#art talks
I never really got into the Dragonriders of Pern but sometimes I see the dragon designs and I think, dear god, who signed off on that? They’re supposed to have this wonderful charisma and be very awe inspiring but they look like buff fetal chickens with wings.
counterpoint: but they’re aliens
i get what you mean though, the early whelan-style designs look… uncomfortable. like a sphynx cat who hasn’t been moisturized enough. most fanon designs i see are lovely :)
what are you seeing that’s extra egregious?
I did include some art examples in a reblog here.
Basically though, just because something is an alien doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have appeal to the viewer. These art pieces are clearly so nicely rendered on the humans and environments but the artist has little to no idea of how to handle creatures.
The proportions of their massive heads, the shrink wrapped muscles over what looks like human anatomy, the godawful massive eyes are all just- super unappealing. I also think even though the dragons are monochromatic they would have some sort of patterning or color variation. If they’re supposed to be shiny then they should lean into that but instead they just look…. greasy. The text describes them as soft and leathery so even that feels wrong?
If the artist really wanted to go for something alien you can still have it with appeal- Avatar is a good example.
This creature has nostrils on its clavicle, a unique wing shape and anatomy, it’s undeniably blue but still has mottling and color variations to create interest, head frills, etc. This here is a good alien dragon, there’s enough strangeness that it does not seem like it could live on earth, but is still fundamentally appealing.
As an artist the design just looks like it got handed to someone who shouldn’t have been covering a creature design because it’s just not their forte. The text is negative descriptive of the dragons so the artist had a ton of leeway to make whatever they wanted so it’s a bummer that what they made was that.
Watch Sanford Hirsch, Executive Director of the Gottlieb Foundation, read from the archive Gottlieb’s speech titled “Unintelligibility,“ at the Dedalus Foundation’s "1,000 Words: Readings from Independent Artists’ Archives."
The speech was originally delivered at the Museum of Modern Art in 1948 as a part of the forum, “The Modern Artist Speaks.”
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Artist Talk: Do you prefer group shows or solo shows?
