I think I am going to do this as often as I can. I have found myself in a bizarre art drive lately, and ever since I stepped into the My Little Pony fandom I have yet to suffer an art block, so I will keep riding the wave while it lasts. Besides, it's fun and it makes me way happier than playing videogames, as well as making me feel busy and productive. Also, doing quick sketches like these ones, with minimalistic color and a lot of black and white contrast, is something I really enjoy. It's very clean also, being this a digital format. If I tried doing this on a sketchbook I would smudge everything with grafite.
So yes, expect more to come. A lot more. My poor tablet is groaning in pain, but I don't care.
In today's picture, we have Rarity, haunted by her own demons. When the random number generator pointed me to her name I threw a hand to my mouth and chuckled guiltily. It's the kind of laugh you make when they tell you a joke that is two notches too wrong to be funny, but you laugh at it anyways. I knew I was going to get mean on her, and I think I kind of did.
This is a personal fear of mine, this one I put Rarity into. The fear of failure, followed by oblivion. Sometimes we are scared of what is inside us, our insecurities and lack of confidence. We are afraid of vanishing and leaving no trace at the end of our lives. We want to leave an impact in the world, since that's the only way we can achieve inmortality. Rarity, like any artist, wants to leave her mark in the world. She wants to be noticed, and she wants ponies to love and admire her craft. So, when she fails to do so, I bet she goes to a dark place, with one lonely mirror, from which a green eyed monster stares at her for hours. I feel for her. I've been there more often than not.
Art by James Corck
Rarity comes from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and belongs to Hasbro.
`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
Sta.sh
It's a type of crying you don't see in movies, but that I see every day in real life.
However all these problems may be resolved, and whichever cosmological model proves correct, there is not much of comfort in any of this. It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning. As I write this I happen to be in an aeroplane at 30,000 feet, flying over Wyoming en route home from San Francisco to Boston. Below, the earth looks very soft and comfortable, fluffy clouds here and there, snow turning pink as the sun sets, roads stretching straight across the country from one town to another. It is very hard to realize that this all is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
But if there is no solace in the fruits of our research, there is at least some consolation in the research itself. Men and women are not content to comfort themselves with tales of gods and giants, or to confine their thoughts to the daily affairs of life; they also build telescopes and satellites and accelerators, and sit at their desks for endless hours working out the meaning of the data they gather. The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
The important part is the last line. I sincerely believe that the universe is a big, dark, cold, impersonal place. (Read this lovely poem and weep:
A mare said to the universe,
Sir I exist!
However, replied the universe
This fact does not create in me
A sense of obligation)
Only a few things can give life a bit meaning, including studying physics, mathematics, creating great art, building Equestria on Earth. So far so good, BUT-- what if I fail?? What if, despite my best efforts, I still failed to make an important contribution to science? What if my whole life's erudition ends up rotting in a dusty corner of the library? I well understand similar fears of artists'. Intellectual death is a fate worse than death.
I think about this kind of intellectual death a lot. Every time I come across an obscure scientist on Wiki, I think, here comes another poor forgotten soul, I wonder whether this shall also be my fate... (example: Pockels [link]) Occasionally, when I get really stumped in my studies, I have this despair: "That's it, I'm doomed! There is no way I can contribute anything important to science, I'll sink into total oblivion, there is no hope for me!" To make the despair worse, I have a skull (not a real one) on my desk as my Memento Mori, and I can stare at it to cry even harder.
Well, that is a physicist's depression. Not really much different from an artist's depression. I always think art and science are closely linked together.