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"Fine Art" category

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"Fine Art" category 2018-12-12 10:55:58


the fine art category is a little.... misused in my personal opinion.

while the definition of fine art is subjective, MOST institutions would agree that a digital flat shaded drawing of a video game character having sex with a tentacle monster does not fall within it for one of a few reasons. not that I dislike that sort of image at all, i simply think it belongs in illustrations.

to note a few examples of what would unambigiously be considered fine art:

unfortunately there is about one of these per page in the category (im not counting my own uploads for obvious reasons)

i want to see more of these works. having entire catalogs of anime illustrations tumped into the fine art category is annoying, when they are so unambigiously just illustrations.

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-12 11:31:57 (edited 2018-12-12 11:34:19)


I'm inclined to agree but sorry to say, the portal isnt really being moderated or filtered for these kinds of things. Realistically only things that are reported or pm'd to a mod are going to be looked at and even then its specific to the mod being called into action, things are not always enforced consistently even between mods. The amount of work it would take to review and clean up that particular section of the portal would take more time and dedication than the volunteer mods likely have. Virtually all art posted to the art portal is illustrative in nature, including some of the examples you posted. It may be better to simply abolish the category and start anew.


A distant engine of hate is stirring....

Illustration | Animation

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Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-12 11:54:22


yeah, not sure what could really be done about it, exactly.

perhaps a relabeling as "traditional media" would make it serve a purpose better, as that doesnt come with the somewhat highhorse expectations of the term fine art

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-13 18:51:22


I noticed that too. And I thought, if people are using it this way... then why is there a fine art category on the first place? x'D

Like, I would understand "digital art" and "traditional art" being separated, as they're mediums and techniques. Just like pixel art and 3D art. But separating stuff by styles is a bit weird to me. There have to be grey areas between fine arts and illustration.

I would also like an animation category in art so people don't upload simple loops to movies (?). But idk I can't just demand things.

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-13 19:18:37


I would go so far as to say that there are under a thousand examples of proper fine art in the entire Art Portal by the definition that the fine art artists I know subscribe to.
That being said, fine art is just such a loose term that has been used to describe whatever the current trend in art is/was; taken in a void it's essentially a meaningless term as far as classification goes. But as far as my definition goes, its "art that exists to serve the purpose of being art." So the only one that really fits of your linked posts is the mouth one, maybe that portrait.

For the purposes of the Art Portal It's easier to just look at the 'fine art' category as shorthand for "traditional painting."

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-13 22:49:36


At 12/13/18 07:18 PM, JackDCurleo wrote: I would go so far as to say that there are under a thousand examples of proper fine art in the entire Art Portal by the definition that the fine art artists I know subscribe to.
That being said, fine art is just such a loose term that has been used to describe whatever the current trend in art is/was; taken in a void it's essentially a meaningless term as far as classification goes. But as far as my definition goes, its "art that exists to serve the purpose of being art." So the only one that really fits of your linked posts is the mouth one, maybe that portrait.

For the purposes of the Art Portal It's easier to just look at the 'fine art' category as shorthand for "traditional painting."

I'd be fine with that if it was actually labeled that way. Or actually uploaded to that way.

It's far from the end of the world but the vast majority of stuff in there matches NO possible definition and should just be in illustratione. Grumble grumble. Bah humbug.

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-15 00:08:53


Are you suggesting we have different categories to separate "fine art" from "fine-ass art"? It's a lot of fine-ass pinups out here! <3

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-15 13:35:56


At 12/15/18 12:08 AM, TheOfficialPit wrote: Are you suggesting we have different categories to separate "fine art" from "fine-ass art"? It's a lot of fine-ass pinups out here! <3

i like fine ass pinups. id like them even more if they were in illustrations where they belong lol

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-15 13:49:53 (edited 2018-12-15 13:50:31)


At 12/15/18 01:35 PM, sheepwave wrote: i like fine ass pinups. id like them even more if they were in illustrations where they belong lol

I don’t necessarily see them as illustrations, which is the fundamental issue. One man’s fine art is another person’s illustration.

I’ve never distinguished between fine art and illustration. Pixel should be clear-cut, but there’s always the person who puts a picture in that category “because it contains pixels”.

Overall it’s just useless.

I’d prefer to see a distinction between digital and traditional, instead, but ultimately it only has as much value as the people who fill in the fields in the art portal.


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Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-15 14:50:10


At 12/15/18 01:49 PM, TurkeyOnAStick wrote: I’ve never distinguished between fine art and illustration. Pixel should be clear-cut, but there’s always the person who puts a picture in that category “because it contains pixels”.

Overall it’s just useless.

I’d prefer to see a distinction between digital and traditional, instead, but ultimately it only has as much value as the people who fill in the fields in the art portal.

Yeah, fine art just seems like a really weird choice to put in the same category as pixel art, 3D art and illustrations. These 3 have really clear cuts definitions from each other but fine art is so subjective that it's pretty much useless to distinguish art with it.

I fully agree on categorizing by traditional and digital art.


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Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-15 20:54:53


If you are looking for fine art I don't think you should be looking through newgrounds where we just post art in general and not a specific kind of art

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-15 23:04:51


At 12/15/18 08:54 PM, TheMightyWeakling wrote: If you are looking for fine art I don't think you should be looking through newgrounds where we just post art in general and not a specific kind of art

That's kinda besides the point. There's a Category system nobody really pays any mind to and it is basically unused.
It's a bit too late to do anything to fix that I find, even if they added new categories there would be thousands of entries not categorized correctly. Maybe getting rid of it would be the best call to avoid confusion?


This post was artificially generated

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-16 04:32:27


didnt even know there was a fine art catagory. from the examples you give it looks to me like the catagory should just be changed to traditional art instead

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-17 08:52:02


Hey all, I'm still pretty new here. Only been posting stuff about a week on here. Could yall tell me if I'm putting my stuff in the right place? Be advised it's NSFW. But am I doing it right?

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-17 08:56:00


At 12/17/18 08:52 AM, TheOfficialPit wrote: Hey all, I'm still pretty new here. Only been posting stuff about a week on here. Could yall tell me if I'm putting my stuff in the right place? Be advised it's NSFW. But am I doing it right?

Yup. Those are for sure illustrations.

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-17 12:45:10


Here's another question for everyone... If we improve our visibility of tag searching, do you think the art categories could become completely irrelevant? We could toss them out and apply the existing genre data as tags to existing art pieces.

Right now I only make use of the genres when I want to see pixel art or 3D art but I could also do that with a tag search assuming everyone tags properly. It's one of those changes that can ultimately simplify the Art Portal layout... Curious how often people really drill down into those categories.


Working on Nightmare Cops!

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Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-17 12:56:57 (edited 2018-12-17 13:13:10)


At 12/17/18 12:45 PM, TomFulp wrote: Here's another question for everyone... If we improve our visibility of tag searching, do you think the art categories could become completely irrelevant? We could toss them out and apply the existing genre data as tags to existing art pieces.

Right now I only make use of the genres when I want to see pixel art or 3D art but I could also do that with a tag search assuming everyone tags properly. It's one of those changes that can ultimately simplify the Art Portal layout... Curious how often people really drill down into those categories.

I think a strongly implemented tag system could completely replace the categories.

It might be useful to llovingly steal the best aspects of imagebooru style tag filtering.

What can be difficult is to get people to actually all use the same tags, which most sites get to happen organically by having a suggested box show up with the most used tags as someone starts typing.

Perhaps the first tag box could, while you'd be free to write whatever you want, always open a suggestion list including "3d rendered, digital drawing, traditional media, pixel art, misc" which would cover the five original categories (maybe throw in animated gif as well)

Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-17 14:16:04


At 12/17/18 12:56 PM, sheepwave wrote: What can be difficult is to get people to actually all use the same tags, which most sites get to happen organically by having a suggested box show up with the most used tags as someone starts typing.

Perhaps the first tag box could, while you'd be free to write whatever you want, always open a suggestion list including "3d rendered, digital drawing, traditional media, pixel art, misc" which would cover the five original categories (maybe throw in animated gif as well)

We're working on tag suggestion so once that's in play it will be interesting to see how well it works! Have other things we are going to do in terms of a per persistent tag search mode / better visibility for tag search outside of advanced options / recognizing booru syntax as much as we can, etc.


Working on Nightmare Cops!

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Response to "Fine Art" category 2018-12-17 14:20:20


At 12/17/18 02:16 PM, TomFulp wrote:
At 12/17/18 12:56 PM, sheepwave wrote: What can be difficult is to get people to actually all use the same tags, which most sites get to happen organically by having a suggested box show up with the most used tags as someone starts typing.

Perhaps the first tag box could, while you'd be free to write whatever you want, always open a suggestion list including "3d rendered, digital drawing, traditional media, pixel art, misc" which would cover the five original categories (maybe throw in animated gif as well)
We're working on tag suggestion so once that's in play it will be interesting to see how well it works! Have other things we are going to do in terms of a per persistent tag search mode / better visibility for tag search outside of advanced options / recognizing booru syntax as much as we can, etc.

much appreciated. and yeah, as long as the tag suggestion is prioritizing the most used tags it will organically shuffle people into using the same terms, and tracking the say, 5 tags that have grown the most over the last X arbitrary period of time and putting links to them is a cool way of getting people to check out new content.