The reason I was writing this up because I was attending a small meeting which basically discussing about a research done by a group of people relating digital content in Malaysia. Well, technically speaking, I was representing the mobile content groups along with my friend (despite my company being a newfag in such area, we’re called for such meeting and I do think there are more people suitable in replacing us for that matter). Frankly speaking, we were discussing over data and graphs that being presented on the projector screen. Of course, over such things, conversation will be started upon critical points. There are many kind of digital contents. Whatever it is, we certainly require good contents which leads to good content creators like those good producers. When it comes to good producers, it is not only about creating great ideas as they need someone we called as graphic artist.
Somewhat underrated series ever
In most of the time, we do need someone who is creative enough in making interesting contents. Graphic artists have always been placed as a secondary matter while being important as well. But for most of developers in Malaysia, content creators do all things. From getting ideas, refining ideas, storyboarding, programming, graphic designs and everything are done by the same persons. Really, when it comes to making pleasant graphics Malaysians produce decent or below the par stuffs. We recently do have great stuffs like Geng Pengembaraan Bermula and Saladin. Several animation studios popped out like Les Copaque and Animonsta Studios. But those are something for animation stuffs. For things like normal applications, graphical stuffs are normally not that really prominent as most of people think. Sure. graphics are not entirely about drawing stuffs like Picasso or Leonardo Da Vinci. A great Photoshop user might create something cool enough using the tools provided in the software. But look at those guys in this country. When do we really actually start to learn in using Photoshop or any other graphical software?
Tomokane
Practically, we only start using stuffs like that when we are on the tertiary level of studying. Especially graphical arts. Oh, you’re pointing that Art class during our school days, right? Also, we actually did learn basic arts from pre-school days up until secondary school, right? But look back at our education or should I say, societal norms. We are focusing on technological aspects which eventually ditching something not really that famous for a living standard. It is absurd to blame government all the way because that’s what oppositions like to do. But in relating our nation in pursuing advancement of technology, we could see how parents prefer their children to be great doctors, engineers, architectures, and businessmen (or businesswomen if you really that sexist). Do we really see someone to have their sons or daughters to be the great sculptor or other artistic related jobs? In our minds, we couldn’t get how a sculptor to make a living in Malaysia. Rightly said. That’s why we have to hire foreigners to sculpt any statue here. What we have now are decent people who actually start their proper art learning at universities and see how late they already were. I am not saying Ujang, Datuk Lat, Ben or Kaoru being decent cartoonists. Though, when it comes to such arts field, we only have these certain people that we can make them as examples and these people are enthusiasts who proceed in arts with great passion.
Nodamiki. Actually I like Miyabi the most but the lack of her picture made me rage
When I said about people in Malaysia actually start their proper art learning at universities, it is because we don’t have any particular schools that teach solely about arts. For instance, we have schools that properly focusing on sports like that Bukit Jalil Sport School (or Sekolah Sukan Bukit Jalil if you’re that picky for me to say it in Malay). We have a number of people who took arts paper during secondary school but mostly because they wanted to get additional points or marks in their certificates. Why don’t we look at what happened to people who are not bright enough in science and mathematics? Some Malays opted for religious field of education since they can’t count properly as there are a lot more opportunities for making a living being an imam or religious teaching. Of course, someone might bash me by saying that there’s Alms and Falak things in Islam that actually use mathematics. I just pointing out stuffs only for people like that as both said fields are just a small part in the whole Islamic constitution anyway. Religious people prefer to talk about Sharia Laws rather than anything else. Some also went for institution that focus on skills like those GiatMARA or anything similar like that. In such institutions, they will learn something like how to fix a car or an air conditioner system. There’s also cultural field. Of course that arts fall into this category but only as general arts. Musics, films and traditional dances that some conservatives thing them as important while some others saw some opportunities in making money with those. Again, we see where is arts gone? As in graphical arts, drawing arts.
Hidamari Sketch, the infamous anime series about arts. But I believe this is more about cute stuffs compared to G.A.
I don’t know about Hue or Saturation until I actually opened up a dictionary upon seeing them inside Photoshop options. What do I learn about colors during my school days? Primary and secondary colors. Hahaha. I am into drawings but only keeping it as a hobby. But I do wish if I could enter an art school, that would be great. You see, I might have some talent in drawing stuffs but I don’t know the basics. If I am about to color some stuffs, I do what I think is right for me. I don’t know about what should I do first. I remember that I like to draw comics during my childhood days (though, not to the extent where I actually selling them like what Datuk Lat did). Heck, how do I draw a portrait of a person anyway? I always saw people actually start drawing by the eyes. By right, you should actually make the base of the face first, the shape, etc., rather than straight to the details of the eyes, people. To connect this matter with the early paragraph above about digital contents in Malaysia, we actually need a better arts learning institution because, not only we lack in such talents, we need to reduce the additional years and money in creating instant artists as they actually took different major of study fields during their school days.
P.S: The images used are somewhat related with the subject. Because Japan is so awesome to have art schools.
To this article, I was agreed.
seconded
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agreed
Agreed.
Slowpoke coming into an agreement here.
To think again that, there are many talented person here. But the environment and social community killed them. Was there a magazine that promote those people other than gempak? Must we draw something more ‘original’-styled like those in ujang and gila2? Seeing how the 3DCG media are developing, can we hope to bring enlightenment to hand-drawn media? For that, maybe we need a bigger artist community. My piece of mind tho.
Truly that anime is underrated.. I lol’ed hard at the various digital and non digital art references they made fun of.
But I don’t think it’s the lack of art talents la, Steno.
It’s more like Malaysian artists don’t usually diverge from the normal mediums.
People in woodworking don’t try to break new ground.
People in visual arts keep sticking to watercolours, and oils and ignore other forms such as sculpting and such.
Since I did do Arts as my minor subject, I don’t think the lack of Art talents is the reason, but more like specifically, the number of art talents in the ‘digital medium’ is quite lacking, rather than the masses in general.
During my art appreciation lecture, I could see how religious extremists could probably devaluate any art form into some form of blasphemeous product of western/alien culture. Like Stan Murmur for instance. I think he did, in a way glorify the least glamorous part of our body to produce art. Or Salvador Dali.
Don’t get me started on nude art.
Glorifying god’s creations can be turned into blasphemous tool of corrupting young minds, given the tendencies of some Malaysians.
Looking at wood carvings down in Terengganu by the local artists, or looking at oil and water paintings down at CM.. I think the topic should be on “the lack of competent digital artists in Malaysia.” There are few, like Mahathir Buang aka Milx, or even Billy Tan Mung Khoy, who is currently (I think) working for Marvel.
Then again, digital artist get paid a pittance here compared to what they can earn elsewhere, so can you blame them?
My point is generally towards digital stuffs. I know the title might be misleading but for the sake of shorter title, I simply put “arts” there.
but even in the digital realm, there are seperate disciplines. If mobile content, then we need sprite/pixel artists, which is I think is not a subject in most arts schools as of yet, and not really explored. But I do think that commercial oriented art you seek are explored in the pop-art art movement, as pop-art are usually found in commercials the most.
Then again perhaps sending in a portfolio of ‘blown up/magnified’ A4 to A3 sizes of 64 x 64 pixel or smaller of sprites would probably NEVER impress potential employers. A portfolio full of anime drawings would almost guarantee a non-hiring of that artist as well.
Either way, I think the matter is that most art schools tend to generate artists that are mostly geared towards the advertising market than the generation of digital or mobile content. Alarming? I don’t think so. It’s the prospective employers that decide what kind of artist they want anyway.
This is not merely commercials. The thing that we discussed was relating every digital arts. Also, not about mobile contents solely. As we do know we have artists but lack in expertise or, they require more trainings. What I brought up here is that we should find a way that the trainings to be shorten as the subject needed to be exposed to the youngsters who ventured into the arts. So that we don’t need to wait for fresh grads just for the purpose of this.
Also, it’s not a problem sending A4 or A3 sizes of portfolios. Every damn sprites were large as big as desktop. It is a matter of technology that shrink them to bits.
But it is not about portfolio anyway. There are a large number of grads from IT field who do know how to use the said software or nerd enough to create various applications of software. Even you know how to use Photoshop. Though when being told to do some basic drawing of arts, there’s certainly a lacking there for digital content.
It is ‘a lack’, not necessarily none of existence. For example, MMU has the facilities for creating digital art professionals. To take a degree of graphic arts there, you’re required to take the foundation of graphic arts and your hard-earn diploma of IT is useless as it was happened to me when I tried to apply there. There’s also The One Academy. I can give more examples but those are private institutions which means only a small number of people would trying to achieve it.
I am not saying that all public institutions to have such art schools. Rather a college or two should have such field. The problem I saw with Malaysian universities is that every one of them trying to have every field of studies in their hands so that they can compete with each other. That’s why IT or engineering courses can be found in every damn public uni in this country. Perhaps they couldn’t take the risk of being an institution of expert for a certain field, rather they have to provide other fields to compensate for that uncertain future.
Another thing is, we need a secondary school level of arts institution. We already have technical schools that have provided some early technicians for various fields. Why not a general art school for that? Not only about graphical arts, we do lack of child actors/actresses as well. Do you think those loli in Japanese movies were those simply blessed with talents so the directors just picked them up from playgrounds?
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