Expanding the Community (was: Unique Opportunity)

[Deji]

I hope Deji realises that I have a decent amount of respect for her - but my concern is related to the last bit of this sentence: there's every chance that some of the awesome artists out there who aren't working in EVNs aren't working in EVNs because they take a look at the stuff the EVN community exalts and don't think they'd fit in.

I know a couple of artists (not awesome, but decent) that have toyed with the idea of making a VN because they think it's interesting, but they end up dropping the projects after a while, either because it's too much work, they just can't write or put together the story they have in their minds and won't look for somebody to write it for them, or because they'd rather make a comic. I think that may be the case for good and awesome artists out there as well.

There is also a chance the artists may just dismiss the genre as weeaboo japanese high school dating sims (that may or may not contain porn) and don't want to get involved in making such a thing.

I'm not sure what would be the right approach - one that doesn't involve good amounts of money - to try to lure better artists into the 'EVN scene', to be honest D:

[kinougames]

To answer your question, Deji, I think better written and more varied stories, as well as a certain level of art that isn't too oversaturated.

I mentioned in another thread that quite a few of the commercial games here have stories that get kind of sugary. The definition of sugar differs from person to person, but some art screams HAPPYGAME from the get-out. Your art style in general does exactly that; down to the way you draw your figures. Even the Jisei cover, which was supposed to be sort of mysterious didn't really carry that theme over well. If I didn't know what it was about, I'd've immediately assumed it was a pleasant glossing over of an unpleasant topic (and in many ways did come off as that in the story itself).

If you look at anime trends in the past 5-ish years: Death Note, FMA, D.Grayman, Air Gear, even Kuroshitsuji to a tiny extent; you'll notice that there's a fair bit of dark. They're not without happy points (FMA and DGM especially both have tons of humor), but the crux goes back to the serious business.

I think that having games with good art that have a bit of a darker, more serious style would really help pull in a larger number of artists.
This looks very serious despite being anime.

Less "serious", but there's nothing that would make me think about happy bunnies in this picture at all.

[Deji]

To answer your question, Deji, I think better written and more varied stories, as well as a certain level of art that isn't too oversaturated.

Well, for better written stories we either have to hope our current writers improve or to lure 'good' writers, which, again, is a problem because of the lack of 'good' artists to match them...
I'm not sure what you mean with 'oversaturated'... a different style that's not as common or less saturated art color-wise?
I think 'The Metro' (the vn by sinto, inspired in the Blacksad universe) is a good step on both directions.

I mentioned in another thread that quite a few of the commercial games here have stories that get kind of sugary. The definition of sugar differs from person to person, but some art screams HAPPYGAME from the get-out. (...)
If you look at anime trends in the past 5-ish years: Death Note, FMA, D.Grayman, Air Gear, even Kuroshitsuji to a tiny extent; you'll notice that there's a fair bit of dark. They're not without happy points (FMA and DGM especially both have tons of humor), but the crux goes back to the serious business.

I think that having games with good art that have a bit of a darker, more serious style would really help pull in a larger number of artists.
This looks very serious despite being anime.

Less "serious", but there's nothing that would make me think about happy bunnies in this picture at all.

I personally like darker stories to a point, though I don't know if that's spot on what we need and it will solve all our problems; more of that wouldn't hurt though.

(...)Your art style in general does exactly that; down to the way you draw your figures. Even the Jisei cover, which was supposed to be sort of mysterious didn't really carry that theme over well. If I didn't know what it was about, I'd've immediately assumed it was a pleasant glossing over of an unpleasant topic (and in many ways did come off as that in the story itself).

About my art, I'm aware it is sugary, haha. I love sweet and happy things myself and I'm glad my art can transmit that C:
Sadly, I have a hard time toning it down for other things that are not as sugary, like Jisei, and it affects the 'feeling' of the work, which isn't a good thing. I need to work on that ^^;


Ugh... maybe we should split this topic? It's getting off topic and it's interesting to discuss this (at least for me - regardless of my own art being discussed, haha -, idk about the rest...)

[kinougames]

By oversaturated, I meant color-wise. It's hard to get anything but a happy feeling when the colors in something sort of look as if they were taken from a crayola box.

I've seen that VN, and I agree that it's a great step.

There's not going to be anything "on the spot" to "solve problems". However, if the problem is the amount of decent artists willing to work with a modest price or wanting to put out VNs, then it seems rather natural that increasing the amount of art types/story types in VNs that are completed and good should assist that.

It's a good idea to work on adapting your style, but your style works well for the genre in which it sits, which I'd say would be something along the lines of Cardcaptor Sakura, or Sailormoon, or stories like that.

[Crocosquirrel]

Hrmmm... I'll have to have a look. Socks aside, I'm thinking that a story going to them might be interesting, particularly if they can derive the wherewithal to assemble a team to make it work.

That in and of itself might be a decent approach. Collect a database of people that can do X Y and Z, and then assemble teams to make projects. In the case of writers, you can license or buy stories and then line up the rest. I've had some experience with the publishing industry, and most places will pull together the things others cannot do to make it all work.

[PyTom]

I've split this thread off into it's own topic.

[kinougames]

And I'll repost here for Deji;

Not just magical girls so much as stories that are happy and will end happy.

I don't even think I'm capable of writing a story where the shit doesn't hit the fan at leeeeeeast once. >_>

[Auro-Cyanide]

It is indeed quite a problem. I think one of the main issues that artists don't really get a chance to take a lead in a story. I can't speak for everyone, but as an artist, working on someone else's story is not the same as working on your own (which is why many artists turn to doing comics instead). That being said, I can also understand why it is done the way it is and I find it hard to try and fix the problem if the situation was flipped.

For instance, I have a number of stories that I would like to turn into vn at some point. But visual novels are a massive amount of work and I can't do everything myself, especially if I do the art. Would writers be ok being in the opposite position of someone else providing the ideas and direction, and them doing the writing? I would understand if they wouldn't because artists are not always particularly pleased in being told what to draw. It seems that artists often play secondary roles to writers and or programmers when it comes to direction unless the project it being done mostly by the artist.

Another point may be lack of artistic creativity. Many vns are simply made up of backgrounds and sprites, with some cg scenes. But there is such a massive potential for other elements to be added in, such as graphic novel elements (like the opening scenes to lucky rabbit reflex, I was very impressed by that). These elements are avoided because they present a massive amount of work. However, it isn't completely different from the level of work required for a full colour comic (speaking of art only). Getting a group of skilled artists together with a comic in mind and then carrying it out as a visual novel would be really interesting I think.

Another thing I noticed about quite a few vns are they are very text heavy. While in comics you have to know when to tell and when to show, I think because of the heavy labour/money cost of art, many vns rely more on words. This isn't particularly stimulating from an artistic challenge point of view.

My main point (after the ramble) is that there is a lack of interest and incentive for artists. There are quite a few artists who are interested in VNs, it is an interesting medium for conveying a story after all. But when you weigh the level of work with the amount of benefit, it becomes a little bothersome. Sometimes you can invest in someone else's story and sometimes it is a struggle. What does an artist get out of the massive amount of hours they spend making the art, especially if they have no emotional investment? I consider myself a reasonable artist, what would I gain from working on a VN when I could be working on my own stories and art? I don't even know the answer to that question.

I would be interested to see what would happen if a group of artists got together to have the full direction of a story, artistic freedom with the medium. But then you have problems with having writer/programmers/composers etc falling into secondary positions and the inequality starts all over again.

Quite a problem indeed.

[Deji]

Thanks for splitting C:

Not just magical girls so much as stories that are happy and will end happy.
I don't even think I'm capable of writing a story where the shit doesn't hit the fan at leeeeeeast once. >_>

repost: You can always go CLAMP and kill everybody in a nasty way in the end <3

It is indeed quite a problem. I think one of the main issues that artists don't really get a chance to take a lead in a story. I can't speak for everyone, but as an artist, working on someone else's story is not the same as working on your own (which is why many artists turn to doing comics instead). That being said, I can also understand why it is done the way it is and I find it hard to try and fix the problem if the situation was flipped.

For instance, I have a number of stories that I would like to turn into vn at some point. But visual novels are a massive amount of work and I can't do everything myself, especially if I do the art. Would writers be ok being in the opposite position of someone else providing the ideas and direction, and them doing the writing? I would understand if they wouldn't because artists are not always particularly pleased in being told what to draw. It seems that artists often play secondary roles to writers and or programmers when it comes to direction unless the project it being done mostly by the artist.

My personal experience: it doesn't work.
My first try was to ask a writer friend to make a story for me and I'd draw it. I drew it, he never wrote past day 1, and I'm quite sure he has written plenty of other things D:
Second attempt was to plan a story together with a friend. She ended up writing other things instead as well.
I doubt I'll ever get a writer write a story for me, since they always have other stories they'd rather be writing and I completely understand that.

So, the artist has to either give up on their story or learn how to write...

Another point may be lack of artistic creativity. Many vns are simply made up of backgrounds and sprites, with some cg scenes. But there is such a massive potential for other elements to be added in, such as graphic novel elements (like the opening scenes to lucky rabbit reflex, I was very impressed by that). These elements are avoided because they present a massive amount of work. However, it isn't completely different from the level of work required for a full colour comic (speaking of art only). Getting a group of skilled artists together with a comic in mind and then carrying it out as a visual novel would be really interesting I think.

Another thing I noticed about quite a few vns are they are very text heavy. While in comics you have to know when to tell and when to show, I think because of the heavy labour/money cost of art, many vns rely more on words. This isn't particularly stimulating from an artistic challenge point of view.

Most artists actually find it appealing that you only have to draw a few sprites, a few backgrounds and a few event CGs and you can put something together, because it is a lot of less work than doing a comic!
But the problem is, again, the writing. If you don't have a writer, you try to write yourself. The advantage in comics, is that you tell most of the story visually, not through text, and that an artist can do it better, even if it takes longer to draw. You can even draw a mute comic and let the images tell everything!

My main point (after the ramble) is that there is a lack of interest and incentive for artists. There are quite a few artists who are interested in VNs, it is an interesting medium for conveying a story after all. But when you weigh the level of work with the amount of benefit, it becomes a little bothersome. Sometimes you can invest in someone else's story and sometimes it is a struggle. What does an artist get out of the massive amount of hours they spend making the art, especially if they have no emotional investment? I consider myself a reasonable artist, what would I gain from working on a VN when I could be working on my own stories and art? I don't even know the answer to that question.

I would be interested to see what would happen if a group of artists got together to have the full direction of a story, artistic freedom with the medium. But then you have problems with having writer/programmers/composers etc falling into secondary positions and the inequality starts all over again.

Quite a problem indeed.

I have that same problem sometimes ^^;
Especially since writers (not all of them, though!) tend to want to make epic stories that you think will never end and you think about the huge amount of art they need... ugh...
You can always do it for the love of art and for the sake of portfolio material and/or practice... or just go and make a comic >>;

[LordShiranai]

From the point of view of a writer, I imagine that if an artist doesn't truly like my story, they won't be very motivated to produce work for me out of the goodness of their hearts unless they are really trying to get some experience. That's just the way is, and even then, the artist has the luxury of being a bit choosy given that there are a good number of projects looking for an artist. This is simply supply and demand at work.

I imagine that the reverse scenario is possible but unlikely. Many artists do have some pretty awesome concepts that a writer may be willing to work with, but they will need to be willing to let go of a good amount of control over them so that the writer can fill in the blanks and do their job. This is likely to be a difficult to make work. I wouldn't say impossible, but unlikely in most scenarios.

Ideally it would be awesome to work together with people who all feel they have some sort of ownership to the whole project and can work in close collaboration. However, for this to work, these people need to really be keen on each others ideas and truly be willing to put aside their egos when said collaboration takes place. This would be perfect, but is something that really doesn't happen so often in the real world. It is not impossible, but unlikely given random people on the internet.

Finally, from the programmer's point of view.... programmers are used to being told what to do by management all the time. :)

[Auro-Cyanide]

Aww, poor programmers. I feel a bit sorry for them actually, they seem to get a bit forgotten and nothing would really happen without them.

The writer situation tends to be a little hypocritical at times. I don't think it is intentional at all, just the way it works out. Many writers have big story ideas that they need artists to realise visually (you only have to look at dA's project forum), but there are not many writers who would be willing to give up their time to fulfil an artists idea for a story. It does seem a little unfair. Completely normal due to human reasoning however. (I'm not trying to pick on writers or anything since nothing would really happen without them either, just trying to analyse the issue of lack of artists) But just as writers won't feel very motivated to work on a story that is not their, artists feel the same. It is the same with the notion of control. Especially since many writers have a visual dream they are trying to convey, artists have to give up many freedoms (though generally there is quite a degree of artistic license. I haven't really come across a total nazi who wants things to look a very specific way). On the other hand, it would be really annoying to try and write to someone else ideas, especially the translation of images to words and personal writing style.

I do agree that drawing sprites and backgrounds is easier (especially if there are only a couple of sprite poses and a handful of expressions) and many artists feel relieved at the amount of work. However, it just so... boring. Especially backgrounds (that is why no-one wants to do backgrounds). Add to that working with someone else's idea and vision, it get tiresome pretty easily. Comics do tend to mix things up a bit more, even if it requires extra work. But if that extra work was translated to a vn, there would be a greater opportunity to create more dynamic characters, action scenes and of course, emotion and expression.

I am an okay writer, but my interest is more art and coming up with story ideas. However, I could write if I had to. The main problem then would be that I would be doing a massive amount of work and it would be really time consuming. Things would have to move at a much slower pace and it would be hard to keep motivated all by myself (the bonus of working in groups).

I rarely do art for art sake. I need a story to keep myself engaged in the art and to help me create it. Even if I am simply drawing a character, I will create some kind of background for the character so I know what the character is meant to feel and look like. Portfolio work is also not an issue since I am a Graphic Designer and art and vns are simply a hobby for fun (which is why I don't mind not getting paid. I do it for the love of story telling).

I agree it would be awesome to work in a group where everyone can have input in the creation, especially of the story. It might be possible if you start off from scratch I suppose, like no-one has the original story or ownership of the concept, or at least someone be willing to sacrifice an idea so others can build on it. It would be slightly more time consuming and would require close co-operation. And it is unlikely to happen in real-life. Though if Terry Prachet and Neil Gaimen could do it by sending floppy disks by snail mail, I suppose anything is possible.

I would like to hear from more writers. Why wouldn't you write another's idea, and if you would, to what degree would you require control to be satisfied with your involvement in the project? I'm actually quite curious about this now and the dynamics of group work is always fascinating.

[Crocosquirrel]

It's been my experience that if i have enough input on things, I can work even the most annoyed and recalcitrant person's story into some semblance of shape, and I'm more than happy to take on an interesting project if I can count on the other side do do one of mine later on.

Typically, however, this isn't the way it works. But I would love to get an artist into a complete collaboration. Shira, any chance I can talk you into working up some designs?

[lordcloudx]

Interesting discussion. I'd like to add my concise but rather broad, two cent's worth on the issue:

Artists need to realize that writing is an art form just as much as drawing/painting/rendering and vice versa. Both sides need to respect the other one's art and perhaps come to some mutually agreeable concession. Other than that, if you really want full control over both aspects of a VN, I'd agree with Deji to some extent. Artists: just learn to write; and I'd add that, writers: just learn to draw.

Other factors such as the artist finding the stuff boring or the writer not agreeing with the artist's concepts is all a matter of personal chemistry. In short, on a case-to-case basis.

[number473]

From the writer's point of view, I don't see much wrong with working on another's story. The important thing here, I think, is to separate out the actual mechanical methods of putting a scene onto the page and the part of deciding what is going to be happening. Depending on how much notes you make, you are always to some degree doing the latter while writing, but this is also the place where the story comes from. As a writer working on someone else's story, you are there to provide the former service, however, not the latter. There are certain techniques by which you bring the character across, keep the pacing of the story right, write dialogue and so on and that is the expertise of a good writer that is the reason you get a writer to write it instead of just doing it yourself.

So, though I have never tried doing this myself, what I suppose could happen is that the artist providing the story has not given enough detail so that the writer knows what he should do. An extreme example would be giving a one paragraph description of the setting and a sketch of each character and expecting to get the story that you wanted. If you have it mapped out scene by scene it would be quite easy for the writer to write it for you. And if he was good enough he would even be able to advise you on where things could be added or changed around so that they flow better. It depends on how much control over the story you're willing to give. The writer also needs to be willing to make any changes needed to bring the story into line with the story originally envisioned, just like one would expect the artist to change something that the writer didn't like.

Remember that, in the end, you are creating something together and, whoever provides the story, you both put a lot of effort into creating the final product. The key is cooperative action and interest in the project as a team. You can only keep on going and put in the effort if the interest stays there.

And then you get the other thing of: some people wouldn't have completed the project anyway, even if they had started it themselves. It is important to check before you start whether the person can really get things done. There aren't so many people like that around, though.

[DaFool]

Jack-of-all-trades chiming in.

I have volunteered for art, story editing, and music in the past -- that was when there were more interesting writers (Mr. E, where are you?) and hardly any artists around.

Deji probably remembers a time when she was simply the best artist in the EVN community since she was pretty much the only one interested in working on VNs and whose art was the only art that didn't look amateur. The likes of sinto or the art goddesses of kinougames haven't engaged the medium yet.

I felt it was beneficial for me to volunteer my time because
1.) The people I was working with didn't really have the choice to just bail and work with someone evidently superior, since the most important consideration was reliability, not quality.
2.) I could practice and push myself to see how far I can go (and in hindsight I'm still quite proud of having gone from zero experience to 'passable amateur' level of quality).

The community nowadays has more choices on whom to collaborate with, which is also a disadvantage because it's harder to filter which people will tend to be more reliable.

I'm kinda at a loss since most people I collaborated with are not so active anymore in LSF. So I just did the most logical thing and just pay freelancers, some of whom are veterans in the indie game scene. It also kind of helps that I'm not making a pure VN, so I can have gameplay tell some of the story, and I'm not obligated to have a gazillion event CGs.

I don't think you can really force people outside of the VN fandom to be interested in the EVN scene. Remember Dan Kim using the Blade Engine to make a short VN? How come I never heard what happened after that? You have to impress people slowly, and various factors such as VN-based anime and Katawa Shoujo are contributing to that... on the other hand, the diehard fans would rather get something from Japan.

The fandom is already on a roll though, you just need to give it time. 2011 is the year to watch out for. The full version of KS, the first commercial projects of a few people here, the magnum opus of a certain magical veteran whose works once totally dominated renai.us. If anything, I think it's the people getting into VN making only this year or next who might have a hard time keeping up. I also think GxB EVNs are the most viable at the moment since there are hardly any commercial translations from Japan to compete with.

It's true that quantity isn't quality. But quantity is practice for the eventual quality you hope to produce. It's actually more scary to me how the output of the EVN scene mirrors that of iTunes iphone and XBL indie games -- in the beginning, even a hastily put-together 'farting zombie' app can get people to play it. Now there's just so much output it's easy to just sink into oblivion unless you make something really big and cause a major splash. I have stopped playing every single Ren'Py game since 2009. And there is no need to hunt and catalogue every EVN release if there's planet.renai.us and vndb.org.