Forum posts by Sanne

I've not had the capacity to read through everything, but a few things in your last post stood out to me.

You're able to complete tasks that have external motivators with immediate consequences if left undone attached to them even when bone deep exhausted. You're unable to complete tasks that require internal motivators without immediate consequences if left undone.

This is in most cases an issue with the reward system in the brain. Drawing has no immediate reward when you're practicing to improve your skills. Completing a task that has external motivators because your job requires it from you so you can pay your bills is an immediate necessity, so much so that you can push through extreme exhaustion to get things done. If you don't do it then you'll have to deal with repercussions in the very short term.

But art? Art has no repercussions. You have no punishment or negative outcome if you don't practice. Nothing happens. And that's where, when you're already dealing with what sounds like limited capacity, the lack of being motivated to draw comes in.

This is something that is extremely prevalent in neurodivergence. We see it in autism and ADHD, but also with anxiety and depression, and other neurological divergences. There's an inability to self-motivate because the task we're looking to self-motivate for has no short term consequence attached that is enforced externally. This is why we can game for hours (games typically provide a continuous stream of rewards for our brains) but we can't get ourselves to spend even 20 minutes on a drawing.

So maybe your solution lies in creating external motivators and consequences that you don't get to ignore if you don't practice your art? If this is something you are willing to pursue seriously, it's worth looking into what's possible for your circumstances. Ask friends and/or relatives for help if need be, have someone be an accountability buddy of sorts, make the consequences short-term and tangible.

If I'm entirely off the mark or forgot a detail about you that contradicts what I'm saying, I apologize. I'm also not trying to put any kind of label on you, I'm just using examples. It just stood out to me that you keep talking about external and internal motivation at the core a few times and wanted to give my thoughts on it. :)

Hi friend!

Polyvios is correct, we handle spambots as quickly as we can. :) Kim and I have both been busy working on some things behind the scenes the past two weeks so we're a little bit slower than usual with banning the bots.

Spambots are a near unavoidable problem in this day and age. There are lots of tools in place to help prevent them from being able to sign up and post, but the people who build these kind of bots get more and more creative to get around these blocks on a daily basis. It's a frustrating struggle for everyone!

We prevent a lot of them from getting to the forums, but a few are bound to slip through. Reporting them helps us out a lot, so thank you!

I find this incredibly ironic because people genuinely don't know how to draw fat people so much that people struggle to draw what I look like all the time. Clearly we need more fat models to enable artists to draw us better.

I'd also like to think that we continue to see the models as actual people who exist in our day to day lives and are part of the world we draw, paint and sculpt. They're not inanimate objects reduced to what people want them to look like. To insist otherwise feels exceptionally dehumanizing to me and I hope to never read a statement like that again.

I want to say I understand that having an excess of a singular model in the rotation can be an issue with practice.

However, in the many years that this site has been live, and during all the times we've had a single or multiple similar models absolutely dominate the tools with their presence, we have never been asked to remove a model or a type of model from our tools (edit: with the exception of who Kim mentioned for the reasons stated). Rather, there has been a call for diversity to add more people of different bodytypes. We've been desperate for years to add more and more models to our tools because human beings are diverse and we want them represented.

Ask yourselves: if Alex was a smaller sized person, would you still feel this strongly about it? If not, that's a good indication it's time to reflect on how you see large people.

Speaking from a non-moderator position: I find it a little difficult to not see this suggestion as one that came about primarily as a response to a person's size and how it's inherently undesirable, if I'm being honest. Kim and I have been fighting tooth and nail to add more diversity to the tool by including people from all sorts of backgrounds, and it's deeply upsetting that when we used to have average to thin weight models in excess, nobody ever asked us to remove them from the tools like this. Ever.

As a fat person, I have a photoshoot planned this fall/winter with a photographer whom I imagine will take enough pictures to rival Alex's contributions to add officially to the site. I've never modeled for figure studies before, but I desire to be represented as a fat and disabled person who wears medical equipment to live.

Topics like this make me feel insecure and consider not adding to the tool to help solve a lack of diversity, because if I'm 'too much' people will not shy away from publicly demanding that I don't get to have a place like thinner and more abled models. Please be more thoughtful with your words and suggestions. Fatphobia and fat/disability hatred is deeply ingrained in our cultures to the point where most study tools simply don't have any larger or disabled models available at all. And when we finally do, we get a response that insists it's best if we remove a model from the site or reduce their contributions.

That's just not okay. It's never too late to reflect on our own biases and how the way we talk about topics like this keeps harmful biases intact.

I'm participating in Inktober this year by doing Paintober VR. :D So here are my paintings so far! All of them are painted in Vermillion.

Day 1: Sunset at the mountains



Day 2: Eating cake

@Snoob: I moderate a subreddit focused on being a support community for people with a specific chronic illness, and I've had many horrible threats sent my way for simply deleting a topic, comment, or asking someone to cease being rude. There are awful people all over unfortunately, no matter the topic of the subreddit. :(

I almost forgot to post my most recent work. Made in Vermillion again. :) Took me a good chunk of time but I love how it turned out.

How exciting!! I have a VR study group now as well, feel free to check it out here: https://line-of-action.com/group/overview/292

I've not yet looked into Brushwork, it looks like it's browser based? I'll have to give it a go. :D

I finished this last night, and I'm really proud of how my skillset for VR Oil painting is progressing. :D

Painted in Vermillion, PCVR on a Quest 2.

For the time being, I think this would be a great space to show off our work when we finish it. :)

Please NO WIPs (works in progress)! You're welcome to create your own thread to talk through your creation process, but this thread is for finished pieces only.

Be sure to include which program you used!

Hi :)

I've been a digital artist for 20+ years, and I got a VR headset last year. I also discovered virtual reality painting apps and I've been obsessed with painting this way! I'm looking to connect to more people, and possibly set up painting classes where we can utilize Line of Action to improve our skills!

I created a study group for this purpose: https://line-of-action.com/group/overview/292

If you're a VR artist, whether that is sculpting, painting, grafitti spraying, etc. please consider joining!

This topic is designated to be an umbrella topic for discussing the VR app Vermillion.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1608400/Vermillion__VR_Painting/
Meta Quest: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/4900967296622279

Please note: we're all regular users of this app. For official support/troubleshooting, please visit the developer's Discord server.

Welcome! Please remember all the site-wide rules still apply.

1. This group is intended for artwork created in Virtual Reality applications only.
Art created outside of VR, whether that is digitally or traditionally, doesn't belong in this group unless it is used to (re)create art in VR.

2. Paintings and sculptings are equally accepted here.

3. When sharing artwork, please mention which app it was created in.
Optionally you're welcome to include which headset you're using (e.g. Quest 2, Valve Index, HTC Vive etc.)

4. Only provide criticism when it is requested.

5. Be supportive of each other's journeys and skill levels.

Gestures are intended to help you 'draw what you see' by breaking a body down into basic shapes and putting them on paper in a way that captures the essentials of a pose. The more time you spend on doing gestures, the more dynamic and alive your drawings will end up feeling. It's a form of practice that needs to happen to develop your skills.

Essentially you're training your brain a specific way. Gestures are also useful warmups for more detailed and completed works of art. :)

I'M SO HAPPY!!

I bet I'll be finding small errors here and there as I wander over the Dutch version, I'll be sure to send you any fixes I stumble on Kim!