fuya
patreon
Blog 05 : Another Reason I Started my Patreon
🕑 Added 2017-09-13 10:58:45 +0000 UTC Long time no see guys. The last time I wrote a blog was almost a month ago. It's not like nothing happened. In fact, I have tons of stuffs stocked up to write about but I was just in the mood of getting the drawings done so I went with the flow.Just gonna drop in some food for thoughts about yet another very big reason I decided to launch my Patreon back then.
The image was captured from the game "Circle of Mana" made by... that company. You will know which company it is by googling the game. Yeah as you might have already figured, this artwork was made by me. It's Riesz from Seiken Densetsu 3 in a Valentine Day's event gacha. I was one of the outsourced art team doing artworks for the game. This was like... 4 years ago or something. Not exactly sure.
The game was closed due to unpopularity. It was a blast when it released, but after a while people just figured out it's just another Rage of Bahamut mobile clone and the game died down so quick. I myself thought the gameplay was extremely dumb and full of copied cliche anyway so meh.
The left one was my original work that I sent them and they already had it approved. It's Riesz holding a Valentine chocolate readying herself to give it to the player and she's uneasy and shy about it. That's why she's making the tsundere face here and I thought it was pretty cute and portrayed her character well as if you played the game, she was a really tough girl who had rough life. Of course she has her cute and soft side but she's no way a moe bot.
But then after all approval, they just put her in the game having some random dude editing my work into the right one, turning her into a completely moe bot that yielded typical cute face with unexplained facial expression. Like, dude, it's like you didn't even understand a character from your own fucking game... Riesz would never make a face like that. You are fucking drunk!
And even that, they could at least told me that they wanted it this way no matter what reasons and had me be the one fixing her face because you know, I made this one... I had the layers and everything, but nope. They just had some random guy fixed it from the .JPG image I sent them super unprofessionally. As an artist, I feel insulted when someone does this. You'd understand without even having to be a creator of any sort.
And this wasn't the only case happened during the work period I had with them. There were other several issues similar to this and it happened to our whole team, not just me.
To be fair, it's not just this company, but others did stuffs like this normally it seems in Japanese gaming industry. I have been making artworks for the game "Osawari Island" on DMM.com and I think it went over Nutaku at some point? Anyway the game was closed by now I think, but the story is that I was having my good days working for them until one day they decided to change the art director and the new guy was OBSESSED with perfectly round boobs physics to the point that it's ridiculous, and no matter what kind of boobs I drew for them they would ask for a fix since they're not completely round and that did it for me. I was like... dude you can mess with faces, other body parts, clothes, or whatever I drew, but forcing your poor sense of boobs upon my creation, I'm outta here.
The game died down and was closed a year after I quitted working with them. Not to say I was any important part of their artist because I wasn't but that new director guy was one of the reason the game's popularity went downhill I bet.
Yeah that kinda explained the reasons why I started my Patreon campaign. I could still at that time and even now, find good paying works from places. I still get emails weekly from different companies asking if I am available for at least one set of images for their games but I declined every time. It's not just that I have Patreon rewards to make, but I don't want to end up drawing something I am sure with my sense that it'd be good but get fixed into someone with zero artistic taste's preference ever again. It was corrupting my soul (And most of the time I don't get credited as well)
I did not mean to say an artist should never obey or follow the customer's needs. You SHOULD follow their needs for at least a good while. I also don't like the idea of high ego artists who'd never follow instructions as I think if you want to indulge to yourself's taste, you should learn to indulge the others first. You can't just appear out of nowhere and become decently successful with your ego. The world does not work that way unless your parents are Bill Gates rich, but at one point, you should know that you are wasting your own potential and by following someone who had no skill's rules, you would not go anywhere beyond your current state.
Thank you for the read if you made it this far. btw anyone here being in a danger zone for them hurricanes? I don't live in the US but I know it's terrible. You guys be safe out there.
Comments
Fuya
Not stealing, they had some random guy edited my approved works without telling me.
Setsunai Seken
Hi Fuya, it saddens me to hear of your less pleasant experiences in the industry but it`s not something that surprises me as it is sadly well known that artists of all kinds are treated like that or in a similar way. To give another example; A lot of gaming companies keep voice actors in the dark about the project they are working for and what kind of role they/the character they are voicing plays in the game/project. This is to keep wages low as well as having more power over the actors. Of course this results in less than stellar performances from the actors as they might lack important information for the lines they are recording and can actually negatively impact their career. The examples you’ve given are good examples of a bad work relationship either because of miscommunication, mismanagement or simply incompetence and are not restricted to one kind of work and are equally disheartening and annoying. I don’t think I have to tell you but your decision to do your own thing seems to have worked out nicely and I seriously hope that your current work is giving you self-fulfillment and joy on top of the recognition you have already received and hopefully will continue to do. (just don’t overwork yourself <3) Now, in regards to your mention of having the art reflect the characters personality I fully agree with you. Of course different artists like to depict the same character in different ways and there’s always a variance in art style but as long as the characters rendition clearly represents the characters traits it think its fine. But if the character is depicted in a completely different way, depending on what the artist wanted to achieve, it can feel either just a bit disconnected, strange or straight insulting, especially in regards to characters oneself has some sort of connection. And having one’s own work altered without notice is another thing I can fully relate to, as it’s very disrespectful. The guy that had the obsession with perfectly round boobs (Perhaps a silicon fetish or he thought round is the same as being perky?) is almost funny, if it wasn’t so sad that he had such an important and influential job and forced his poor aesthetical opinions on you. Of course most of the time competent(!) managers do have a reason for why they want something a certain way which is also why I agree with your comment about following your customers orders but this doesn’t appear to have been the case here. I’d like to add that liking perfectly round boobs as aesthetical preference is completely fine to have though it may not be very realistic. Everyone does have their preferences and is free to like whatever they want just don’t force your opinions on others.
Frank Leo
... they stole your works?
Fuya
Ahaha yeah those bouncing boobs out of nowhere was kinda over the top. In the sex scenes, they're fine but bouncing boobs in the standing sprites was... awkward.
Fuya
You made a good point, well we have to categorize artists into hobby artists, commercial artists, or those who's inbetween (like those who got other kind of job but do commission works for extra cash) now the ideal is to have the satisfaction and recognition be mutual. That will make the artists happy (I consider myself being one) but in case they are not... well one must weight themselves what to do. Sometimes you just need to find a line where you're still comfortable doing what you kinda want to do... ish that you can accept while being good exposure as well.
Densetsu Meru
I remember your works in the Osawari Island, those ones were good, although the whole bouncing oppai thing was kind of weird... Lol
Mars in the Sky
I can definitely feel your pain and frustration, even though I'm not an artist. At least you gave them the finger for "improving" your style. That second last paragraph has got me a question for you though it may sound weird when I type it down (I swear it sounded good in my head). As an artist, does drawing for self-satisfaction outweighs drawing for recognition? Assuming that the two things are not mutual of course. Also, never stop doing what you love, bro. I definitely love your work.
Fuya
Hmm good question. I don't know at all if the game is still a thing, but they released their animes, figurines, and collabs with other games and all that but the game itself... I don't see anyone still playing it.
Exhorbiiii
Thank you for your post! It was quite interesting to read, especially how they didn't bother to ask you but asking another random guy to 'apply some changes' on your work instead LOL (○’ω’○) Anyway, keep up the good work! P.S.: Is Rage of Bahamut still a thing? Actually I have a confession here: I played that game for a while and immediately got a flashback when you mentioned it in your post... those were definitely dark times (((╹д╹;)))
Fuya
Thank you Erwin, you're always there to cheer up.
Fuya
I have many Western game devs/outsource seekers/publishers sending emails to me requesting for collabs and stuffs almost every few days and I turned them all down lol. It's not like I don't want to work with them as I used to work with one of the Western companies in Canada and it worked out really well! It's just that right now I have so many workloads to catch up and after all the commissioned works I did in the past years, I kinda have had enough and want to do my own things, you know, drawing without any briefs/guidelines and stuffs! I will return to doing commissional works after I feel like I've fulfilled my personal desire out but that's not going to happen very soon I guess.
Hi Fuya! Thanks you to post some news on your blog :3 Maybe you should try one day to work for a western company with mainly anime-ish/asian style instead of working only for asian company ? I have nothing against thoses company or something but, I like to see on other website some awesome artwork made by freelancers for western company and they are from thailand or something ! What do you think ? :3 -Ani
Erwin Doppler
Thank you for another one of your blogs. We love you.
