Difference between revisions of "Chris and art"

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(Cleaned up opening paragraph: Redundancy, removed unintended pun)
(Comprehensive rewrite. Tried to make it as brief and straightforward as possible.)
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[[Image:ProportionFail.jpg|thumb|Chris is an expert at proportion.]]
[[Image:ProportionFail.jpg|thumb|Chris is an expert at proportion.]]


'''Art''' has been, and always will be, [[Chris]]'s selling point. From the very day "[[Jason Kendrick Howell]]" found out about Chris and his creation of Sonichu to today, many people have taken interest in Chris because of his infamous work. Encouraging Chris to produce more of it remains a popular troll objective.  
'''Art''' has been, and always will be, [[Chris]]'s selling point. From the very day "[[Jason Kendrick Howell]]" found out about Chris and his creation of Sonichu to today, many people have taken interest in Chris because of his infamously bad artwork. Encouraging Chris to produce more of it remains a popular troll objective.  


When faced with Chris, most people will undoubtedly ask, "is there any field of endeavor that he doesn't completely suck? Is there any field where he has shown any improvement at all?" One could argue that he ''has'', in fact, gotten slightly better over the years. There's no question about it; the early ''Sonichu'' comics are noticeably worse than the newer ones. However, we must remember that he wasn't any good to begin with and has barely gotten any better in spite of years of practice. Chris's drawings still remain disproportionate, child-like, unimaginative and ''hilarious''. [[GodJesus]] bless his little autistic heart.
The sad part is, this is the closest Chris has to an actual "skill." It's no wonder he's never been able to keep a job.
 
The sad part is, this is the closest Chris has to an actual "skill." It's no wonder he's never been able to get and keep a job.


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=== Exercise of skills and improvement in craft ===
=== Exercise of skills and improvement in craft ===
[[Image:0025-ChristophersMicroMornings.jpg|thumb|Not bad for a grade schooler. Sadly, he peaked in the [[1980s]].]]
[[Image:0025-ChristophersMicroMornings.jpg|thumb|Not bad for a grade schooler. Sadly, he peaked in the [[1980s]].]]
Since Chris first started drawing, his artwork has been abysmal. While it may have improved since the day he first drew Sonic the Hedgehog, there's still considerable room for improvement. Sadly, Chris refuses to improve, thinking that what he's doing now is the shit.
Since Chris first started drawing, his artwork has been abysmal. The extent to which it has improved since the first time he drew Sonic the Hedgehog is accidental. Chris has never considered his artistic skill in need of improvement; he is always fully satisfied by the first attempt at a drawing he makes.


As Chuck Jones said, everyone's got a hundred thousand bad drawings in them. Chris is just too lazy to get them out. Chris fails to understand that even great artists don't get every stroke down on the paper perfectly; he just scribbles down something and thinks that is the best thing he can ever do. Many beginning artists notice immediately that they can't draw worth a damn, and spend quite a lot of time erasing and redrawing. This is perfectly normal. Where Chris fails is not stopping and asking "does this look good?" If the answer is "no," then the obvious solution is to keep trying. In Chris's mind, the answer is always "yes."
Because he believes his art is already perfect, Chris does not see the need to practice. He does no drawing exercises. He cannot look for room for improvement in his drawings because he refuses to accept the idea that his drawings can be in any way flawed.  


Chris does not appear to draw much outside of the comic pages themselves. He almost never shows any pencil sketches (and those only when trolls whip him into releasing them), and never any practice drawings, master copies, anatomy studies, speed sketches, class exercises, scribbles on napkins from restaurants, or anything of that sort; it is easy to question whether or not he does any of the latter sorts at all. When he tried to prove his real identity, he just showed drawings that everyone had seen before, some of which were several ''years'' old. Most amateur or professional artists, if put into that situation, would probably flip open their sketchbook and show new stuff they'd just drawn an hour ago. He appears to do at least some pencil sketches before drawing the comic (the hasty release of [[Sonichu 9]] also proves that), but judging from his [[CWC - Hand Drawn Original|tutorial video]], he doesn't ink the pencilings, he just re-draws everything hastily.
Chris revealed in the [[Mailbag 2#In which Chris insults someone who drew a picture for him|Mailbag]] that he spends "an hour at most" drawing a comic page and about a half-hour coloring it. In other words, he invests only a fraction of the time most serious artists put into their work, and it shows.  


He revealed in [[Mailbag 2#In which Chris insults someone who drew a picture for him|a response to an email dated 21 November 2009]] that he spends "an hour at most" drawing a comic page and about a half-hour coloring it, "sometimes longer depending on the thought process" (whatever that means). In other words, he invests only a ''fraction'' of the time most serious artists put into their work, and it shows. He even offers patently terrible advice to a fan in [[Mailbag 16#Art and lesbians|Mailbag 16]], recommending they focus on drawing foreground characters before doing any kind of background. For most comic artists some minimal background is drawn first so the artist can have some sense of dimension and perspective, then foreground and background images are refined simultaneously. Of course, most comic artists don't work with ballpoint pens and crayola markers...  
Chris seems to view the act of creating as almost a chore. Because to him every idea he has is perfect from the moment it pops into his head, creating is just a matter of recording his genius. Chris enjoys expanding Sonichu stories in summary form on [[CWCipedia]], a medium better equipped to keep up with his racing and easily distractible imagination. Chris considers everything he says or writes to be a part of his comic's continuity partly because it is easier to record these euphoric and fleeting bouts of inspiration as they occur rather than days, weeks, months or even years later in comic form.  


Ultimately, Chris will never improve because he doesn't actually ''care'' about his art or his comics. He's not interested in creating art for art's sake, and he doesn't care about the story. Like with his [[Sonichu Chronicles|videogame ideas]], he considers any idea he comes up with just as valid as anything he actually commits to paper. He only started publicizing his work as a horribly misguided attempt to attract [[boyfriend-free girl|women]], and he only continues to work on it because he's convinced he has a large fanbase that's demanding it. And he only cares about ''that'' because he thinks that some of his fans are women who might [[china|reward him]] for his skills.
Chris believes that everything he creates is inherently worthy of adoration, and that it will bring him legions of adoring fans and the [[China|attention]] of women.
 
Sometimes, Chris's art skills are only as good as his equipment. He seems to have miraculously lost his ability to make stop-motion animations; just compare [[The City of Cwicville Tour!]] and [[A Sonichu Day]]. This is because his earlier tool for making animations, the GameBoy Camera, had the function to easily create stop-motion animations, while his webcams don't have that function; he just can't be bothered to learn how to combine digital photos into animations in software, or would find that too much like actual work.


=== Comic writing and structure ===
=== Comic writing and structure ===
{{main|Chris and writing}}
{{main|Chris and writing}}
Chris has major problems keeping the story together: the comic is not scripted at all, and he keeps adding details that he doesn't properly explain later in the story. As far as comic structure goes, he also has problems with textwalling and keeping the speech bubbles in comprehensible order.
 
Chris is as poor a writer as he is an artist. Chris does no preparatory writing or preliminary revision, his narrative is wholly improvised and shifts regularly, he cannot write clear, succinct dialogue, and often fails to arrange text in sequential order.


=== Choices of materials and technology ===
=== Choices of materials and technology ===
[[File:Marker Section.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Crayola is the official art supplier for the Sonichu franchise, whether they like it or not.]]
[[File:Marker Section.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Crayola is the official art supplier for the Sonichu franchise, whether they like it or not.]]
Chris seems to be under the delusion that hand-drawn comics are always better than any drawings produced through other means. This can clearly be attributed to only the fact that Chris hates to change what he has already learned. Most artists would usually say that no material is inherently better than any other, all that matters is that in the end, you have aesthetically pleasing end results — or aesthetically unpleasing, if that was the intention.


While it's true that buying fancy pens won't make you a great artist, they certainly help. Chris doesn't believe in decent-quality media. Cheap paper, cheap pens, Crayola Fucking Magic Markers — serious artists would invest a little bit more of thought on these issues as well. Good art pencils do not cost that much more than crappy ones, and are available at wide range of blackness. The lowest-quality papers tend to crinkle ([[Wedding Comic|even before you stick them in a scanner]]) and turn yellow really fast, while even the typical photocopy/laser printer paper avoids that fate. Chris also pinches pennies in the wrong way by partaking in [[Chris and writing#Textwalls and unreadable bubble layouts|rampant textwalling]] to "save marker ink;"<ref>[[Mailbag 19]]</ref> while great modern artists have occasionally made poignant art by consciously ''not'' expending material, most artists probably prefer to use art supplies for their intended purpose. (''Duh.'')
Chris believes that his so-called "hand-drawing style" is superior to art produced by any other means. This is due to Chris's hatred to change what he has already learned and his belief, as a consequence of his [[ego|Chris and his ego]], that his method is the best by virtue of being his.  


As seen in CWC - Hand Drawn Original, his sketching set is something no adult would be caught using professionally, and he doesn't even use the most basic of drawing desks or surfaces. His creations come to life via a toy-like sketching kit from [[Wikipedia:Spin Master|Spin Master]] called [http://www.amazon.com/Strawberry-Shortcake-Reflecta-Sketch-Set/dp/B00144QMOY Reflecta Sketch] (shockingly, not the Strawberry Shortcake kit seen in the link; it's assumed the product bombed and he was one of the few who bought it, thus the lack of a product page from Spin Master), which only allows him to trace on basic letter-sized copy paper, not the large sketching paper most professional artists use. The kit comes with a reflective piece of plastic where an original can be placed to the left and the reflection is used for tracing an outline, allowing Chris the ease of copying other artists' works to use in his general and [[Rule 34]] artwork.
Obviously, Chris's skill cannot compensate for the poor materials he uses. He does his work a disservice by using tools that are the cheapest available: copy paper, ballpoint pens and Crayola Magic Markers. These happen to be the tools he has used since childhood.


Of course, considering where Chris prioritizes what he gets from his [[monthly tugboat]] (i.e., [[sex toys]], [[My Little Pony]]s and [[video games]]), it's no wonder that a man who buys all his [[Chris and fashion|clothing]] from a Salvation Army that's apparently run by clowns would invest in art supplies that were intended for a third-grader.
Chris's artwork is far from archival quality, and in some instances shows [[Wedding Comic|signs of wrinkling]] as soon as it has been finished. Chris has defended his practice of [[Chris and writing#Textwalls and unreadable bubble layouts|rampant textwalling]] as a way to "save marker ink."<ref>[[Mailbag 19]]</ref>


The less we say about Chris's use of [[computers]] in putting the final touches in his comics, the better - he uses ''Comic Sans'', a font that's almost universally condemned among anyone with any sort of creative talent as overused and ugly.<ref>[http://bancomicsans.com Ban the Comic Sans]</ref><ref>[http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07052007 They will make you taste the curb]</ref> Chris appears to have some version of Photoshop at his disposal (as seen in the "Spiderman-fucking Clyde" saga), but as everyone can tell from the results, either he doesn't know how to use it, or he doesn't do very much with it. Obviously if he did he could save his precious marker ink and color his pages via computer, but with [[Asperchu|his current sworn enemy]] utilizing this technique for their art to much better effect, it's doubtful Chris will follow.
Chris appears to have some version of Photoshop at his disposal (as seen in the "Spider-Man-fucking Clyde" saga), but uses it sparingly outside of lettering. Chris's font of choice is ''Comic Sans'', a font that is almost universally condemned as overused and ugly.<ref>[http://bancomicsans.com Ban the Comic Sans]</ref><ref>[http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07052007 They will make you taste the curb]</ref>  


Chris has shown utter disdain for the use of computers to work on his pages. In one of [[Alec Benson Leary Phone Call 1|phone calls to Alec Benson Leary]], Chris is quick to denounce the use of tablets and the like, claiming that they don't give the drawings "character" that normal paper and pencil drawings do. In earlier Mailbags, Chris was quick to denounce Asperchu as "blocky and low resolution" because it was drawn with a tablet. What Chris doesn't seem to understand is that it matters not what the medium and the canvas used to draw, but the style of the artist. And seeing as Chris thinks he's the greatest artist since Leonardo Da Vinci, that's saying something. Similar to his strange obsession with hand-drawn art, he also thinks that his [[CWC's Sonichu Site!|web page]] was awesome because it was made from "notepad scratch". While it is true that WYSIWYG web editors tend to produce cluttered code and thus building sites from scratch is usually considered a laudable goal, it is also true that a lot of web designers use nothing but text editor and can produce far more stylish web templates than Chris; use of text editor isn't the cause to celebrate ''in itself''.
Chris believes that using new technology creatively provides an unfair advantage in the service of inferior results. Chris has consistently called Asperchu "blocky and low resolution" because it was drawn with a tablet. In one of [[Alec Benson Leary Phone Call 1|phone calls to Alec Benson Leary]], Chris said his hand drawn art had "more character." He also thinks that his [[CWC's Sonichu Site!|web page]] was awesome because it was made from "notepad scratch," rather than with a text editor program.  


=== Drawing techniques ===
=== Drawing techniques ===
[[Image:CChanDraws.jpg|thumb|left|Strange pen grips can be corrected with the assistance of school teachers. Chris slept through these lessons.]]
[[Image:CChanDraws.jpg|thumb|left|Strange pen grips can be corrected with the assistance of school teachers. Chris slept through these lessons.]]
Chris has never even learned to hold a pen correctly. Instead of holding the front of the pen with the thumb and forefinger, he draws with his index finger sticking out and bent around the pen.
Chris has never even learned to hold a pen correctly. Instead of holding the front of the pen with the thumb and forefinger, he draws with his index finger sticking out and bent around the pen.  
 
Even worse, he doesn't have a working drawing process. Well prepared is half done, and most artists spend most of the time in the preparation phase: sketches, sketches, sketches. On the other hand, Chris seems to focus on what is admittedly the most taxing part of drawing: coloring and putting in the final little details. As said above, Chris hastily sketches something or draws outlines, then colors the drawing. The whole ''point'' of pencil sketches is that you know beforehand where the ink goes; the idea is to make sure your drawing looks ''right'' before you make hard-to-repair mistakes. The whole process of refining the work and whittling out imperfections one by one until you're satisfied with the result is probably something that would cause too much [[stress]]. Also, Chris is incapable of drawing simple straight lines or even coloring within his lines 100% of the time.


=== Visual style and anatomy ===
=== Visual style and anatomy ===
[[Image:099-CWCsCWC.jpg|thumb|Nice arms you got there, Chris.]]
[[Image:099-CWCsCWC.jpg|thumb|Nice arms you got there, Chris.]]


Before the comics, Chris at least attempted a style approaching realism for "paintings" (although, on close examination, most are crayon drawings filled in to a ridiculously thorough degree). Most of the results are buried deep in the [[Scrapbook of Fail]] and are about as good as you'd imagine: the anatomy is questionable at best, and rarely consistent. Notably, his glasses are drawn as ginormous goggles, and appear to be the same frames he wears today. Around the time he got into Pokémon, he started moving from pseudo-realistic into a style the Internet would be much more familiar with.
Before the comics, Chris attempted realism for work in oil pastel, charcoal and graphite, presumedly for art classes in school. The results are buried deep in the [[Scrapbook of Fail]] and meet Chris's usual [[Fail|standards of quality]].  
 
Chris started out with a cartoony style for the comic book, in that all the characters had round heads and comparatively small eyes. One trait that has persisted over years is the way he draws smiles (and oh boy, do his characters smile a lot): A smiling mouth that consists of a curved line with two tiny curved lines on the ends. Most children draw smiles this way, but there always will be a day when the kindergarten or 1st-grade school teacher says that this is just ''not'' how people draw smiles in the real world. Nowadays, though, Chris is more eager to draw only half of the smiles, which looks a little bit less creepily manchild-like.
 
Things changed as Chris got into [[anime]], as well as manga, and sought to emulate them to impress his then-current [[gal-pal]], [[Megan Schroeder]]. As like many amateur western artists who ape the style without attempting to adapt it, he simply uses the clichés of "anime style": big eyes, speed lines, panty shots and many of the cheesier conventions, along with heads shaped like pentagons. There is no attempt to incorporate, fuse or otherwise adopt manga elements in a creative and original manner; these art elements are simply layered on top of his original "style" with no adjustment. Chris is no [[Wikipedia:Go Nagai|Go Nagai]], nor has he probably even heard of him.
 
However, Chris owns at least one book about drawing manga, as seen in [[My Half of A Whole New World for Kacey]]. The book in itself covers everything to do with portraying couples. This volume had images of couples in bed making love. Naturally the degree of the scenes isn't that extreme, but the fact that it's in there lends to the explanation as to why Chris might have purchased the book. Whether or not Chris bought it simply to better draw out his delusional fantasies or simply for more material to gawk at during [[Mass debating]] isn't known. Either way, the book has taught him nothing since his works are still horrendous mockeries of what cartooning stands for, Western and Eastern styles alike.
 
Tying in with this, Chris shows no interest in proportion or even basic anatomy. The manga style allows for some artistic license when drawing human beings, but after seeing what Chris does with anatomy, or rather doesn't, it's clear to see his license needs to be revoked. He draws characters as colored-in outlines, and as a result they have no appreciable anatomy or proportion. All his characters are made of lumpy, sexless shapes with crude genitalia attached. For someone who's supposedly a porno connoisseur, Chris doesn't seem to notice there are sexual characteristics that make women attractive beyond boobs, china, and ass; if he does, he's doing a predictably terrible job depicting them. Note the porn Chris rips off, and how he mimics the basic shape of each picture while getting the anatomy (wonky as most of them are) disturbingly out of whack.
 
When Sonichu is drawn by Chris speeding towards a rescue, he doesn't look like he's rushing to save the day Sonic-style, but instead has the proportions of those over-exaggerated steamroller men that are the hallmark of circa 1960s Yellow Page ads for construction companies. It's easy to see that Chris is copying the original style of Sonic's running based off the old DiC-produced cartoons and the early comics (which Sonic was depicted running in a cartoon-like, spinning-wheel manner), his lack of proportion and lazy manner in which he refuses to show bending legs give the illusion of Sonichu becoming a steamroller.


What's worse is that even though his characters are simple shapes, they aren't even consistent simple shapes. From one drawing to the next, Chris draws his characters (or even himself) differently. Limbs change shape, heads change size, and faces become unrecognizable; it's only by color scheme that we can guess which character is which. If he were even to practice in the ''slightest'' degree, anatomy and character design would be more consistent. Beyond his differently-colored eyes and Sonichu medallion, no two Chrises have ever looked alike, or even remotely like the actual Chris, although [[Sammy]] comes somewhat closer.
Chris started out with a cartoony style for the comic book, full of techniques consistent with early efforts at drawing by small children. Things changed as Chris got into [[anime]] and manga, and sought to emulate them to impress his [[gal-pal]] at the time, [[Megan Schroeder]]. Like many amateur western artists, he copies only the surface elements of the anime style: big eyes, pentagonal heads, and speed lines. These art elements are simply layered on top of his original "style" with no adjustment.  


An interesting thing to note is that, if a character is part of the background (and sometimes, even if they aren't), Chris will draw that character either one of two ways: as a simple white silhouette or as a stick figure. The silhouette drawing was a nuance that Chris picked up after watching the anime series ''[[Excel Saga]]'' (where it was used as part of a metafictional gag), while the stick figure idea was picked up through ''[[South Park]]'' (which is known for its deliberately unrealistic animation). Interestingly, [[wikipedia:Rob Liefeld|Rob Liefeld]] has also used this shorthand, and, as his many "admirers" will point out, it's one of the laziest shortcuts ever, not to mention blatantly obvious in a medium that ''isn't animated.''
Chris shows no interest in proportion or even basic anatomy. He draws characters as colored-in outlines, with no anatomy or proportion. What's worse is that even though his characters are simple shapes, they aren't even consistent simple shapes. Limbs change shape, heads change size, and faces become unrecognizable; it's only by color scheme that we can guess which character is which. Beyond his differently-colored eyes and Sonichu medallion, no two Chrises have ever looked alike, or even remotely resembled the actual Chris.


Chris's use of color is rather staggering, and it's hard to begin describing it. Because he colors everything with markers, he uses a lot of flat, basic colors, often ones as bright as possible. He often doesn't even try finding natural shades of things, or sometimes even shades that would fit in the drawings at all. Such coloration only makes his drawings appear even more childish.
Chris owns at least one book about drawing manga, as seen in [[My Half of A Whole New World for Kacey]]. The book in itself covers everything to do with portraying couples, including images of couples in bed making love. Whether or not Chris bought it simply to better draw out his delusional fantasies or simply for more material to gawk at during [[mass debating|Mass debating]] isn't known. Either way, the book has taught him nothing.


=== Character design ===
=== Character design ===
::''See also [[Chris and Writing#Characterization|Characterization]]''
::''See also [[Chris and Writing#Characterization|Characterization]]''


Despite Chris's colorful cast of characters, many of them rip off designs from existing characters, with Chris making no effort whatsoever to disguise them. His [[Sonichu (species)|Sonichus]] tend to follow the same Sonic-type anthropomorphic look of slicked-back quills, and like Sonic, they wear only shoes and gloves. [[Rosechu (species)|Rosechus]], however, vary. Rosechu herself follows Amy Rose's look; [[Bubbles]], [[Simonla]] and [[Angelica]] follow the SatAM Sonic series and Archie comic series' [[Women's Rights|lack of clothing]] ''á la'' Sally Acorn; and [[Zapina]] is the only one with an original (if fairly blob-like) look.
A large portion of Sonichu's cast is clearly derivative of existing characters. In addition to the obvious Sonic the Hedgehog recolors, Chris has lifted designs from whatever anime, video games, and even western animation he is fond of, with no regard for visual consistency.  
 
This design failure goes beyond his Electric Hedgehog Pokémon and extends to his humans as well, especially those connected to him. Most of the time, he'll either disguise their faces with a hood or lift designs from characters from other series. [[Bagget]] and [[ScotPalazzo]] were pulled from characters from ''Excel Saga''. Whenever Chris needed designs for his e-sweethearts' families, he really went off the deep end: [[Officer Keino]], Ivy's father, had his design cribbed off Coach McGuirk of ''Home Movies'' and the father and sister of Kacey were ripped off from Guile from ''Street Fighter'' and Candice from ''Pokémon''.


Beyond that, he doesn't even bother trying to design better clothing for his characters. Most of them wear stereotypical "basic" clothing and Chris himself wears his usual clown shirts and pants. With the sole exception of [[Meg-chan]], every female that shows up in his comics wears high-heeled dress shoes, probably inspired by the fact that most elder animated female characters tend to wear those types of shoes wherever they go.  
Beyond that, he doesn't even bother trying to design better clothing for his characters. Most of them wear stereotypical "basic" clothing and Chris himself wears his usual clown shirts and pants. With the sole exception of [[Meg-chan]], every female that shows up in his comics wears high-heeled dress shoes.


Even more telling is that Chris persists with his "gold on the first try" spiel with character designs. Note that most characters evolve over time and that it takes work to perfect a character design. The most telling of this, barring his Sonichus and Rosechus, is [[Collosal Chan]], Chris's super form. It's painfully obvious what Chris was going for: a fusion of himself and Chris-Chan Sonichu in the same vein as Gogeta, Gotenks and Vegetto from ''[[Dragonball Z]]''. Instead, as many trolls have pointed out, the resulting character makes him look like a hobo rather than a fusion. Another one that fits this bill are the [[Sonee and Rosey]] creatures. Again, it's obvious what Chris was going for: Sonichu and Rosechu as Baby [[Pokemon]], like Pichu, Wynaut, and Azurill. Instead, they look more unnerving than adorable.
Even when the source of Chris's plagiarism is readily apparent, these lifts can still add up to less than the sum of their parts. Inspired by the fusion characters of [[Dragon Ball Z]], [[Colossal Chan]] looks more like a hobo than a fusion of Chris and Chris-Chan Sonichu. Though clearly his own effort to design Baby [[Pokemon]], [[Sonee and Rosey]] look more unnerving than adorable.  


===Fan Service===
===Fan Service===
[[wikipedia:Fan service|Fan service]] is a term used to describe something that is meant to tease or please the audience. Fan service could be a cameo or a shout out in a TV show or a comic. Most of the time, though, fan service refers to pictures or scenes involving characters in more sensual positions and manner.
[[wikipedia:Fan service|Fan service]] is a term used to describe something that is meant to tease or please the audience. Fan service could be a cameo, a shout out, or a titillating scene in any work of fiction.  


Before he was discovered by the internet at large, fan service (even non-sensual kind) was virtually non-existent in the Sonichu comics. However, after the trolls started attacking Chris and challenging his sexuality, his artwork started to head in to the fan service-y manner.
Since his discovery by the Internet, Chris has inserted increasingly large amounts of fan service into the initially tame Sonichu in an effort to assert the heterosexuality of himself and his characters.  


Like his Rule 34 drawings seen below, Chris's understanding of fan service is very flimsy. He ''understands'' that some fan service should be "sexy", but his inability to draw characters with even a basic skeletal system makes them appear even more deformed than usual. Another thing that turns off viewers is Chris's need to shove "china" into everyone's faces. Chris thinks that giving every girl wearing clothes (or at the very least, some sort of underwear) a camel-toe makes them sexy. Instead, it has the opposite effect, as it repulses readers. Any attempts to add "sexy" material come across as Chris's own wish-fulfillment, and not as attempts by Chris to think of what other people would like to see in the comic.
Due to his lack of artistic faculties, much of Chris's depictions of sexuality are highly unsettling to most readers. Any attempts to add "sexy" material come across as Chris's own wish-fulfillment, rather than attempts by Chris to please his audience.  


Fan service works also usually avoid overt sexuality, because they attempt to make sure the fan service works within the artwork's own boundaries; it's usually something that's made as a natural byproduct. For example, if fangirls demand sexy pictures from a teen-oriented comic, the worst thing the comic artists do is rip off the hero's shirt, ''while'' the hero is having an epic battle with the nemesis, or something along those lines. Chris completely disregards the target age groups by putting explicit sex scenes in an allegedly kid-targeted comic, and the sexual material also makes little sense as far as the plot is concerned.
While the point of fan service is to hint at sexuality in an otherwise clean work meant for general audiences, Sonichu's sexual content hides nothing and disturbs many, despite the fact that Chris has always viewed Sonichu as a comic intended for children.  


== Chris and the industry ==
== Chris and the industry ==
{{main|Chris and the industry}}
{{main|Chris and the industry}}


In the [[Sonichu Chronicles]] and [[Chris's resume]], it's revealed that Chris is under the impression that his art isn't just good, but professional quality, and that he aspires to get into the comics and video game business. The résumé reveals his desire to work as an artist for a professional comic company such as Archie Comics or Marvel, creating his Sonichu comics. There is no word on whether or not he actually submitted anything to these companies, or if they replied. It has been demonstrated again and again that Chris has little concept of how the creative industries actually work.
In the [[Sonichu Chronicles]] and [[Chris's resume]], it's revealed that Chris is under the impression that his art is of professional quality, and expects to enter the comic and video game industries. His résumé states a desire to produce Sonichu comics under contract for Marvel Entertainment or Archie Comics. By all indications, this is an idle wish as Chris expects to be approached by these companies first. Chris has consistently shown little comprehension of, or interest in learning about, how the creative industries actually work.


==Originality==
==Originality==
He has none. Let's leave it at that.
He has none. Let's leave it at that.


==Plagiarism and tracing==
==Plagiarism==
: ''See also: [[Chris and copyright]]''
: ''See also: [[Chris and copyright]]''


'''Tracing''' is an art technique where another piece of art, or portions of it, is copied along its outlines. Among legitimate artists, it is little more than a technique for studying drawing styles of existing pieces of work, or for making variations of the artist's own work, but in the Internet, it has regrettably become a road to stardom for many budding artists; among certain people, making a copy of a drawing or parts of it and trying to pass it off as their own is considered a legitimate strategy &mdash; at least until someone finds out about it.
Sonichu is a fine blend of a wide variety of recognizable copyrighted elements. Just about any existing media that Chris has ever expressed a fondness for appears in some capacity.  


From the day Chris drew his Homemade ''Nintendo Power'' magazine, it's easy to see that Chris copies what he sees. This easily started with his drawings of Sonic, Mega Man X and the like on there, but it really spiraled out of control with the creation of Sonichu and Rosechu. It's easy to see that, whenever Chris needs an awesome pose or something for a character, he'll usually fall back on what he's seen. This usually means that he'll take a piece of artwork and change it to his own needs. For example, Rosechu's nudes in [[Sonichu 8|Episode 17]] are actually tracings of Sonic, Transformers and ''[[Family Guy]]'' porn, as seen below.
Chris has a long history of claiming all credit for fan characters initially acknowledged as being created by others and offered for use in Chris's comics. The first of these were [[Megagi]], [[Jiggliami]], and [[Layla]], but most infamous instance, and the one that Chris defended the most fervently, was [[Simonla Rosechu]].  


Even more so, Chris isn't above stealing and even altering others' work just to make it his own. Sonichu's easily a given, but it's really evident when he steals from his TRUE and HONEST [[fans]] and [[sweethearts]]. [[Megagi]], [[Jiggliami]] and [[Layla]] were taken from, respectively, [[Megan]], [[Blanca]] and [[Ivy]] after they abandoned him. The character of [[Simonla Rosechu]] was created when Chris took a character [[Evan]] created, Simonchu, and slapped breasts and a china on it. Chris frequently didn't credit original artists when posting fan art to [[deviantART]], and the [[CWCipedia]] [http://cogsdev.110mb.com/cwcipedia/index.php/Good_Fan_Art fan art page] had no credits whatsoever, apart of a brief mention of [[PandaHalo]]. Yet, in the [[Asperchu|not-so-unlikely opposite case]], if one were to steal Sonichu, there'd be hell to pay.
At the same time, Chris once had a policy of threatening nonexistent legal action against the creators of any Sonichu fan art he could find, and was worked into a magnificent rage over the Sonichu-derivative fan work [[Asperchu]].  


===But the drawings are ''still'' poor!===
===Tracing===


As Chris's art skills have shown, Chris can't really draw anything well. It is therefore highly surprising that many of his drawings are actually traces. Usually, the biggest tell-tale sign of a tracer is inconsistent drawing style, particularly between works that are demonstrably bad and "original", and high-quality drawings that are strangely reminiscent of other pieces of art. Chris fools everyone by having a very consistent art style &mdash; albeit a consistently ''bad'' style. Whether this is actually a conscious ploy is debatable, more likely is that Chris fails at tracing, a "technique" even mediocre artists can (and do) employ.
'''Tracing''' is an art technique where another piece of art, in whole or part, is copied along its outlines. As a means of producing original art claimed as one's own, tracing is a form of plagiarism.  


===Tools of the Trace===
Images traced from existing copyrighted content appear regularly in Sonichu. Chris traces with the "Reflecta Sketch," a since discontinued toy tracing kit produced by Spin Master. The kit comes with a reflective piece of plastic where an original can be placed to the left and the reflection is used for tracing an outline. This is why most traced images in Sonichu are mirror images of the original work. Due to their poor quality, consistent in appearance with Sonichu art that is not traced, these traced images often go unnoticed as tracing. The fact that Chris [[Fail|fails]] even at tracing is a surprise to no one.
 
The bad style is explained by the fact that his tracing tools are just as top-notch as his other art tools. Chris uses a toy-like sketching kit from [[Wikipedia:Spin Master|Spin Master]] called [http://www.amazon.com/Strawberry-Shortcake-Reflecta-Sketch-Set/dp/B00144QMOY Reflecta Sketch] (not quite the same color scheme, but you get the idea), which only allows him to trace on basic letter-sized copy paper, not the large sketching paper most professional artists use. The kit comes with a reflective piece of plastic where an original can be placed to the left and the reflection is used for tracing an outline, allowing Chris the ease of copying other artists' works to use in his general and [[Rule 34]] artwork. This device is why many of Chris' tracings are a mirror image of the original. By comparison, most Internet tracers seem to just use graphics apps, drawing on layers atop original image files. Some of the badness in certain images can be explained by the fact that he's just copying poses and outlines by eye, rather than using any tool for this purpose. Of course, simply tracing poorly doesn't justify [[Parody|wholesale theft.]]


===Traced images from the Sonichu Comic===
===Traced images from the Sonichu Comic===
Line 139: Line 119:
==Rule 34==
==Rule 34==
[[Image:Chris and Rule 34.jpg|thumb|right|Chris's creations believe that his [[Rule 34]] artwork is "lifelike".]]
[[Image:Chris and Rule 34.jpg|thumb|right|Chris's creations believe that his [[Rule 34]] artwork is "lifelike".]]
As Chris has no shame, neither do his pictures. Many of his drawings are outright explicit in nature and caused quite a stir with people. Of these pictures, the most damning one of all is the infamous [[ShecameforCWC.jpg]], which brought an end to the Megan Saga and cemented the notion that Chris was an incestuous [[pedofork]]. It's these artworks that provoked him to up the age on all of his Sonichus and Rosechus so they can be true, loving couples without any of those messy pedofork undertones.
It still doesn't work, as one of his recent pieces of art ended up getting him tossed out of DeviantArt. Again.


The pictures below are a group of Rule 34s Chris drew for Sonichu 8. As seen in this gallery, Chris can't even copy bad porn to save his life, with Rosechu turning into a deformed monstrosity in each panel, all for the sake of [[Chris and sex|sex]]. Especially noticeable is the final picture, which shows off a recurring trend in his pictures: the "Glowing Ethereal Cunt of All Ages", in which Chris draws the "[[cum]]" from the woman ''around'' and ''outside'' the vagina instead of from the inside, leading it to have a "glowing" effect.
As Chris has no shame, neither does his artwork. Of his many sexually explicit drawings, the most damning one of all is [[ShecameforCWC.jpg]], which brought an end to the Megan Saga and cemented the notion that Chris was an incestuous [[pedofork]].  


While all the following images are obviously (bad) Reflecta Sketch tracings of Rule 34 pictures that Chris himself loaded on to his [[Encyclopedia Dramatica|Encycapeeya Dramakka Paysh]], it's not clear whether or not all his other porn drawings are also tracings. It's likely that they are, and the source material Chris stole those from is just not as blatantly obvious.
As seen in this gallery, Chris can't even copy bad porn to save his life, with Rosechu turning into a deformed monstrosity in each panel, all for the sake of [[Chris and sex|sex]]. Especially noticeable is the final picture, which shows off a recurring trend in his pictures: the "Glowing Cunt", in which Chris draws the "[[cum]]" from the woman ''around'' and ''outside'' the vagina instead of from the inside, making it appear to glow.


It can be reasonably assumed that all of the images in this gallery are traced, and that those not paired plagiarized source material simply have yet to have their "inspirations" discovered.
=== Gallery of traced Rule 34 pictures ===
=== Gallery of traced Rule 34 pictures ===
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Revision as of 00:10, 11 May 2010

Chris's first known drawing from when he was 15.
Chris is an expert at proportion.

Art has been, and always will be, Chris's selling point. From the very day "Jason Kendrick Howell" found out about Chris and his creation of Sonichu to today, many people have taken interest in Chris because of his infamously bad artwork. Encouraging Chris to produce more of it remains a popular troll objective.

The sad part is, this is the closest Chris has to an actual "skill." It's no wonder he's never been able to keep a job.

Chris and the medium

Exercise of skills and improvement in craft

Not bad for a grade schooler. Sadly, he peaked in the 1980s.

Since Chris first started drawing, his artwork has been abysmal. The extent to which it has improved since the first time he drew Sonic the Hedgehog is accidental. Chris has never considered his artistic skill in need of improvement; he is always fully satisfied by the first attempt at a drawing he makes.

Because he believes his art is already perfect, Chris does not see the need to practice. He does no drawing exercises. He cannot look for room for improvement in his drawings because he refuses to accept the idea that his drawings can be in any way flawed.

Chris revealed in the Mailbag that he spends "an hour at most" drawing a comic page and about a half-hour coloring it. In other words, he invests only a fraction of the time most serious artists put into their work, and it shows.

Chris seems to view the act of creating as almost a chore. Because to him every idea he has is perfect from the moment it pops into his head, creating is just a matter of recording his genius. Chris enjoys expanding Sonichu stories in summary form on CWCipedia, a medium better equipped to keep up with his racing and easily distractible imagination. Chris considers everything he says or writes to be a part of his comic's continuity partly because it is easier to record these euphoric and fleeting bouts of inspiration as they occur rather than days, weeks, months or even years later in comic form.

Chris believes that everything he creates is inherently worthy of adoration, and that it will bring him legions of adoring fans and the attention of women.

Comic writing and structure

Main article: Chris and writing

Chris is as poor a writer as he is an artist. Chris does no preparatory writing or preliminary revision, his narrative is wholly improvised and shifts regularly, he cannot write clear, succinct dialogue, and often fails to arrange text in sequential order.

Choices of materials and technology

Crayola is the official art supplier for the Sonichu franchise, whether they like it or not.

Chris believes that his so-called "hand-drawing style" is superior to art produced by any other means. This is due to Chris's hatred to change what he has already learned and his belief, as a consequence of his Chris and his ego, that his method is the best by virtue of being his.

Obviously, Chris's skill cannot compensate for the poor materials he uses. He does his work a disservice by using tools that are the cheapest available: copy paper, ballpoint pens and Crayola Magic Markers. These happen to be the tools he has used since childhood.

Chris's artwork is far from archival quality, and in some instances shows signs of wrinkling as soon as it has been finished. Chris has defended his practice of rampant textwalling as a way to "save marker ink."[1]

Chris appears to have some version of Photoshop at his disposal (as seen in the "Spider-Man-fucking Clyde" saga), but uses it sparingly outside of lettering. Chris's font of choice is Comic Sans, a font that is almost universally condemned as overused and ugly.[2][3]

Chris believes that using new technology creatively provides an unfair advantage in the service of inferior results. Chris has consistently called Asperchu "blocky and low resolution" because it was drawn with a tablet. In one of phone calls to Alec Benson Leary, Chris said his hand drawn art had "more character." He also thinks that his web page was awesome because it was made from "notepad scratch," rather than with a text editor program.

Drawing techniques

Strange pen grips can be corrected with the assistance of school teachers. Chris slept through these lessons.

Chris has never even learned to hold a pen correctly. Instead of holding the front of the pen with the thumb and forefinger, he draws with his index finger sticking out and bent around the pen.

Visual style and anatomy

Nice arms you got there, Chris.

Before the comics, Chris attempted realism for work in oil pastel, charcoal and graphite, presumedly for art classes in school. The results are buried deep in the Scrapbook of Fail and meet Chris's usual standards of quality.

Chris started out with a cartoony style for the comic book, full of techniques consistent with early efforts at drawing by small children. Things changed as Chris got into anime and manga, and sought to emulate them to impress his gal-pal at the time, Megan Schroeder. Like many amateur western artists, he copies only the surface elements of the anime style: big eyes, pentagonal heads, and speed lines. These art elements are simply layered on top of his original "style" with no adjustment.

Chris shows no interest in proportion or even basic anatomy. He draws characters as colored-in outlines, with no anatomy or proportion. What's worse is that even though his characters are simple shapes, they aren't even consistent simple shapes. Limbs change shape, heads change size, and faces become unrecognizable; it's only by color scheme that we can guess which character is which. Beyond his differently-colored eyes and Sonichu medallion, no two Chrises have ever looked alike, or even remotely resembled the actual Chris.

Chris owns at least one book about drawing manga, as seen in My Half of A Whole New World for Kacey. The book in itself covers everything to do with portraying couples, including images of couples in bed making love. Whether or not Chris bought it simply to better draw out his delusional fantasies or simply for more material to gawk at during Mass debating isn't known. Either way, the book has taught him nothing.

Character design

See also Characterization

A large portion of Sonichu's cast is clearly derivative of existing characters. In addition to the obvious Sonic the Hedgehog recolors, Chris has lifted designs from whatever anime, video games, and even western animation he is fond of, with no regard for visual consistency.

Beyond that, he doesn't even bother trying to design better clothing for his characters. Most of them wear stereotypical "basic" clothing and Chris himself wears his usual clown shirts and pants. With the sole exception of Meg-chan, every female that shows up in his comics wears high-heeled dress shoes.

Even when the source of Chris's plagiarism is readily apparent, these lifts can still add up to less than the sum of their parts. Inspired by the fusion characters of Dragon Ball Z, Colossal Chan looks more like a hobo than a fusion of Chris and Chris-Chan Sonichu. Though clearly his own effort to design Baby Pokemon, Sonee and Rosey look more unnerving than adorable.

Fan Service

Fan service is a term used to describe something that is meant to tease or please the audience. Fan service could be a cameo, a shout out, or a titillating scene in any work of fiction.

Since his discovery by the Internet, Chris has inserted increasingly large amounts of fan service into the initially tame Sonichu in an effort to assert the heterosexuality of himself and his characters.

Due to his lack of artistic faculties, much of Chris's depictions of sexuality are highly unsettling to most readers. Any attempts to add "sexy" material come across as Chris's own wish-fulfillment, rather than attempts by Chris to please his audience.

While the point of fan service is to hint at sexuality in an otherwise clean work meant for general audiences, Sonichu's sexual content hides nothing and disturbs many, despite the fact that Chris has always viewed Sonichu as a comic intended for children.

Chris and the industry

Main article: Chris and the industry

In the Sonichu Chronicles and Chris's resume, it's revealed that Chris is under the impression that his art is of professional quality, and expects to enter the comic and video game industries. His résumé states a desire to produce Sonichu comics under contract for Marvel Entertainment or Archie Comics. By all indications, this is an idle wish as Chris expects to be approached by these companies first. Chris has consistently shown little comprehension of, or interest in learning about, how the creative industries actually work.

Originality

He has none. Let's leave it at that.

Plagiarism

See also: Chris and copyright

Sonichu is a fine blend of a wide variety of recognizable copyrighted elements. Just about any existing media that Chris has ever expressed a fondness for appears in some capacity.

Chris has a long history of claiming all credit for fan characters initially acknowledged as being created by others and offered for use in Chris's comics. The first of these were Megagi, Jiggliami, and Layla, but most infamous instance, and the one that Chris defended the most fervently, was Simonla Rosechu.

At the same time, Chris once had a policy of threatening nonexistent legal action against the creators of any Sonichu fan art he could find, and was worked into a magnificent rage over the Sonichu-derivative fan work Asperchu.

Tracing

Tracing is an art technique where another piece of art, in whole or part, is copied along its outlines. As a means of producing original art claimed as one's own, tracing is a form of plagiarism.

Images traced from existing copyrighted content appear regularly in Sonichu. Chris traces with the "Reflecta Sketch," a since discontinued toy tracing kit produced by Spin Master. The kit comes with a reflective piece of plastic where an original can be placed to the left and the reflection is used for tracing an outline. This is why most traced images in Sonichu are mirror images of the original work. Due to their poor quality, consistent in appearance with Sonichu art that is not traced, these traced images often go unnoticed as tracing. The fact that Chris fails even at tracing is a surprise to no one.

Traced images from the Sonichu Comic

  • Trace1.jpg
  • Trace2.jpg
  • Trace3.jpg
  • Trace4.jpg
  • Trace5.jpg
  • Trace6.jpg
  • Aquateenvssonichu.jpg
  • SAV-Swindle.jpg
  • RClina.jpg
  • PunislavBarrier.jpg
  • Bumble-Lumba-Bumblebee.jpg
  • Prowl prower.jpg
  • SOUNDAXE.JPG
  • CrackderISthundercracker.jpg
  • Familyguytrace.png
  • Cwct1.JPG

Rule 34

Chris's creations believe that his Rule 34 artwork is "lifelike".

As Chris has no shame, neither does his artwork. Of his many sexually explicit drawings, the most damning one of all is ShecameforCWC.jpg, which brought an end to the Megan Saga and cemented the notion that Chris was an incestuous pedofork.

As seen in this gallery, Chris can't even copy bad porn to save his life, with Rosechu turning into a deformed monstrosity in each panel, all for the sake of sex. Especially noticeable is the final picture, which shows off a recurring trend in his pictures: the "Glowing Cunt", in which Chris draws the "cum" from the woman around and outside the vagina instead of from the inside, making it appear to glow.

It can be reasonably assumed that all of the images in this gallery are traced, and that those not paired plagiarized source material simply have yet to have their "inspirations" discovered.

Gallery of traced Rule 34 pictures

Incredibly horrific and NSFW, this is your last chance to escape with your sanity
  • Chris-chan Traced.JPG
  • Chris-chan Traced 2.JPG
  • Chrischantraced3.jpg
  • Chris-chan Traced 4.JPG
  • Chris-chan Traced 5.JPG

Gallery of Art

TL;DR

Chris is an anti-artist.

Sauces

  1. ↑ Mailbag 19
  2. ↑ Ban the Comic Sans
  3. ↑ They will make you taste the curb
Chris and...

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