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How and why does your creativity change over time? It “evolves”.
Evolution is often wrongly thought of as a process that leads to a goal, like the idea that humans are the pinnacle of evolution, or that we will “evolve” into something better and “more superior”, or that there is a “next level” of evolution… All of that is just silly comic-book nonsense and terrible sci-fi. Evolution has no goal or direction, it's simply how we describe change that occurs over time. Creatures don't get “better” due to evolution, rather environmental pressures influence changes that make creatures fit in and cope with those specific pressures better. And many factors influence evolution, not just environmental pressures.
With creativity the evolution influencers are things like age, experience, taste, style, family, friends, technology, culture… As you get older you have more experience but less time to spend on things because of the pressures of work, relationships, and increasing responsibilities. Your tastes change, you get smarter, you get more skilled, you change what you work with, your ideas and interests change. You begin with the influences of your parents and early childhood exposures to culture, then you break away from that and form your own ideas of popular culture in your early teens, then you try to desperately fit in with various subgroups till your mid 20s and then you mainly stick with the cultural influences you were exposed up till then as your main influences from then on -still picking up new things from time to time, but not having as big an effect.
In the professional world creators get more power and less oversight so they often produce worse stuff because they have more control and don't listen to people as much, have less collaborators and less influence by producers and editors to fix their bad ideas… that's not always the case but it's proved true all too often with musicians, film makers, and writers.
Wider environmental factors like technological change (the internet, digital photography, AI etc), culture change, and political change, all have major effects on people's creativity. Then there are internal factors like puberty, depression, happiness, grief, and more. All these things leave their mark and alter the course of our creativity over time.
And THAT is why most bands aren't producing the same good stuff now as they did when they started out, hahaha!
In this Quackcast we talk about how our own work has changed over time and why. How has your changed over time and why?
This week Gunwallace was influenced to create a theme for Craters Edge - creepy, ethereal, mysterious mist arises, deepening the enigmatic aurora of the presence… Then chaos is unleashed without warning! Rapidfire electronica overwhelms, before fading back into smoke and darkness.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Somewhere in the Universe - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/may/14/featured-comic-somewhere-in-the-universe
Featured music:
Craters Edge - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Craters_Edge/ - by Jason Moon, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Quackcast 688 - Artistic Evolution
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, May 21, 2024
Artistic Evolution,
Banes,
Craters Edge,
Drunk duck,
Featured comic,
Featured music,
Gunwallace,
Kawaiidaigakusei,
Ozoneocean,
Quackcast 688,
Somewhere in the Universe,
Tantz Aerine,
Webcomics hosting
7 likes!
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Ozoneocean at 7:39PM, May 22, 2024
Thanks for that Banes haha! Glad someone notices these ^_^
Jason Moon at 7:17PM, May 22, 2024
That was a real treat for me! I started uploading Craters Edge on Drunkduck in 2017 when I found the site. I've always enjoyed listening to the quackcasts and hearing about the featured comics. I always thought it was so cool how Gunwallace would make musical themes for the comics and I have always wanted to hear one for Craters Edge. Several years later I finally got my wish. Thank you so much Gunwallace, I pictured fighting scenes with the heavy guitar part and that chilling techno ending made me think of Eeve in the black dress in Azalea Village. I love it, thank you so much. Now Gunwallace you need to make a special memory port just for all the comic musical themes LOL!
PaulEberhardt at 8:27AM, May 22, 2024
Anyway, I think the term evolution can be interpreted both ways, because language constantly evolves, too, and that is clearly never going to bring it anywhere near perfection. I don't think of evolution as progress either, but rather as constant change that doesn't make it much worse - in contrast to decline and improvement and standstill - but I get why people so easily confuse these four: in such a slow, messy trial-and-error process as evolution the difference is hard to spot.
PaulEberhardt at 8:07AM, May 22, 2024
I started drawing at age 4 and got marginally better at it over the next couple of decades. Does that count? 😉
Ozoneocean at 4:01AM, May 22, 2024
@J_Scarbrough - it's not theorised that way, it's commonly characterised that way by the majority of people. They think it is a process of simplicity towards complexity. This is why phases like "next step in evolution", "more evolved", "devolution" etc exist 🤣🤣🤣 People imagine that humanity was a goal of evolution.
JohnCelestri at 1:40PM, May 21, 2024
@J_Scarbrough: For me, evolution is development of one's artistic skills to a higher level both professionally and creatively. As I developed as a professional animator, I began to slow down in order to fine tune my work. This attitude has carried over to my comic book work. I now can judge how long it will take me to produce a satisfying/entertaining piece at a comfortable pace.
usedbooks at 12:36PM, May 21, 2024
My foray into comic art started as poorly executed attempts to follow a How-to-Draw-Manga book. It evolved into whatever the hell I do now. Doesn't look like Manga or anything else. There might be something Manga left in the bones somewhere. But it didn't really look like Manga to start with either. Maybe it was just vavilovian mimicry.
J_Scarbrough at 8:38AM, May 21, 2024
I've never heard of evolution being theorized as a process that leads to a goal; that's a new one on me.
Sketchydrawer at 8:30AM, May 21, 2024
Mine changed once i wanted to draw more detailed stuff. Like knight or sci fi armor. But first i needed to get better at anatomy, i also was doing silly fan art of MK years ago and i felt that helped a lot.
Banes at 7:55AM, May 21, 2024
That cover image-! Yet another triumph!
bravo1102 at 5:04AM, May 21, 2024
Your art can change due to environment as you adapt it to its surroundings. (Natural selection) Change it to be more attractive (sexual selection) edit it to better fit what is wanted (artifical selection). It's almost like evolution has an analog in every aspect of the creative process. Genetic drift, allele frequency (tropes and memes) Richard Dawkins has talked about a bunch of times especially how he would discuss it with his friend Douglas Adams.