My first Art Fight experience

With the arrival of August comes the departure of July, and this year (for me at least) it was also the end of my first Art Fight!

I've always wanted to participate in Art Fight the same way I've always wanted to participate in Inktober: when I see a considerable amount of people doing a thing together it piques my curiosity like crazy. In that way, other artists posting their attacks (or prompt entries in the case of Inktober) en-masse becomes very effective advertisement for the event, at least to me :)

I've managed to sate my curiosity regarding Inktober and its ilk since then, by completing my drawtobers (2019) and birbtobers (2020)... and half-completing my smaugusts and swordtembers... but I haven't encountered any art events similar to Art Fight, where the community-aspect of the event is central. And as an aside, I feel like perhaps the centrality of Inktober has been diminished since theres now SO many (solo, month-long, prompt-based) drawing challenges... it's like a whole genre onto itself now!

Sidetrack aside, the Art Fight experience continued to elude me. My Julys have tended to be allocated to other matters, mainly of the "travelling abroad for weeks"-nature, except for last year where I was busy with an internship instead :D I suppose the me of the past hadn't yet realized that participating a little is still more fun than not participating at all.

But this year... At around halfway through July... I realized that I didn't have anything else going on except my usual job...! That's the exact conditions I've been waiting for! Granted half the month had already passed; but if I let this chance slip me by I'd definitely be kicking myself all the way til next July.

So thus I spurred into action: polished up my Art Fight profile, made a super fast reference sheet and character page for my fursona, and shared my Team Fossils Art Fight card on social media. And I was off to the races (fights? battles?)!

Art Fight is actually really fun!

I didn't expect to enjoy participating as much as I did! Like, of course I thought it'd be a good time since so many people join the event each year, but it was a really good time!

I had thought that one's enjoyment of Art Fight would at least be partly influenced by how much enjoyment one gets out of OCs (Original Characters, of course), which I've historically not worked much with. As in, I have a couple that I drew and named when I was younger, and I like imagining lil guys doing stuff when I'm bored well enough... but compare that to people who have extensive (or multiple!) headworlds and who write long posts about the lore of and interactions between their characters, and then I feel like I'm near the opposite end of that spectrum :D Nothing wrong with that of course, to each their own and all that, but Art Fight does ask the participant to bring characters to the table, so it made me wonder!

Thankfully, participating in the event made me realize that the real magic of Art Fight lies in being able to make someone else happy by making them some cool art... and in knowing that each attack you receive means someone chose to spend their time and energy making that art just for you!! I always forget about the spirit of giving until I'm suddenly like Woah... this is what life is truly about. None of that other shit matters. Human connections and friendship and love is what we're built for...

Considerations for next year

I hope I can participate again next year! Maybe I can even join right from the start on July 1st... :D And I'll make sure to remember that participating will be fully worth it, even if I have other stuff happening in July that'll take away from my Potential Drawing Time.

Next time I participate I wanna have more OCs on offer. I saw so many different ways to do OCs during Art Fight, it kinda made me realize something I already knew, but hadn't really internalized: An Original Character doesn't have to be a fully fleshed-out guy with relationships, world building and a novel waiting to be written, it can just as well be a guy with a design, vibes and a name (and sometimes even the name is optional, honestly)! This is perfect for me since I already have a lil note containing a collection of random OC ideas that've occured to me over time, so perhaps I'll raid that for any good concepts... >:3

I also wanna do more attacks next time. I definitely spent way too long on the first few entries I did this time (I wanted them to be awsome!), but I feel like I managed to improve my speed and flexibility with each attack I did, to a point where I could whip out something pretty good in a decent amount of time. I hope I can find that rhythm again next time so I can draw even more of people's cool characters!

With that said, one thing I still wonder about is just how do other artists find so many people to attack!? Do they use Art Fight's discovery and search features? Do they just have that many art mutuals/friends? Is it because they've participated in previous years, or because they were ready on the 1st, when everyone was posting their teams and profiles? I wonder these things, but I suspect the answer is probably a mix of all of the above :D This year I simply stuck to my list of Art Fight followers while favouring the usernames I recognized from tumblr, but next year I'll try out some different target-selection methods for sure.

In short,

Art Fight is awsome. I'm glad my first time went well and that people wanted to play with me. I hope it'll be fun again next year!!