bored. bored bored

anybody else feeling it?

just cant get motivated to create more than shit?

this year ive done virtually nothing and dont really care. is it that 90% of the subject matter no longer interests me? look at the sigs section, virtually dead, wallpapers dead, collages are moving a bit, but it's down to just a very few and they are turning out cookie cutter stuff most of the time. (dont get me wrong, i know very well how much work a simple collage can be, but, wheres that experimental stuff? remember when we had whole styles of sigs being bandied about and folks learning new stuff and all that? right here at phun) celeb gifs is moving well, or at least consistently, but once again it's a few guys.

it's not just phun, look at deviantart. new submissions is a fraction of what it was 5 years ago.

i dont know, maybe it's me.

seems a pitiful thing when i strongly consider just removing my sig and sitting blank like a 1 week noob. even worse is ive moved almost all my desktops to just a muted pattern like its 1995 again or something.

honestly, when Cy has desktops like this:


something is fucked up.

 

I wanna say things in response to this but I might get blasted by some folks and that ain't a good thing.

 

go ahead, its a free forum say what you want. dont bother me none

 

I hear you "Cy!", maybe you got the same problem I have, a missus looking over the 'old' shoulder...
When I was much younger she didn't mind, but now that were both 'older' she watches everything I do and view on the ole internet..​

 

For me it's knowing exactly the context and celebrity of the collage way before it does show up. When you can predict what and who will show up before it does, it's a sad thing.
The fact that a huge majority of them are "cookie cutter" collages doesn't help much either.

Sadly my nowhere near cookie cutter Miranda Kerr book-like "collage" on the bottom of page 546 didn't go wild in the "likes" department but the standard collages on either side of it did. What's the point of trying to be creative in a creative backyard when 2 pics slapped together in front of a bare background get admired at all?

In the gifs area I put up 1 Sara Underwood gif and get a bunch of "likes" while later on, a whole group of Hayden gifs picked up half of what I got.
A bunch of effort goes into something and gets half of what a quick slapped together gif gets...that's just silly!

Anyway, I have backed off a bit for several reasons (mainly a wonky computer) but I did 300 collages in just June of 2015! I'm able to put up several a day, but will it matter?

 

@FP16, ah, i learned years and years ago dont worry about the thanks, I dont post stuff for the thanks, it's the comments/critiques/questions that i seek. Yes, the thanks are nice, but they pale in comparison to actual input 9especially from the other artists.

I can tell you outright, if I dont know who the girls are im much less likely to even look at tthe pics. Cant say ive ever thanked one of the "models" collages. I only even recognize a couple of them. Im sure the work is on par, i just dont give a crap about softcore/hardcore models. dont worry about thanks, you make them for fun phun. it takes me about 10 hours to do just 1 of the oil painting style pics and about 4 hours for real life seamless background blends, simple plain color blends can be 15 minute affairs but meh, thats mostly for 0 day content stuff.

IMO, if youre doing 300 collages in a month youre already bored, lol. Speed kills. i dont see how you can be getting truly quality stuff that out that fast (i wouldnt even try 30 in 30) but maybe youre just faster than me.

On the experimental side, 25 failures for 1 really good piece is about my average when trying out new ideas.

for instance, back in the ancient sotw days we had a freestyle week. i took that to mean you used no source pics, just freehand as it were instead of "freestyle" (my mistake for not reading it right)



not a single source was used, just brushes. started out as 4000 px wide. it's the desert at night in new mexico from my truck driver window north of roswell from memory. with phun's light background it's waaay too dark, but if you view it with a dark fullscreen youll see its actually quite beautiful (even if i do say so myself) but didnt get a single vote lol. took way over 100 hours, probably closer to 200.

heres a modified foreground i added to try to lighten it up



still completely hand drawn. theres about 25 gradient light layers radiating off the campfire 1 for each object casting a shadow (not including the hand drawn cowboy who is a project all by himself)

only comment either ever got was "whats the black bar sig about"

thanks aint why we do it. it's just fun to share. Besides, it's a hoot to see your stuff 10 years later on the other side of the world, lol. i'm just meh latley i guess.

 

It matters to me! And to all the fans who don't click the thanks button, too. Cy is right - don't count the Thanks. I have grabbed many edits from the thread (My "baby") to use as desktops, or just to save.

You guys are artists. There will be funky days for you all the time; it comes with having talent. I love all your stuff, and look forward to seeing as much of it as I can!

 

The collages that I post are mostly desktop wallpapers that I've made for myself (I have a program that changes my wallpaper every five minutes). I post them here not for the thanks (which are nice), but in the hope that others might like them enough to use them on their own desktop.

Also, I think it's extremely ironic that someone who has only clicked the thanks button 33 times in 5 years, and had to be straight-up ASKED to click it the first time, is complaining about people not thanking him.

And Prez, if you've ever wondered why I don't thank any of your posts, it's because you've never thanked me once, not even when I helped you directly with a Photoshop problem you were having. So, you know, give and ye might receive.

Sorry for getting a bit off-topic, but I've been holding that in for years, and needed to get it out.

 

some i do for myself, some are just things that catch my eye. I virtually never do stuff for things im not interested in. that's like work, only reason to do it is money. I do requests sometimes if the the person doesnt just piss me off by showing up out of nowhere and asking for artwork for a site that isnt phun. remember the extreme sports guy? yeah, our artwork is on his site now and we never saw him again.

my currents:


4 workspaces rotating randomly every 7 minutes here

 

I only have a few tricks up my sleeve and my gifs are always herky jerky. All in all this is the most creative content I've ever seen on one forum.

 

you should have seen it 5 years ago.

10x the artists, even though we had to hangout in "general chat", there was no CB.

 

Yeah It was pretty crazy w all the sig stuff going on. We had a lot of talent. Anyone remember the "Photoshop Tennis" thread? That was fun for a few months.. But it was the kind of stuff that took off like crazy around here: http://forum.phun.org/showthread.php?t=395196&page=29&highlight=photoshop+tennis

There was lots of creative action. I, myself, just find it hard to find the time. The collage and signature thing got old for me and I started taking my own pictures. I think the signature competitions created some great stuff, but I always found it so sad that all that creativity was packed into such a small little 150x450 or whatever the ridiculous dimensions were/are. I got tired of wasting my time on other people's copyrighted material, figured I might as well make my own. That way if it was any good, It was 100% mine.

Now I've kinda come full circle on taking my own pictures.. I've amassed a ton of pictures. Some good some great, some meh... I would have had an absolute field day with my current photography library if someone said "here are a bunch of raw images to work with" 5 or 10 years ago.
Now, I go for months at a time without shooting, and find myself picking up the camera less and less. It's kinda sad, because it is an outlet for me. It comes and goes, the creativity bug for me. I've been told I have lots of talent with my photography, but I am by far my own worst critic. I shot a wedding last year as a second shooter, I was so disappointed with the results, I've only picked up the camera a few times since. I have an amazing respect for those photographers who are able to keep pumping out quality material. It has to be so draining at times.

So I too, am perplexed, not so much where the creativity went here on Phun.... That is just a product of the times and the technology. Everything is looked at and done in 5 seconds or less now with smart phones. But I'm perplexed (Not bored), as with CY and his original post, where and why MY own creativity comes and goes. I think more than anything for me, it is my own inner struggles, and very much a time constraint.

 

I think quite a few members who were active in that section haven't been on phun either, i used to make some stuff myself aswell, but mostly it's the time i don't have anymore
sad thing tho

 

I know what you guys mean. Sometimes I will go for months without making a wallpaper. It is akin to writer's block at times and other times, I can't be bothered.

I find it funny that the artists have left; Photoshop is no longer a $1,000 program, you would think there would be tons of artists plastering forums like Phun. There are many factors though, I'm sure.

I don't remember if I have started my own page, but I will do a bit of posting regardless. I can always take some free constructive criticism; I'm certainly no expert and I want to improve.

Edit: I started one. http://forum.phun.org/showthread.php?t=1671839&p=8822274#post8822274