in any way obligated to redesign any particular avatar.
Be very careful with specific examples - people take their avs seriously.
Be very careful with personal statements.





Having put that out there, here's my take:
With one exception, UY has never been the subject of a redesign.  I have been the recipient of some wonderful art, but that has been almost entirely the result of me specifically asking or signing up, or else something targeted like Secret Santa.  I don't appear on a calendar.  No one has made me a mini or cool 3D UY.  There is no UY smiley. 

I think this is partially due to the fact that UY is not a really flashy larger-than-life character.  He's kind of non-assuming, behind the scenes type.  He is, I'll be the first to admt, fairly boring from a visual point of view.  He's not outrageous, or funny, or scary.  He might not even be cool.

I'm also fairly new around here.  UY has never been part of the big story telling hey-day at FR.  No big spoofs, or all board events.  He never participated in the AV wars.  There is also no UY mesh/skin hero file; he's never been in the ring for an internet FF showdown and has never starred in a mod.

In short, there is nothing to overtly spark the artistic imagination.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I have been the recipient of some fabulous art.  Several great artists have responded to direct requests and provided AV pics, and I've had good results asking for stuff when theme crazes hit the boards.  So I am in now way bitter or upset.  Just . . . curious.

[gdaybloke]

I think you're spot on with a number of issues there. When deciding to do an avatar redesign, personally (you know... for all the times I've done them... sigh), whim is the main thing.

Now to spark a whim within me, there has to be something interesting to work off. I'm a very visual person, so I'm more likely to get inspired to do a redesign if there's already ane xisting visual to work off. Also, I'm more likely to be interested in doing a redesign for someone I know and interact with - be it at FR, in CoH, or otherwise.

No offense intended to anyone here, but there are many, many posters I simply don't frequently interact with, so I'm less likely to think of them when I'm feeling creative.

As for the reason you have no smiley... clearly, it's because you aren't Stilt-Man.

[Glitch Girl]

For me, there has to be something, either in the character concept or the actual avatar design that makes some part of my brain go "that's cool!".  I really can't explain it.  Like G'Day said, it's based on "whim".  Most of the time I do the calendar images (espeically for the image for April this year, plug plug), I try to encorporate at least one or more characters who may not have gotten a lot of notice here on the boards, but something about their design appeals to me.

I also have an added limitation within my "tools".  I work primarily in Poser (only occasionally in pencil anymore), and that means if I can't make it with the props I have I either have to a) buy or find something  or b) try to work around it. Obviously traditional art doesn't have such a limitation, but it's something to keep in mind.  Your avatar would be hard because I don't have anything even remotely resembling shaolin monk robes in my collection, and I'm not even really sure where to get a good set that would behave close to real fabric.

[Uncle Yuan]

Your avatar would be hard because I don't have anything even remotely resembling shaolin monk robes in my collection, and I'm not even really sure where to get a good set that would behave close to real fabric.

Yeah, the robe thing.  That started with the first "commissioned" av.  The artist came up with that and even though it was "wrong" it looked so cool that I went with it.  It really is not how UY looks in "real life," but it's been perpetuated in subsequent designs.  See the av thread in General for some ideas about that.  Although the "real" costume is really boring.

[Reepicheep]

I've found that images tend to take place around the board's friendship groups. Because I know them better, just to mention a few names, I would probably take on Premonitioner, SouperIan, Rick Battlemage or Sven, since these are people I am often in contact with, and therefore have both access and interest to their avatars before I were to do something, for example in a totally random way, G'day bloke, Verfall or Qwazy (no offence to any. You were great examples. Thankyou). This is because, as they hopefully have noticed, we don't have a huge amount of contact with each other. After all, it was those mentioned avatars and myself I ended up using in my Calendar piece, simply because they're the ones I know best. Does that make sense?

Its true, we are a bit selfish in that way.


I don't often get art, or I havn't for a few years. Each one, though, has earnt a place in my memory. I still remember, when surfing in school one day, when I came across Juancho's adpation of He-man (I think) to create a fantastic image of Reepicheep's first design. Or when he did the infamous image of myself with TUE*. There was a sprite once, I can't remember who made it (Juancho? he is a nice chap, isn't he?), of that older version. Of course, I can't forget Gni's mesh, the three skins I've had for Reep. Starlock did an animation of him. As far as I can remember, the most recent was when Mental Fatigue did a nice 3D image of him during his 'Matrix' period.

That was before I got a new account on the forums. Its been a while before I've noticed any fan art (If I have missed any, PLEASE tell me). It does get to me every now and again, and sometimes it does make you feel like you're slightly forgotten around the forums...

...but, if I think about it, its not often I decide to draw a member of the community out of the kindness of my heart. I don't forget a single member of this forum. its all down to the fact that I can't be arsed, so I shouldn't expect anyone to be arsed enough to do anything for me.

[gdaybloke]

before I were to do something, for example in a totally random way, G'day bloke, Verfall or Qwazy (no offence to any. You were great examples. Thankyou).

No offence taken, it just backs up my earlier comment about doing stuff for people we interact with. You and I recognise each other and our roles in the community, but for lack of a better term, we haven't really 'hung out' together.

... speaking of Rick Battlemage, I have a half-completed Heroclix conversion laying around somewhere... tying in with what GG said, I had the materials on hand to make a winged individual custom clix and so I thought I'd dabble. In the end I did some horrible putty work on it, undercoated it, and then never got around to painting it. I think the head fell off at one point. Zombie Rick Battlemage!

[Rick Battlemage]

[threadjack]

... speaking of Rick Battlemage, I have a half-completed Heroclix conversion laying around somewhere... tying in with what GG said, I had the materials on hand to make a winged individual custom clix and so I thought I'd dabble. In the end I did some horrible putty work on it, undercoated it, and then never got around to painting it. I think the head fell off at one point. Zombie Rick Battlemage!

:thumbup:

priceless...  :P

[/threadjack]

I must agree with Reep
Also when you make something for your friends, it's easier to find out if they liked it since they'll probably be honest (or downright cruel) about it.
There's stuff that has never seen FR daylight which I've shared with the elite* group of FR peeps I hang out with :P

*read insane/bloody nuts

[Pyroclasm]

For me, it's a combination of many of the examples you gave, UY.
I am inclined to do the people I know first and foremost.  Secondly, I choose the avatars that I personally feel have the most potential.  Many avatars just don't interest me.  This is not meant as a slight to anyone, as each avatar is liked by different people for different reasons, and everyone has a personal attachment to their own.  Independent of the above, there has to be some sort of whim that would make me just decide to do av art.  Just doing it for the sake of doing it usually doesn't happen.  I have a limited amount of "creative juice" if you will, being that not only do I do graphics for a living, I have several graphic oriented hobbies as well.  I can't afford to frell around unless it gets me excited.  I also will do av art if I have a personal stake in the design.  For example, I often draw Verfall in avatar art.  He's not my only friend on the boards (I hope) but a long time ago when I first arrived on the scene he (then RanVage) was one of the first people to welcome me to the boards and we often chatted in the chatshack.  He indicated he was a fan of my art. Evenually he asked if I could give his character a new skin.  Well, that evolved from just reskinning, to redesigning the character's image.  Now I simply really enjoy redrawing the character.  It's not just his baby, afterall.  So that's why he will always be worked into a calendar image for as long as I do them. ;)

[UnkoMan]

Yeah, I've been doing some avatar redesigns lately... and they are mostly people whom I've interacted with more. Although I did do one of Supercracker fighting House Quake and I have never even talked to Supercracker. I just thought they would make an interesting visual image together.

Even with the ones I've done though, I choose which ones to do based on what I think I can do with them. If I think their av could be the basis of something sweet in my sort of style, I'll do them. If I can't really think of anything, I won't. It helps if I've seen multiple versions of that av and know something about their story, but it's not nessecary.

Actually, I was thinking of expanding my redesigns (once I get some time again) the other day. This is due to Pyro's avatar permissions thread. It's easy to think up sweet stuff when you see it all laid out for you like that.

[Tomato]

For me, it's about a number of things, I think. Alot of it has to do with appreciation... alot of the avatars I've done/will be doing are of people who have given me support on my own works. Now, granted, that doesn't mean if someone starts randomly posting in my thread I'll give them a redesign or anything, because I won't, and I can think of one offhand that I would never do under almost any circumstance.

However, as UY points out, there are many here who will do avatar requests, and are very good at it. While I guess it's not as rewarding as having someone do it just because you're a good person, the fact is if you open your mouth and request something, you will get at least three competent artists all trying to do something great for you. The only designs I've ever gotten for eithor Avatar in the... gosh 5-6 years since I joined under Antmananext, were eithor requested, part of some contest, or part of a group. Well... unless you count that one I got when I first joined under the Tomato account, but that was a joke skin.

Alot of the fear that artists have when doing avatars as well is that some people have their avatars set in stone. They have a design, they like that design, and if anyone changes that design even slightly it's an affront to the universe in general. I've had that happen to me several times, on other boards. However, if you request, it's a fair indication that you're at least open to whatever insanity our brains come up with.

[gdaybloke]

I feel I should point out that my avatar's appearance is the result of an open 'contest' to design my appearance, way back on the MyFreedomForce board. I very nearly ended up looking like the fifth (green) Wiggle. 

[The Pwime]

My first re-design was Lunarman, i believe.  Now, this was pretty early in to my skinning career, and I'd say it was at the point where people where just starting to realize "Hey, there's a guy named Pwime on these boards!"  Anyways, to be honest, I'm still not entirely sure what made me re-design his avatar.  I didn't really know him TOO well at the time, and I think I'd only "talked" to him on the forums about once.  I think it was just that I liked the concept of "making weapons out of moonlight," and I think I decided something along the lines of "well, if he could make armor and weapons out of moonlight, his costume would, in my opinion, look a little like..." and soon after, Lunarman became my first victim.

In general, I find that the two factors that really get me interested are the heroes/villains powers and abilities, and how well i know this person.  Syn had cool powers and I knew him pretty well by that point, Unkoman's a cool guy and had the cool clone thing going on, so I made a bunch of evil clones for him to battle, and so on.  It's not always the case, though.  I've had two requests to date.  Rubberdude just asked if I would try to come up with a new design for his, and sure enough I did.  The other one didn't get done because I was sent a flurry of PM's stating that the member had changed his mind and no longer wanted me to.

[UnfluffyBunny]

Until recently my av's had next to no love :P
my avatar has been skinned by other people 5 times, 1 I really dont count as an avatar (no offence to Aly Cat, but it was a red jumpsuit with ufb written on it, nothing to do with my av :P ) 1 was mikeb7 with the calssic trailer park avs, 1 was a skinning challenge, a redesign by billdamn a while back and more recently a costume by Pwime, he's been put into artwork 4 times, and 2 of those were micro's (juancho's new awesome one just today :) and the last was waaay back in the skin x days) (2 drawings, 1 by pre-raphaelite and 1 by unkoman)
I will admit I dont go out of my way to pimp my av, and alot of people i've spoken to didnt even know what my av looked like let lone his powers, tho that being said, I will say sometimes it feels like your in a popularity contest, and there are a few regulars who you will see appear alot, but it's how people are inclined sometimes, if you worry about people liking your av too much you're bound to be dissapointed when they get left out of anything.

[Panther_Gunn]

I'll be a little presumptious here, & call what everyone's been describing as "whim" what it really is -- inspiration.  When, how, and most importantly *if* that particular Muse ever taps you on the forhead is completely out of our hands.  Even I, without an artistic bone in my body (I think I've got an artistic tendon or other connective tissue around somewhere, though) was struck one day by inspiration to do a GG redesign/amalgam/whatever you wanna call that train wreck that resulted, all because of that Batgirl thread.  Whilst looking through all the different pics that people had come up with, the idea popped, fully formed, into my head.  Unfortunately, because I'm so nit-picky and detail oriented, most of my visions never come to full fruition, as inspiration only carries me about halfway through a project.  After that, there's a lot of frustration, sweat, and general cursing at what's staring me in the face, since it doesn't look anywhere close enough to what I want.  Sometimes, the only way a project like that (for me) finally gets done & "out the door" is plain stubborness.

Because of all that, I fully understand when I don't get included in whatever av/av redesign craze comes out.  Because I have such specific visions of what I want (such as for my primary av), I've almost completely stayed quiet about the whole subject, as I'm too nice of a guy to want to saddle some poor artist with my corrections.  ;)  Of the three av images I have, two were *completely* unsolicited, and a complete surprise (I don't think signing up in a thread for the Valentine's bears counts as unsolicited).  I think I'd been posting around here for a year or two, and been a Titan for a little while, with just the cloud av that I usually throw up around Halloween time (and carries me nicely through the rest of the holiday bah-humbugness), before Paradox PM'd me out of the blue, volunteering to skin me.  I even gave him fair warning about what he was in for, but he figured he could handle it.  In the end, I think he stubborned it to get it out the door, and while it's excellent work, it's still not quite there for what I had in mind.  But after all of the back & forth over details over the course of quite a few months (with enough of a lapse that I even signed up in the av request thread, briefly), I just didn't have the heart to tell him anything negative at all.

Personally, I'd prefer something spontaneous than to have to ask for it, av-wise.  If I have to ask, I feel too much like I'm whining & begging, plus I don't want to burden people I like with my perfectionism.  It's bad enough *I* have to deal with it.  :P

[Pyroclasm]

Someone mentioned this, so I'm just expanding:
Strong requests and specific instructions don't do it for me at all.
If I'm doing silly avatars (av crazes) or any other art, nothing brings me to a screeching halt more often than people asking or in some cases, demanding that I do something for them.  When on the rare occasion I get the bug to do a new "av craze" I do my best to include a large number of people.  But it is impossible to do one for everyone.  This forum has a huge number of members, and trying to do everyone would either stress me out or kill me.  Commenting on the art in the thread has a better chance of earning one from me than posting in the thread to say, "Hey!  Make me one!"  Being considerate can go a long way.
If someone is looking for a new design for their avatar, they should be willing to give the artist some leeway.  Like I mentioned before, I do graphics for a living.  The only people who can expect me to follow specific instructions are the people who pay me.  If I volunteer to any avatar design, it is because I want to "flex my creativity".  Anyone requesting any type of art from any other forum member should consider that.  The artist is doing it because it is fun.  Don't make it work for them.
Oh, and on the subject of popularity:  If you just join this forum, you should consider trying to make some useful posts and interactions before asking for a design.  You are more likely to earn someone's consideration that way than by having one of your single digit posts be a request or demand.  It's just polite.

[The Hitman]

Yeah... with the exception of Juancho's Micro, and Pyro's couple (Care Bear, Super Mario, and The Face), I haven't been a popular choice for redesigns. And those exceptions are only because of Secret Santa and and a fair amount of begging (respectively, and sorry for the begging Pyro. I know what it's like.). I just chalk it up to the fact that I haven't been around since the beginning, nor contributed any outstanding work to the community. And I'm not bitter about it. It's cool.

Now, on the fact that some Avs are done more than others, there's a few reasons in my mind. I've tried doing Avs for the "second- string FR avatars" (and that's not me trying to be mean, Second- String is a term of endearment to me), and I end up losing interest. Why? I don't know. I wish I did.

[Coincidentally, Uncle Yuan and Rick Battlemage, start badgering me without mercy about some AV skins that are half done and still in my "To- Do List."]

Also, I think that many people select some Avs over others to redesign because there are so many different ones out there already, which would give more reference to designs, which leads to more Avs. It's a cycle. It's not a slight to the fine, fine folks here at FR. Just the way these things work out.

Well, that's my 2 cents.