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THought I'd pull out and post one of my responses on a recent ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lilrivkah post about Wizard World Chicago, and creating works, and being passionate about it. The context is a discussion about fulfilling your creative drive through original works (she asked some Big Corporation artists if they ever drew anything for themselves and received basically a "Bzuh?" in answer) , and I'm suggesting that for some people, the creative drive doesn't have to be fulfilled solely through original work.
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How about thinking of it this way: these characters are their passion. Someone who's grown up with Batman, made a million stories about Batman in his head since he was a kid, drawn a million pictures of Batman all over his books and notes, and now he's grown up and working for DC and paid his dues less-popular titles, and now ... dude! He's drawing Batman!!
I don't think that's mere hero-worship. I see lots of people who are passionate about their fanfic and fanart enough so that if they were offered a chance to write or draw in that world, they'd be in hog heaven.
Similar to that, there are people who want to work with certain other people, and they don't care what on. The chance to draw an Alan Moore work, for example - they wouldn't care if it was Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Top Ten, as long as they got to work with Moore.
There's also the idea that the act of creating is what drives them and fulfils their creative needs, not the subject matter. That's one of my drives, and the one that's taken care of by fanart. I don't really care that the character I'm drawing isn't mine, because that's not the point - just to see the rendering develop under my pencil, or the chance to play with settings in Painter (or, currently, to experiment with my new Copics) is the point, and I really don't want to waste time that I could be using to play with this other stuff in developing something original.
Have you read the book Hanging Out with the Dream King: Interviews with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators ? There's a lot in there about collaboration - the artists and letterers aren't working on their own things, they're working with Gaiman, and you can see their ideas about how they do or do not like doing it. (One of Gaiman's tricks to working well with his collaborators is to find out what they really like to draw, and incorporate it into the story: Sam Kieth does well with giant crowd scenes with lots of little creatures in them, and another one wanted to draw helicopters.)
Hm, went on longer than I expected. I may repost this to my LJ and find out what my friendlist thinks: they're a creative and opinionated bunch. :)
lilrivkah post about Wizard World Chicago, and creating works, and being passionate about it. The context is a discussion about fulfilling your creative drive through original works (she asked some Big Corporation artists if they ever drew anything for themselves and received basically a "Bzuh?" in answer) , and I'm suggesting that for some people, the creative drive doesn't have to be fulfilled solely through original work.=========
How about thinking of it this way: these characters are their passion. Someone who's grown up with Batman, made a million stories about Batman in his head since he was a kid, drawn a million pictures of Batman all over his books and notes, and now he's grown up and working for DC and paid his dues less-popular titles, and now ... dude! He's drawing Batman!!
I don't think that's mere hero-worship. I see lots of people who are passionate about their fanfic and fanart enough so that if they were offered a chance to write or draw in that world, they'd be in hog heaven.
Similar to that, there are people who want to work with certain other people, and they don't care what on. The chance to draw an Alan Moore work, for example - they wouldn't care if it was Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Top Ten, as long as they got to work with Moore.
There's also the idea that the act of creating is what drives them and fulfils their creative needs, not the subject matter. That's one of my drives, and the one that's taken care of by fanart. I don't really care that the character I'm drawing isn't mine, because that's not the point - just to see the rendering develop under my pencil, or the chance to play with settings in Painter (or, currently, to experiment with my new Copics) is the point, and I really don't want to waste time that I could be using to play with this other stuff in developing something original.
Have you read the book Hanging Out with the Dream King: Interviews with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators ? There's a lot in there about collaboration - the artists and letterers aren't working on their own things, they're working with Gaiman, and you can see their ideas about how they do or do not like doing it. (One of Gaiman's tricks to working well with his collaborators is to find out what they really like to draw, and incorporate it into the story: Sam Kieth does well with giant crowd scenes with lots of little creatures in them, and another one wanted to draw helicopters.)
Hm, went on longer than I expected. I may repost this to my LJ and find out what my friendlist thinks: they're a creative and opinionated bunch. :)
passion and creativity
i feel a lot of passion (though it's a quiet sort of passion) for the things i do (not all of them are creative per se, such as gardening), but i don't necessarily feel it while i am engaged in the endeavour. i am often concentrating really hard to get something just right, or there is drudge work to be done to get the project to the next stage. sometimes i get into what i call a "zen" mode, when things just ... flow, and there is no drudgery; everything just works, but that doesn't feel passionate, it just is, in the moment.
after such an experience i usually feel a surge of joy at how well things went, and that really awakens my passion for the craft, and i could burble on at length about how wonderful doing those things is. :)
and no, i needn't do original work for this to happen. last time i felt a zen moment was when i was filling 50,000 holes with epoxy (i am rebuilding an old wooden fishing troller). it's not creative at all, in fact. but there is passion for work well done, for making something old new again, for fixing something that's broken, and making it useful. there is no difference between the passion i feel for the boat and the passion i feel for my freeform yarn work or my writing.
Re: passion and creativity