I wholeheartedly believe that badly made edgy OCs are an important developmental step for artistic/ nerdy tweens and teens. My favorite edgy OC of mine was a Pirates of the Caribbean self insert
Definitely! We've _all_ made edgy OC's and/or glittery rainbow Mary Sues 💀 my first OC's were both for Tokyo Mew Mew, one was a fox girl and the other was a leopard girl. Both of them were cringe. But you know what? It was innocent and fun! I feel like kids (and people in general) have forgotten that wisdom and skill comes from _experience,_ so you're kinda supposed to embarrass yourself at first.
Yeah I agree, I used to have dozens of Mary sue MLP OCs but now I'm here, designing and writing my OCs lore. It was a huge step for me in becoming an artist.
@@errortryagainlater4240 my first OC was also an edgy tokyo mew mew fox girl!!! 😁 I kind of brought her back with my current webcomic about a super edgy OC. It's about a half demon, half angel, and half magical cat girl whos really bad at maths 😅
I really think that bases do make people lazy. It takes a long time to be able to understand human proportion. I agree that if you're tracing it, all of a sudden you are understanding the intricacies of anatomy in a way that you might not have before. For example, right now, I'm trying to draw the generic, Caucasian white skull and although I think I understand it, putting the image next to my drawing showed that I changed up a lot of the proportions. However, if you're doing it a lot, especially using screenshots from shows and using bases that don't understand anatomy themselves, are you really learning? Tracing is not the same as using reference, and you can use screenshots as references. You just need to come to the place where you understand the human body. Sure, there are probably professions for tracing, but a lot of artists want to make stylised, original works without understanding anatomy. I get that kids don't know a lot but I really dislike bases.
It makes me so sad that I missed the “make ‘cringey’ OCs because it’s fun” phase of my childhood. I watched these videos about making art perfect and do this not that, and I skipped over the actual fun part of learning art. There’s so much pressure that makes kids think their character is “bad” that they lose passion for it, or end up being self conscious for the rest of their art career. I’m still trying to unlearn that.
Me too, I have a baby sister and I'll shield her from these types of videos where it stresses kids out to make sure your OC is not a "Mary Sue". She'll have all the fun making characters and she'll make it as rainbow and eye bleeding as she wants and I will love her :(
Same. Though I had fun in the beginning, presence on DA and concept art site had me learn «never draw fanart» and it really damaged me. im in my 30’s now and lowkey hate drawing, however i dont have that block in 3D modeling so i am pivoting. trying to learn to not care about others opinions. yes to mary sue self inserts!
@That guy I agree. Kids have the innocence and confidence to make bad art and cringey OCs because they don’t care about standards, and they just want to be creative and happy. Once you start being self critical, it’s so hard to go back and I just hope it gets a little better, yknow
@That guy I wish I could relate. I still like cringy stuff so I create that sometimes and don’t care and get too anxious to do stuff of quality.😶 I mean, look at my pfp.
You have no idea how loud I "WHAT?!"'d when I saw my shading tutorial (which I've hated for years now, it still regularly gets likes and I cringe thinking of new generations using that thing as a tutorial lol) show up cited as oldest on the site. I had a website where I provided pixel drawn bases back in the day, so yeah, we did call them pixel bases, and by the time I posted that it had been at least a couple months of me diving deep into the pixel doll community. And even back then, many of the bases (including some made by myself) were done by tracing anime images, official art and so on.
And this comment right here is a perfect example of why the "base users will never be real artists" statement is bullshit, your animations are AMAZING and I watch them all the time, your music videos for nsp are jaw droppingly well-done and your living proof that anyone no matter where they start from can become an amazing artist :)
Hell yeah, I even made my own KISS doll from a base (that I credited) 😄 And I loved having my bestie over, pulling up bases, and then editing them together until they looked like us!
I was that five year old who held my paper up to the television screen and traced off what I now realize were bases from Bambi. Its how I learned about things like line weighting, spacing and perspective, and now I'm a professional artist!
Good for you!! I don't recall tracing stuff a lot as a kid but I would constantly look at pictures for reference (and still do that sometimes). Any way you can learn is a valid way of learning 💖
I used to carry a bunch of tracing paper around with me in middle school and early high school and whenever one of my more experienced art friends would show me a new picture they drew, they'd lend it to me at lunch and let me trace it. I used to make weird collages of parts that I really liked, such as the facial expressions, poses, or clothing details. I eventually did start drawing my own art and slowly abandoned the tracing paper altogether, but I truly believe that helped kick off my own style that morphed into a hybrid of all my friends' art to make something new. There's genuinely some merit to copying things, especially as a young or developing artist.
thats super awesome! collage is totally underutilized, if you ever feel like it, i think you’d probably have fun with playing with collage considering your history! i’m personally FOR tracing in cases for personal use, as it can help people, especially beginners, figure so many things out. glad to see it helped you out! even experienced artists still trace sometimes
As someone who is studying costume design In college, bases are incredibly helpful. Whilst they are mostly unrealistic they’re so much more fun to use for my costume designs than normal costume design bases that are just stiff women standing with their hands on their hips.
That is a great use for them ^^. I've been using a base that's more accurate to my body type to get a better idea on how a costume will look when sketching.
As a seamstress, I 2nd this! Can't draw people to save my soul but bases really help when wanting to but a design on paper. Yeah, it's not normally realistic but I've seen fashion designer from all different time periods. Even ones people hand draw themselves never looks like real people.
Fr!! Bases are also really fun because there's more dynamic posing in them (usually) so it's easier to think of "how will this color look from this lighting angle" or "how does this material fold over" etc etc (I'm not a college student or professional, though. I just love fashion and drawing lol)
It really helps with fashion design in general. It also helps me focus on specific aspects of my art, like how certain fabrics fall, without always having to draw my own base to practice on.
This channel never fails to tap into a part of the internet that traumatized me but also brings back an odd sense of comfort due to nostalgia (Edit: spelling)
I remember discovering bases when I was young, and loving them. I had a lot of trouble drawing bodies, so they were awesome for me! When I discovered the “you’re a fake artist if you use bases” I was devastated. I even quit drawing because of the fear of “not being a true artist”. Thankfully I was able to get back into it, and I’m going to be an art teacher now, but man…some of those base barking people really crushed my dreams
my brother was super strict about drawing, and when i used bases or tutorials or looked up ref, he would say i was a poser. And I stopped. That rlly stunted my growth as an artist, and he has apologized and now is growing his style too, but the important part is YOU CAN USE BASES AND TUTORIALS AND TRACING TO HELP YOUR ART GET BETTER. As long as if you trace, dont take the art as your own, you can always use it for practice.
Yeah, there's always going to be people saying 'this art style isn't real art' because they don't like how they look lol, art snobs are everywhere. :'D What I think that they don't understand is that everyone takes their ideas and drawing styles from someone else and makes it their own.
@@Diamond1234 "What I think that they don't understand is that everyone takes their ideas and drawing styles from someone else and makes it their own." Not according to Plexplero, a guy who accused a young girl of stealing from vivziepop.
Pro tip: use the pencil tool instead of the paintbrush in paint to avoid the gross outline gap when filling. You can change the thickness of the pencil, too.
and you can replace a color with another by eraser tool. set the color you want to color over as color 1, the color you want to use as color 2 which is what the eraser uses, and hold right click when using eraser tool
It still does. The bases section is still clogged with “adoptable bases” and it’s infuriating, especially since the pixel dolling community has become so small and obscure.
Absolutely, it was a huge pain for me- I’m a roleplayer, so finding bases for creatures I couldn’t draw like cats was very helpful, but I kind of just cringed whenever I saw the pixel doll bases. I usually just found someone on DeviantArt who commonly made bases and stuck to them instead of constantly going through other bases. So it was pretty much: Go to a base-makers page, see if they had a base I could use, and if not, go to another base-maker, and so on and so forth
I remember transferring from bases to pixel dolling because I liked the smaller scale that they tended to use. I remember the only reliable way to find one account and dig through their favorites/watchlist until you managed to find something good (or find one creator and cling to their content for dear life lol)
I remember this too. I liked doing pixel art and I followed so many doll artists, but after these bases became popular, it became VERY DIFFICULT to find them.
When I was younger, I had a friend who could draw really well and I wanted desperately to learn how to draw like her! She'd actually make little "bases" for me in my sketchbook and I'd modify the character body types, color and shade them, and turn it into a full piece. Weirdly enough, I actually learned a lot about art from doing this. I'd have to look at anatomy to understand how to change the bases without warping them, I'd have to learn about lighting and weight and perspective to bring a scene together, and it was a lot of fun. I did a little bit of digital art back when I was a little kid playing in MSPaint to make designs for my neopets, and discovered bases and frankendolling through there, but I never really stuck with it because it was not very fun to do with an old, shitty mouse lol. Still, though, I get so many flashbacks looking at these old pixel doll games and what they evolved into. Bit of fun history I sometimes thought about, but never really knew much on.
That's so sweet! I did that for my friends too bc I was always "the art friend" 💀 It was super fun to all make our characters together. It actually helped me out because I'd use the bases as a way to experiment with poses.
i think a big part of why people hated bases back then was also this feeling of "unfairness". I remember when i started drawing fanart back then and posting it on deviant art i would only get a few views. it felt so frustrating to see poorly drawn over bases get more attention than my original artwork, even though i had poured in hours of work into it. 13 y/o me back then believed that base art was a lazy and quick way to steal the spotlight while the REAL artists of my fandom (me) were left to rot. oh tween entitlement, how i miss those simpler days :")
I always hated the controversy around using these bases, they're literally made to be drawn over. You don't hate someone for creating a custom character in a game instead of using the default.
I think the controversy is because tracing and bases alike make an end product (art) in a way that side-steps many of the skills that are used in character drawing. (posing, proportions, and how style factors into it are done for you by the base) That and art theft being super common with the thing, but things are certainly getting better. It's less like using a custom character, but more like taking another person's custom character, or their race settings, then adjusting it into something else. It can be done well and credit to the original can be made, so it's not inherently bad. It's just got a history of abuse.
Pixel doll bases are okay of course, but as someone whose art was stolen for a deviantart base, I can tell you it's really not nice. I felt awful when it happened to me because they never asked for permission, much less credit me. You can't blame me for disliking them.
Thank you for covering this topic, Izzy!! This really brought back a lot of nostalgia for me. Especially the lick icon and anime bases, god those were such cultural keystones back then lol
It's so weird how many people had the misconception that base users were planning to become artists. Most I encountered (and me myself) were just people with vision but not enough artistic skills to make something from scratch, who just wanted to visualize their idea. The question is "how many base users want to improve to professional artists in the first place?" Edit just to make it clear: I was referring to all those ranting youtubers who say "you'll never become a real artist if you keep using bases". Cause, some people who use bases just do harmless fun and don't indent on becoming artists. There are also of course those who don't have in mind to become artists and move on from bases. God, nowadays I use a base for proportions and then erase it piece by piece once it start drawing the clothes and edit the body type. Outside the pose nothing stays
I've tried, on and off, to get into art for at least two decades now. It's not gonna happen. I love bases since they allow me to get character ideas and color pallettes fleshed out. I've got friends who ARE good at art, though, and when they're out of stuff they wanna do sometimes they will sketch out my ideas and I'll go through and do digital inking(?), coloring, and starting to learn shading. I don't consider myself an artist and never will, but I do still have artistic ideas and do want to get them out there.
A lot of the folks I met in the pixel doll community did go on to become professional artists. But that was on the 'making from scratch' side of the community, not the 'I want to make art of my OCs' side.
I used bases for the exact same reason! But then it sparked a passion in me for art. If I had never used bases at my time and made things, I don’t think I’d ever think of doing art in the future.
Personally I used bases just to waste time with drawing really :/ tho when I got older I got seriously interested in art and learned until I was able to drawfrom scratch. I'm still learning and I kinda cringe at my base art but it was fun and that's what mattered to me back then. Fun.
As someone who had to overcome debilitating nerve damage and paralysis, bases were *incredibly* helpful to not only re-teach myself how to draw my favorite characters but to rebuild the muscles. My PFP is one of my favorite recent pieces of a character I adopted because of this community. I had a blast because of bases helping me get through when I could barely just draw hair and a cute shirt. It helped me simplify my OCs and even design new ones. Now I draw them in my style again!
This comment and it's first reply is so wholesome and amazing. So happy you guys were able to continue doing what you love!! Your PFP is gorgeous!!!! Love the glow effect. (I can never draw 'glowing' right so I tend to gush over people who can do it ahaha)
I'm the OP of that thread you found, and I had totally forgotten bases even existed. This makes me feel a combination of emotions that includes: pride (at my old post being found), shame (at how cringe it is), nostalgia (for my early 20's), shame again (for my early 20's), old (because this is now internet history), and other (other). ETA: the main reason I posted the thread was because I was looking for things to complain about, because it was literally the Complaints Forum where all the discussion was driven by complaining. I never had strong feelings about bases, I just thought I was being real funny!
I think a lot of people forget that you don't HAVE to always strive to improve your art. Sure, a lot of artist want to be better and want to make a career out of their work. But we have to remember that some people literally just draw for FUN. If they don't like drawing hands, they don't have to learn to draw hands. If they can't draw realistic anatomy, they don't HAVE to stress over learning proportions. If they only know how to draw one pose or one face, they can draw that one pose and face as many times as they want. Every artist's expression is different and we shouldn't have to put down other artists to feel "good".
THIS!! something that i ignored for so long was drawing for fun and not to impress someone else (teachers- i was an art student-, friends, people on the internet, etc.). forgetting to draw for yourself really really ruins motivation
Yeah! I really have to drive into my head sometimes that I'm not somehow "wasting my free time" when I'm sketching "easy" things in my pencil sketchbook, just because I'm not pushing my skills to be better or making things that are internet post-worthy. Sometimes I just want to draw to relax or make myself laugh, and that's ok.
i used to wanna pursue art as a career and that pushed me to improve, but after realising i wont like it im content with my silly little pen and highlighter doodles of eyes and cyclops girls :]
This is such a good point! I want to improve, because it adds to the fun for me personally but I need to take more time to just have fun and experiment. Thank you for the reminder💕
In fashion design there is a tool called a "croquis" (crow-key) that is essentially a base of a human or an exaggerated fashion pose. I have a huge notebook full of these that I made from my University classes and they are helpful when you need to quickly get a design onto paper. We started with tracing humans but by the end of class had to start making our own poses.
honestly i go through so many sketches when working on projects it got too time consuming to do my own croquis, so i just bought some pre-printed croquis sketchbooks. they're printed in blue ink so they don't show up when you scan them. and yet, my teacher still said that was "cheating" like...i can draw my own, but why draw 50 of the same pose over and over for thumbnails i'm likely gonna toss out?
@@kerricaine my prof would let us use notebooks like that for quick ideas or during planning but we couldn't turn in a sketch that used one. I've started buying a small sketch book and filling it with my own while listening to podcasts. Then just carry that around in my bag.
I miss coming home from school and browsing deviant art for hours. I would often find a wonderful new artist and look through their entire gallery in one night. Something I never understood was Adoptables, that would be so cool to have a video on! I thought some of the artists making them were incredibly talented and it made sense to me someone would want an original character with an intricate design to show on there page, but there must be more to it than that! I also didn't get into bases but spend a lot of time with other artists posted sketch pages of hand, pose, and facial practices.
Seen it on Gaia too. People with no life roleplaying and doing these imaginary craps. While I was leveling up playing games making progress these would sit all day in one spot and write dumb RP comments and posts spamming the damn pages and chat I had to block so many people it's not even countable. So yeah adoptables was one of their things.
@@Curoiuskoala Many artists will create unique character designs and then either sell or raffle them off to other people. These designs are known as adoptables (or adopts). An earlier reply states why people usually buy adopts.
I feel particularly old watching this. I was a part of the dolling community too, but before Deviantart really took hold. Back when the pixel dolling community was webrings on angelfire and geocities. You could 100% still get bases, but they were originals offered up by popular pixel art designers to use for your own creations, to link back to their page, and it worked as branding. Making a doll using a particular base was like a badge of coolness in a way? The pixel art dolls were actually very small pixels though (especially with the tiny screen resolutions we all had). While I saw the rise of the anime-style traced bases, that was well after my time in the dolling community. This video was a fascinating look into it.
This was my journey in the pixel doll community as well. Making my geocities galleries was how I originally learned programming. It was only HTML and CSS at the time, but that base knowledge has helped me throughout my life. I miss the old communities, it was such a wholesome introduction to the internet for me.
I’ve hoped that someone would do a video on the 2000s era ‘dollz’ to be honest! I remember Xandorra and Angie-Chan in particular being huge dollz creators and base makers. I think it would be difficult though with the majority of creators and websites now offline. I remember making websites on Matmice, angelfire and geocities hahaha!
Oh gosh yes, good times. I remember everyone having websites and pixel forums in the 2000's. Eden Enchanted was my first doll forum and I adored creators like Angychan. I miss the pixel doll community's. There arent much around anymore but there are still a few forums up, although dieing slowly.
@@plague_doctor0237 I miss DollPalace! That’s what got me into dolling. The dolling community is still clinging to life. I really wish it could be revitalized.
So glad someone's actually defending bases!! I'm now 18, and able to draw well without bases, but I still like to use them every now and then, just for fun, or to get something done quicker! Without the bases available nowadays, I would never have become an artist! I used nothing but mlp bases for... Around 3 years maybe, like from ages 8-11. The bases allowed me to create my own characters, my own universes without needing me to be super skilled! It was amazing, so much fun and genuinely helped me out a ton!
Sameee, I used bases and the such to show off my OCs. On instagram it was known as the editing community and people would use anime screencaps and bases alike to show off characters, but we all knew each other were editing and we were having fun.
"you're not going to learn anything by using bases" stuff like this is why I don't agree about cheating existing in art because art doesn't have to be about learning. Sometimes you just wanna create
it really is like they think you just need to Will your skill into existence. When I do metal work its with materials and equipment that someone else made, I lean how to tie new knots by untying them. you can learn a lot by tracing and red lining, just don't say it was all you.
And drawing has always been about how to make it more effective. Erasers, guidelines etc are all shortcuts and thats okay, we dont need to do everything from scratch
It helped me learn how to draw proportions properly and how to get a feel for how the character was “built”. Then once I traced a few times, I could draw it by hand.
As an artist my biggest struggle is getting rid of the harmful concepts that DA and old tumblr gave me as I was just getting on the internet. I still feel like im cheating by using a reference in some way. The attitude towards beginner artists was definitely negative and impacts people for years. Despite drawing for years, its never gone away. Designing characters on base is honestly so fun and calming
I eventually stopped drawing because of this and even though I still draw from time to time, I hardly post my art anywhere. I remember being 14 and just really getting to art, and freehanding a picture of Absol that looked very similar pose wise to the reference of Absol I was using, and I posted it to my Instagram with virtually no following outside of my friends and parents, and some Deviant Art snob found it and accused me of being talentless, and an art thief, and of tracing all my work.
@@Pokemanic33 It was the same with the simplistic looking chibi pastel goth girl too! I'd always find her no matter that kind of Perler Bead designs I was looking for.
I wish a video like this existed when I was little, I feel the entire “don’t use bases, references, or trace anything ever as this is cheating and makes you a worse artist” really stunned my art development as now in art school I am encouraged to do this (especially the reference one) and I have improved more now then I ever had before.
It's so funny how there was this whole culture of "you can't reference anything even a little bit" but then in art school some of the first classes you take usually involve life drawing, aka copying whatever is in front of you.
Oh wow. As a current art student who grew up that time period this makes total sense. It blew my mind when my professors encouraged us to trace certain parts of our drawings to make whatever we were drawing more accurate or speed up the drawing. Apparently even some famous painters used to do it. Though I do understand the the issues of tracing someone's unique piece of art and not giving credit (that's plagarism!), there are definitely some acceptable cases.
Digital fundamentals class was basically lessons like "hey let's learn about how to do digital linework by tracing over a photo in Illustrator". And the constantly talking about remix culture and how everything is a copy of a copy but with a twist.
god i hate those type of people. i feel like they're either hypocrites or they probably draw shitty anatomy and have inconsistent artstyle (if they have any that is)
I remember the "references are cheating" discourse and dear lord that was awful. Like, had those people never heard of life drawing or models or anything like that? I mean, I know (or at least, I hope) that the people engaging in that discourse were children, but it's still a weird sentiment to hear from someone who claims to take art very seriously.
i'm a musician, not an artist. but this feels a lot like the arguments i've heard about if autotune or using backtracks in live performance is "Cheating". at the end of the day art isn't a sport, you can't cheat at expressing yourself. Great video!
That's different though because you're still writing the song, that's more like using photoshop tools to put filters on your art that make it look better than you would be able to draw, which I do hear some traditional artists call cheating and that is a bullshit claim, but the reason that's more similar to what you said is because the artist still fundamentally creates the artwork, they just use shortcuts and available tools to make sure it comes out exactly how they want. Bases are more like writing your own original lyrics to an existing song, anyone can do it, the quality ranges from terrible to excellent depending on your musical and writing ability, and even though you've put an original spin on it and contributed your own creativity no one in their right mind would call it an original song, they'd call them original lyrics. So a drawing made with a base isn't an original artwork, but it is an original character (in most cases, if it's fanart I'd guess that's more of a mashup than something original, but still that takes skill to do well)
@@butasimpleidiotwizard the amount of music that is the same chords with different lyrics or a different rhythmic/melodic structure is insanely high. There are lawsuits about it that set a very dangerous precedent for musicians and music as a whole. Granted, it isn't the exact same as art and I'm not going to claim to understand the intricacies of this issue after watching one video about it but as far as music is concerned people reuse melodies, chord progressions, rhythmic structures, etc. all the time and most of the time no one cares as long as the song feels different. It does lend a bit more lenience because there can be a chord progression in two songs that is exactly the same and most people aren't going to notice because the song has so much more going on and what pops out is largely based on who's listening to it and what they've listened to in the past. In art it does seem like if there is a pose, you can make it different but the general idea is always going to be there if the person seeing it knows where it's from. Either way, thank u for ur thoughts they got me to consider another side to this discussion that i may not have otherwise thought about.
@@tue-tired to put it bluntly, visual art does not work like that, and there's a very clear difference between posing characters a certain way and using somebody else's lineart as the basis of your drawing. Chords are building blocks, just like colours or line weight or things like that, that's why when artists use a base but trace over it with their own style of lineart and add so much extra detail and variation to the base like in the good examples in the video it becomes different, because at that point the base provided less to the piece than the artist did, but when it's just some 13 year old drawing bad anime hair in overly saturated colours over the top of it in mspaint that's just editing and messing around, it's not art but it doesn't need to be because the point of doing it is not to create art, it's to have fun.
Drawing with a base is like covering a song. Someone made a thing and you did something with it. The cover wouldn't exist without the original, but it's still its own song in its own right. Sometimes people sing other people's songs because they can't write their own and just want to sing something, regardless of their own skill, and sometimes people sing other people's songs because they're accomplished and talented musicians that wanna play with them and make them something their own. In short i think you're entirely correct.
There's actually another way bases can be helpful: Practicing drawing wireframes for certain poses. Basically, find a pose you like and want to get better at drawing. Import it into your art program of choice, bring down it's layer's opacity, and sketch your wireframe in a separate layer above it. It'll give you a good idea of how the specific pose's wireframe should look.
not just that! You can also try figuring out the basic shapes and depth required to create convincing poses within the base (by drawing guidelines) and whatnot, training your eye so that it's easier to visualize it on your own next time!
This healed my inner child. I loved bases because they let me experiment with character ideas in a fun, easy way. I used to pride myself on my work looking more like "tooled dolls", or pixel dolls with more complex shading and designs, but I was still using the same bases as other people. I remember feeling so distraught when people came at me with base hate that it really weakened my feelings towards my work. I'm older now, and can recognize that, despite popular belief, bases did help me grow. I wouldn't have trusted myself to make these complex designs and interesting concepts if I didn't have the base to start with. I'm still a digital artist and, though I'll use a base occasionally for MLP work (damn you, weird... pony... bean bodies), I'm relatively on my own. All the controversy has given me a weird complex about using references. I wish it hadn't. That being said-- thank you for this video!! It felt like a kind of closure to my old art. :)
Speaking as a DeviantArt kid who still uses bases, exactly this. Often times they’re really helpful for character design and other aspects of just learning how to use digital medium in a stress-free environment. Sure, it’s not high art most of the time, but I’ve seen some pretty amazing things out there. It’s a lot more common in the furry community to have folks accept that, since that fandom is based around (hah) creative expression from all ages and skill levels.
10:58 you literally unlocked memories for me oml. As a kid I used to love bases and I think they're harmless fun. I used them to make some of my very first character designs and digital art on DA and now 8 years later I'm going to art school! It's really funny to see people trashing bases as if they are a stain on deviantart when they are FAR more innocent than many other things on the site...
Oh yeah, thee are plenty of less innocent things in DA and I need bleach for my eyes. But bases? Yeah, those hardly do any harm, unless you don’t credit or something.
Same!! I used to use mlp bases and draw over in paint ahaha, i was so proud of my edgy Mary sue ocs. And now im going to art school and creating my own original art. I even think creating bases sounds pretty fun
Same here, I started off using bases as a kid. Now I'm in art school, graduating in the spring. It's funny how many people in this age bracket got our starts with DeviantArt bases and tracing anime.
Hell, I started off _making_ bases when I was like 10 💀 they probably weren't very good but it got me interested in figure drawing and learning anatomy.
14:48 I love how this person is so mad. When most of the base making and using was done by tweens and teens. I can confirm how this progressed. In grade school(2002-2007) I played with pixel dolls and dress ups(and editing them in paint if there were no suitable assets for what I wanted). In late grade school to middle school I used anime bases to make my first OCs. In high school I did all of the above and made bases for deviantart. And now, as an adult, I am making orginal art and fanart on Tumblr and Pixiv. How time flies. Also, Winx OCs are still really popular. I can't log into deviantart without seeing them. I remember my older cousins being shocked at how I used old Microsoft Paint to edit pixel dolls. I thought it was the normal use of paint because thats what my sister and I always did. But, looking back on it, we were pretty advanced 8 and 10 year olds when it came to digital art(at least for the early 2000s). I really wish I could find my old pixel art files. I remember having some adorable characters that I would love to redraw in my own style.
Bases is one of those topics from my childhood that I remember being such a big deal to me. I remember watching a bunch of deviantart rants and taking notes on “Dos and Do not on becoming a successful artist” and I legitimately thought that if I ever used a base I would be shunned by the art community. As I gotten older, I’ve come to realized that bases aren’t that big of deal and they’re something for fun! I’ve even used bases as pose references for when im drawing cause they’re really helpful for stuff like that!
Same! But honestly..My time on Deviant art honestly led to me giving up art entirely. I was GOOD! But the amount of drama, hate, homophobia, predators, stalkers, harassers, and creeps on da 100% made my mental health struggles worse. 🙄 I used to draw to help with my depression, now I'm too depressed and self critical to draw!
oh my god YES! i use bases for poses til this day n yes i trace them what abt it🙄 deviantart was awful if u were a beginner in art. and what’s crazy is my art improved the moment i stopped listening to the little voice in my head reminding me the don’ts list i read on there when i was 12
@@AngelCaz7 seriously, same! The second I decided not to listen to advice like that is when art became less stressful for me. Idk why people on DA had such toxic mindsets when it came to young artists/hobbyists, especially the one person in the vid who was like “I hate, hate, hate, HATE, bases!” Like chill tf out and let people draw their MLP and BNHA OC’s using bases 😆
my 9yo baby sis has been drawing digitally for a couple months now but shes recently discovered bases (mostly pokemon and, unfortunately, gachalife 😔) and has been having a blast creating her edgy little demon wolf ocs 😭🙏💞 i remember playing with bases myself when i was just starting my foray into art and i wholeheartedly agree with u, bases are harmless, esp nowadays, and are a good stepping stone for the youngins :)
@@maiyo2916 the gacha community is like every single community. Toxic members scaring people away from the majority of the community who are good members.
@@c4tzrul3 i dont have any issues with gacha life on the surface and i dont think theres anything wrong with liking it, there's just some notoriously questionable content that comes outta there 0_0 tho, tbf, that can be said for a lot of fandoms 😔
I started doing original art after using bases because it taught me how to use art programs without stressing over the actual drawing part of it. I still use bases sometimes because I like the particular pose and/or style, but I do original art, too. Bases allowed me to be more involved in the community I wanted to, even with a lower skill set. As long as credit is given and you respect the original artist, I see no problem with them.
I remember being misled to think that using references and tracing was 'bad art' until I was in college and looking into Rene Descartes' work, where he'd sketch ballet dancers and trace his work repeatedly. It is a valid form of learning how to draw the things you intend more naturally. I don't see why tracing over and working around these bases wouldn't be similar.
Tracing is used in animation. Not actual art. Depends of the subject but in general you learn to draw from source replicate it best you could not trace it since tracing is not developing any skills whatsoever. Next to tracing you still need to know how to finish properly that piece. Again depends what is the theme and subject but often tracing is plagiatirism too especially if you make money on it it's illegal. So I would be careful about that.
@@minmogrovingstrongandhealthy you're just completely wrong lol, I'm currently in art school doing animation and my teachers have consistently explained that tracing is a tool outside of animation, it's a part of art, whether you like it or not.
@@justine4581 Depends of the artform really, and if you really go to animation school tell your teachers they are lost idiots and creating ones too. If you are from US then I am not surprised at all. With that said I am done on this pointless subject.
@@minmogrovingstrongandhealthy tracing is really useful actually. It helps build muscle memory and helps you deconstruct what your working on and gets you thinking about all the pieces. Like if you where to trace an arm it can help you get a grasp on where the bends are and how it looks. It’s a big recommendation when your starting anatomy to trace some pictures first to get the feel for all the lines, then start drawing them yourself.
@@fandomtrash7505 Tell that to a person the other day who got kicked out of his jobs for tracing art XD We lost a 'reputable' person for this and he will never work in art again... It ALL depends what you do... In lots of things tracing is illegal and will result you lose your job and even end up in jail ... People parade this tracing like it's a good thing. Practice and refine your skills, build your style. Tracing is very specific and what is it used for.
I didn’t really know English as a child, so I would spend hours trying to find mlp bases. I remember when I finally found out that they were called bases, I actually spend the time revising that word so I wouldn’t forget. I loved watching people use bases and create beautiful pieces of art, and I also loved doing it myself. Now I want to go find my old laptop and see my old mlp art aaah
Of all the obscure things on DeviantArt I somehow remember AMA, or ask me anything, blogs most vividly. I know they were mostly popular on Tumblr but there were quite a few ones on DeviantArt, which was the reason 12 year old me made an account and then abandoned it a few minutes later when they couldn’t figure out how to submit an ask. It would be a really interesting topic to hear you cover!
Haha I used to run a super cringe ama called "ask Jeff the Killer" that was actually fairly popular back in the day. Haven't thought about it in years 😅
This will probably get lost in the comments but I've been binging your videos while I'm in the middle of a career/identity crisis right now, and the way you cover weird artsy internet culture from my early teens with such academic thoroughness is oddly comforting and reminding me it's okay to be who I am. Thanks, keep doing what you do.
i remember in my country you could literally buy sketchbooks filled with bases made by actual companies (TopModel, Lillalou) . i used to love drawing on them.
Yes, I used to love top model! I was never one for colouring books so the design element really appealed to me. I doubt i still have any, certainly not in my room, but I actually bought a set of their colouring pencils and I'm still surprised by how good they are, ngl. Anyway, TopModel was Top tier
i used to be one of those people who cried about bases being "cheating" as a kid, but now i basically always use them for reference sheets and adopts because they're really convenient. surprisingly, my art hasn't "become bad" like all those people said it would
I've noticed that today bases are most common in the furry community due to the need for fursuit makers to have a ref sheet and not everyone having the skill to make cohesive refrence sheets so you'll find a lot of fursuit ref bases and people taking commissions to make fursuit friendly bases
man, this takes me back... i used to collect bases back in like 2010, categorized into folders like "ponies" "wings" etc, i had to have had up to 2 gb of them saved
I only learned to draw ponies, back in my heavily brony fandom phase, from bases. At some point I went from tracing art to using bases to referencing bases, to not needing a reference at all. In the present I can still draw ponies from memory because I learned it through the slow process from literal tracing to actively doing it myself. So. Yeah. Bases good.
I learned that way as well, i went from heavy referencing for poorly shaded art to actually being decent. wouldn't recommend my method though; didn't use tutorials and brute-forced talent with drawing every day for 1.5 years now
I'm so happy Izzzyzzz's channel exists, because she encapsulates so many things from my childhood on the internet I never thought would get talked about - and I was on there during a time all the adults were reminiscing about 80s/90s kids things, so it's weirdly so comforting to have someone talk about all the things that are nostalgic for people like *me*.
Ahh same!! I remember seeing everyone talk about the 90s stuff I wasn't alive for, and wondering when it would be my time to reminisce. Seeing it finally happen makes me feel like a part of internet history lol
It's the same with the next generation. Someone born in 2011 didn't know what they were same way you didn't know 80's things. In 2027 or smth they will feel old internet nostalgia too. It's a never ending cycle.
God, this brings back memories. I was active-ish on deviantart around that time. i remember drama around people tracing art for bases, and then not crediting the art, or even passing it off as completely their own. This ironically fed into the whole 'if you trace you're not legit' cycle.
Really happy to see someone defending bases. I think it’s a great learning tool that helps novice artist start out before they learn how to create their own drawings. In general as long as there’s no stealing involved, I’m all for young artists drawing what makes them happy and developing their art overtime.
i was OBSESSED with kiss dolls. i'm about 5 years too old to have gotten into bases, but i definitely used kiss dolls in a similar way, more as reference than tracing over. i'm so nostalgic for kiss dolls still lol. wonder what kimiki's up to these days.
I think it rlly helps that you were involved in a lot of the topics you make videos on, so your videos aren't just making fun of dumb things kids did back in 2010, but instead reliving nostalgia sometimes along with the rest of us, which is way more fun imo :))
“Casual artists exist”! Yes! I remember when I was lots lots younger it was common for fanfic/oc writers to just take a character and go MS Paint ham on it because we were good at writing, not drawing! I always found art really frustrating because I could never do what I saw in my head, but instead of that inspiring me to learn and get better, it just made me angry and I preferred to just write the same thing. I was meh, average, at art as in I could draw something from scratch that looked like a character in poses and whatever. My Mom was always impressed 🤣 But I was also really good at “copying”, as in looking at a picture and redrawing it, or redrawing what would basically be a base and then change it how I wanted. But oh boy, the HUGE negativity regarding this at that age turned me off for life, which is so stupid because I learned far more about posing and anatomy and how clothing and such worked from doing this, rather than the HEY nothing I have now because I felt so discouraged and resentful and hurt by the whole thing I never kept it up. If I’d kept drawing and doing art, of course I’d be better now after 20 years, but because we weren’t allowed to just have fun and do our own thing, I’m sure there are loads of people like me who gave up art and never went back. Funnily enough, same deal has always surrounded fanfic and how “real writers” call it a “crutch”. I know loads of fanfic authors that have far more talent, skill, imagination and creativity, than half of those “real” writers. Just let people do what they want and have fun if it’s not hurting anyone! Sheesh!
Honestly, I grew up on cringe culture and refused to do anything that I or random people online deemed as cringy Unfortunately, like you, this just made me frustrated when trying to make anything because I was a literal child and not a pro at character development Now, years later, I still have a hard time pursuing interests because I'm gonna be bad at it/it's embarrassing It's so genuinely frustrating that I can't just let myself enjoy and be bad at something solely because of the stigma around it
I can totally relate to this!! I’m a writer, not much of an artist. Art can be discouraging to me due to the learning curve and frustration over not being able to perfectly show what’s in my brain, so bases were such a lovely thing for me!
Yes I'm the same! I'm a writer but I also imagine *very specific* scenes I want to draw! That's where bases (and merging multiple ones on a program with layers like PaintDotNet) come in!
I've heard "frakendolling" used recently. Apparently the concept still applies in the modeling community. My sister used it in reference to MMDs, which have a lot of similarities in regards to dubious credit and communal creation.
yeah, the frankendolling issue runs absolutely rampant in the MMDC, mostly as a result of the western community paying little to no mind to the rules of the original modellers of content. I mean, we still have a ton of issues with people combining model types that are illegal to part transplant together, or people that illegally redistribute parts of other people's models for others to make their model edits from. Tda models are by far one of the worst cases of this, since Tda literally stated in their readme file not to make bases from their original Tda Miku Append model, and yet someone still went and did it, and now no one bothers to read the rules enough to see that what they're doing is illegal and there's so many variants of just Tda bases alone. People honestly wonder why the eastern MMDC doesn't trust any of the western MMDC with their models anymore, but then we have cases like this.
THE WAY I GASPED WHEN I SAW YOUR COMMENTATOR SPRITE- This video was done so well as always! I love watching your videos and seeing one about bases really makes me happy cause I used to use bases when I was 9 Tbh, they were such an important part of my childhood, so I'm really glad you made a video on this topic :))
gosh, bases were such a huge help for me when i was younger. i remember having a favorites folder for just bases bc they helped me with posing my characters so much! i never used them digitally, just used them as a reference for traditional art. but wow, this was such a flashback.
I'd like to throw my perspective out there. I'm autistic, my limited ability to see and understand facial expressions and body language hinders my ability to express my ideas when drawing people in general. It's never gotten better with time and practice. I dont USE bases persa, rather I keep a catalogue of them that I can reference when I'm struggling while drawing a person or people. This helps me tremendously.
I struggle with body language a lot too, and I like how a lot of pose bases will say what kind of thing they're going for, like powerful base, or relaxed base, or whatever the theme may be. I sometimes use them just for getting ideas down, but I make sure to give credit, as people have taken my art without credit before, and I had to report it to the site it was on.
So true. I'm also autistic and although I'm not an artist, facial expressions in general are very difficult for me to understand. It's such a struggle, and an aspect of being autistic that i feel like a lot of neurotypical people don't know about
I think another thing that's really important about bases is their usage in the adoptable community! I know you mentioned it a couple times, but bases are genuinely really helpful to a lot of people who are designing OCs to sell. Bases as actual character art are a little bit iffy in my opinion (in terms of the value of it, obviously do whatever you want if you follow artist TOS and the base is F2U), but bases work super well for adoptables where the goal is to design something unique. The actual lineart doesn't matter all that much, its all about accessories and color. And I think it's very valuable to allow people who may not be that good at art a chance to design and sell OCs! Thank you so much for having a nuanced and interesting discussion about it, though. The only other times I've seen bases being covered were in rant videos from 2017 lol, and obviously we weren't getting a lot of depth in those
soooo useful in the warrior cats community when i want to "test-run" a new oc's design or quickly make a visual reference for a character im using in roleplay.
Yeah definitely!! I personally was an adopt artist using those mlp bases and I knew a lot of such talented people who could make good money from adopts and commissions and stuff. So much amazing pieces were created with it!
I'm not against bases, I think they're a neat idea, but I feel really really uncomfy with the idea of literally using someone else's art to make money without 1) explicit permission and maybe 2) sharing some of the profit. If the artist explicitly states that it's ok to do that with the work, I'm fine with it, but if there is no overt permission/you don't have a contract with those rights or some other agreement then that makes me clench up a bit in discomfort. I would be unhappy if someone did so to my work. If you intend to break into the industry, you do need to learn early that contracts and permissions are incredibly important to honor. A lot of otherwise talented individuals have been frozen from the field because they didn't honor boundaries. Bases are great and a cute idea, but do get permission the moment money becomes involved.
@@hellbreakfast + (just adding on) Most base makers usually have a description w their base, explaining whether they are okay or not with someone using their base for profit. The vast majority are, but it is important to check nonetheless ^-^
As an artist rased on bases (who occasionally gets a little lazy and still uses them to do things like outfit design) I would even argue that it does start to teach you anatomy. My art teacher's best advice on "how to get better" was trace the heck out of everything. It helps build muscle memory and you slowly start to notice when an eye is of center or an arm is to long.
nowadays i draw my own bases for costume designs because i can, but it defiently helps not fokus on the clothes and not fiddle around for hours trying to get something anatomically correct and good looking done
Also you don't always want to practice anatomy. Practicing clothes and draping is so frustrating when the entire body underneath is wonky and you have no idea how to fix it. Without bases you're SOL if you want anything on your character to look good before you know anatomy
I remember before I found Deviantart, there were "makeables" on Neopets where people made pixel bases for other users to draw their neopets on. "Custom" pets were very popular, even though there wasn't really a customization system on the site, people would re-imagine their neopets with a design inspired by the pet image. I ended up with several cool characters that way.
4:22 I love that DeviantArt user mngamojemo woke up on Christmas morning, 2009, and decided that this was the day they've had enough of these goshdarn weeaboos and their bases.
Furries still use bases! Lots of artists sell bases for various animal species and they're really helpful for non-artists when making new furry characters. Plenty of fursuits are commissioned using designs that use bases :)
They are very helpful! I don’t use them, but they are great reference, and wonderful for fursuit designing, as a new maker, its super useful for when I need a quick reference sheet
@@esotericpince the bases being used as reference help a lot with figuring out where markings need to go and exact colors. Also ye old bases is so fucking funny but accurate
I like bases to use as reference. The “naked” bodies make it so I can see how the clothes would fall, etc, I don’t think I ever traced over bases, but I used them as references A LOT as a little kid.
OMG, dress-up dolls were my childhood (I'm 35). I barely knew English back then, so participating in any sort of community was not available to me. I was very disappointed by the influx of "ugly" unrealistic bases (I didn't know anime exists, let alone be familiar with the style). I remember being 14 or 15 and figuring out how to make a detailed "base" out of my own photo in gimp. I had so much fun playing virtual dress-up, I was doing that well into my early 20s with "techniques" taught by dollz tutorials.
Maaan! I used to make theeese!! A few weeks ago, me and one friend actually choose one of the mlp "couple/pair" bases, and set up a challenge. We got some random palettes, create whole new random OCs from it in our original art, and made a wholesome collab with crazy designs and even a background. It was really fund to do, was pretty nostalgic and we spend hours chatting while searching the "choosen base" and making the designs. That crazy years of Dev were part of my childhood, and if wasn't for them i would never try to draw on my on and go on with it. (im sorry if my english/grammar is bad, thats not my firts language)
I was actually part of the dolling community from 2003-2011 or so. I specifically remember how upset some people were when the anime bases started showing up. In large part, a lot of the frustration came from them being in the same deviantart category as the dolling community, and so it made it very difficult to find the kind of bases we were looking for on the site (forums were still the big thing for dollers at the time, though). There were some people who were a bit more extreme in their vitriol, but that was a small minority. For the most part, the conclusion was that they were a different community. Also, if you are planning on doing a video on dolling, feel free to contact me. I still run a fb group for ex-dollers.
@@nothanks7263 look up Dolling Undead because I apparently can't post links. We're not super active, but discussion is always welcome and we're a good crowd.
HOLY SHIT that thumbnail got me, i only got deviant art in the last 5 months for the point system for adoptables, but that licky cat gif base. i grew up on scratch and it was EVERYWHERE there where chains and chains that people added onto and you just unlocked that memory
Deviantart bases were how I learnt to do digital art. They gave me the help I needed to learn how to use different techniques and tools before I was confident enough to start drawing freehand. I also used to make bases for a while, but some people using them and then lying and saying it was original art took the fun out of it and I'm pretty sure I deleted the whole account I used for bases. I'm really glad you made this video, it brought back so many memories (both positive and negative) and I really appreciate how nice you were, so many people are so nasty about bases in general when original bases and bases made from tv shows can be really fun and useful
That ranty Deviant art journal about bases brought back so many memories of my time on early 2010s da... The thing I remember the most that actually affected me and my art development was edgy people who would make fun of "wolfaboos", basically people (usually kids or neurodivergent adults) who were obsessed with wolves, wanted to be a wolf, made wolf ocs, ect. These people would make really aggressive stamps talking about their hatred for wolves and wolfaboos, basically as bait to get young kids like myself to comment where they'd proceed to insult and make fun of them and their art. I got so many full grown adults calling me slurs and stuff because I defended wolves on these stamps , or because my art was done on ms paint and had inaccurate anatomy (I would have been 13 btw). There were also deviantart pages specifically made to make fun of people's unprofessional wolf art, with inaccurate anatomy and stuff, by redrawing them in a deliberately terrible way. And don't even get me started on so xalled "sparkledog" ocs. If you had a dog/wolf oc that had unnatural colours these people would go out of their way to make fun of them, calling them sparkle dogs and stuff because their colours weren't realistic. This actually messed me up quite a bit growing up and for the longest time I was too anxious to try drawing new things because I'd get the anatomy wrong, my art became stiff and bland and I was too scared to branch out because a bunch of edgy adults thought it was worth it to go out of their way to insult a 13 year old child. This is actually something I've only recently broken out of and as a result I've started to find drawing fun again. There's so much more I could go into with this topic but basically yes, early 2010's DA was wild.
I get what you're saying but I think it's a bit disingenuous to say the wolfaboo crowd was just "innocent neurodivergant kids who liked wolves", you have to keep in mind a lot of the hardcore wolfaboos in addition to spreading misinformation regarding animal welfare also advocated for eugenics, genocide, and would often go out of their way to dox and harass users they didn't agree with (there was this one guy in the wolfaboo scene in particular who has a massive streak of going after and doxxing DeviantArtists and UA-camrs for not agreeing with him on trivial things, I won't namedrop him but anyone who's well versed probably knows who I'm talking about). Unfortunately you got caught in the crossfire in a war between two very militant groups on DeviantART, the Wolfaboo and Anti-Wolfaboo crowd both could get extremely nasty and innocent people often did get hurt. I'm sorry you got caught up in that but that part of DA was an extreme mess around the time and neither side was truly good.
this dynamic from fandom/art communities was always so weird bc it felt like friendly fire, meaning you’ve got literal autistic people that happen to be mean attacking autistic kids and not mean/more severely autistic adults 💀
I'm so sorry. Sure "sparkle dogs" or whatever are def overdone but omg, you have to start somewhere and no child innocently trying to learn how to draw should be so ridiculously criticized
@FunnelVortex If I were very honest. I would've prefer your wolf-weeaboo-goo goo g'joob drama over this apocalyptic dimension I'm living in called "The Real World". Be thankful.
Wow, this brings back some memories. Working off bases and free lineart was how I originally started learning to draw. Now, nearly 10 years later, I'm in my Senior year of college, studying for a Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design. So I guess that means I owe my future career to Bases. I also actually started off with the same method that Izzzyzzz mentioned at 10:20, just putting printer paper up to the computer screen. Then I discovered how to actually draw digitally.
Wow, I never thought my old DeviantArt account from when I was a teenager would make it into a UA-cam video LOL! I used to make and use bases because I thought they were fun, and they genuinely gave me a lot of stress relief during my younger years when I had no outlets. I don't do that kind of stuff anymore, but this definitely brought back a LOT of nostalgia and I was so shocked (in a sort of good way) to see myself on here.
@@wrightcemberMy timestamp is 3:31 or 3:32 when Izzy says "Pokemon"! They don't feature my username and honestly I'm kind of glad LOL because I'm kind of embarrassed abt the whole thing. It's been a loooong time since I've even logged into the account but it was yoru-bases. I was like 18 or 19 when I last used it and I'm in my late 20's now so don't judge me too hard lmao (;ŏ﹏ŏ)
god i was there when the lick emote was everywhere- i shall never stop making bases, it warms my heart to see (what i think are) kids just having fun makin neon ocs on mines ♡.
I used to use cat licky bases back when I was six! I started coding on Scratch because my mom thought it would be cool for me to start learning code at a young age, so I joined with my sister. I used cat licky bases as my profile picture, and I would also use bases as "coloring sheets". I never remembered posting them online but I liked to keep them to myself :)) I've abandoned Scratch by now just because I don't have time for it though but this brings back so many memories, like when I was stupid and forgot to give credit to someone for a reference picture. Someone pointed that out though and I added them in the credits lol
Yes! I actually started when I was 7 and also remember those cat licky faces! I was very fascinated with coding at the time, so I decided to join my cousins and create an account.
As someone who's been posting art online since 2005, I was super excited to see this video pop up, and I was not disappointed! I definitely used to be one of those folks yelling about how they hated bases back in the day, but now I'm over 30 and I agree with all your takes on bases. A fun, nostalgic watch
Bases are fun, I studied fashion design a few years ago. When it came to fashion illustrations, we were supposed to use bases to make everything look uniform. I was the only one who drew the bases myself beforehand. The others were provided with some. There are just official sites on the Internet for fashion designers regarding bases... xD
Gotta say, using bases, especially when I got my tablet, taught me quite a lot about anatomy. I had to start understanding how things would look natural and not out of place. It also taught me how to draw in the Winx-Style (yes, I was in the Winx Base Community), so saying that it will make your art worse is not quite right. It always depends on how you use the medium, and I think, especially for beginners, it is a great way to get comfortable! Love the fact that you share such a positive opinion. Too many people hate on children especially for using bases. You learn, you grow up and maybe out of it. It's just a way to .. you could say, jump start and take some pressure off
i never really used bases, but i can see how starting with them can really help you improve your anatomy quickly, which is pretty cool especially if you're a beginner
I think the people who ranted about "tracing isn't really drawing and it doesn't improve your skills!!!11eleven!!" listened a bit too well when art teachers scolded people for tracing. I can honestly say that tracing helps some artists by improving their hand-eye coordination, their observation skills, and so on. Not all, but it's useful for some. Nobody gets to tell anyone else that their method of learning isn't valid.
All I can think about was people I knew in high school who were wildly impressed by my mediocre art skills who couldn't even do circles and straight lines well. If you don't know the basics like "how to make a line that looks nice" you need to learn somehow.
Exactly! Growing up, I used to trace over so many pictures in the books I read and stuff while I still drew separate from that. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that's why my art skills were improving so fast but now I'm a fully self taught artist and am planning to go to college for animation or character design because of it.
@@pastelpurpledeathbed What, it's not valid? I used to use bases very often, it helped me understand VERY basics of where body parts go, from there I was able to branch off and make my own art, which is 10x better nowadays...So yeah, it's a valid thing-
Bases gen actually helped me grow as an artist. I still use a few to this day, while also branching out and being able to make my own things too. I just enjoy making art for art's sake so ty! :D
I remember using bases because everyone was and they were so easy! But then my skill outgrew the bases and I wanted to explore and do my own poses, so I moved on. I think bases are great early on for practicing (if ur like me and actually edit the bases lol). But you should always move on from them in a few years or you’ll just be stunting your artistic growth.
Tbh as someone who considers themselves an artist, as long as you’re honest about using bases and credit the right people then I don’t see a problem at all. Like if you aren’t stealing anything (the base isn’t made from someone else’s original art and you credit the person who made the base) then it really isn’t that serious! :)
I remember being like 7 when I discovered MLP bases and you have no idea how much fun I had drawing original characters on the bases and making stories- It was basically my first taste of digital art, just me on a summer day, with my mom's toshiba laptop and making Crystal Pony versions of my characters. 8 years later I've improved so much, doing commissions and I'm going to get into an art school soon. Thank you MLP bases for literally sparking my fire that is digital art.
12:20 oh hey I have one of those tattooed on me. A derpy one. I didn't even know about the base stuff, I just knew there were several different versions and I wanted my favourite.
I am so excited! These things used to be a huge part of my life on dA and I didn't get why people had problems with them. Looking back, I get it now. I was definitely an art thief and frankendoller when I was, like, 10-13 years old.
I remember using these so much in high school lmfao- they actually helped me pretty much to improve, mostly because I was too depressed to actually have the strength to draw « on my own » so bases were really helping me because if I wasn’t using them I wasn’t drawing at all
I got my first computer in 2005 and remember finding the world of dress up dolls the first day I turned it on. I would spend hours sitting there playing with pixel dolls, roiworld, etc. I'm now in my 20s and still dress up games and character creators. I think bases are a good thing as long as people know if the origin of the pose (like a TV show or something) is known. I feel like even super popular artists are open about using references nowadays, which I appreciate. :)
I am speechless, this unlocked a long forgotten memory. I now remember being on DeviantArt and collecting bases when I was 12 (i didn't even use them that much, but they were so popular I was just downloading them for nothing lol). I was also really into pixel art. I completely forgot about this part of my web-past, this is crazy!!
I see art bases in the same light as fanfiction: fun training wheels for new artists/writers to get their feet wet, and a fun way for established authors/artists to "kick their feet back" and play with something a little less stressful and complicated sometimes.
Hi! a uni art student here. Bases really helped me with my introduction into digital art and they are a really good way on how to start not only painting digitally, but for traditional art too - I learnt a lot from bases simply because I could see the body underneath and wasn't able to simply copy the clothes and wrinkles that could've been in the original picture. They are a great starting ground for young artists like me back then (I was like 10 at the time they were popular) and really make the "first step" so much easier. It's fair to say that if it weren't for bases, I wouldn't be studying and making "serious" art now. Just let people have fun! As long as they credit the artist and don't copy someone elses art and claim it's their own (yes, we had that in our OC community back then lol), it's okay.
bases are actually useful as hell to someone whos been drawing for like 8 years if you know the krapette base, i will sometimes use that to get a visual of what i want a character to look like, along with bases of other species. its super helpful when you want to get a quick ref without going through the full process of drawing something yourself. plus it can just be fun as hell!!! also we should totally bring those gif pfps back
LMAO this video killed me. For awhile, I was original base creator on DA (as in, I actually drew the bases from scratch for people to use and didn't trace screenshots) and it made me really happy to see people using them. I also agree that so long as crediting happens, who cares? I'd see some people take my bases and completely change them in amazing ways and were so grateful for me sharing my linework. I also used to draw over Lion King screenshots when I was 10 and it DID actually improve my art skills and ability to use photoshop. Art elitism has and always will be a problem in the art community and frankly is just a huge waste of time for the elitist person 'cuz they're expending their energy on something so insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Let people have fun.
This brings back a lot of memories. Some of them being how people were so negative towards new artists who used bases. I'm glad it's starting to not be shamed that much anymore. Like we all know, everyone learns differently.
In regards to the final point of “Bases stagnate art skills” I’d like to share information on my experience with bases. I was also one of those dumb kids on DeviantART who took bases to MS Paint and even further after getting an iPhone and a drawing software on said phone. I was never allowed to take art classes so I had to teach myself, and tracing over hundreds of bases from face to torso to legs and hands, it helped me get a feel for how anatomy worked. It also gave me a reliable anatomically correct build to practice clothing physics on, without those so called shitty bases I would be much further behind on my skill.
I wholeheartedly believe that badly made edgy OCs are an important developmental step for artistic/ nerdy tweens and teens. My favorite edgy OC of mine was a Pirates of the Caribbean self insert
Don't be embarrassed, pirates of the Caribbean is awesome, I'd wanna be in that universe too
Definitely! We've _all_ made edgy OC's and/or glittery rainbow Mary Sues 💀 my first OC's were both for Tokyo Mew Mew, one was a fox girl and the other was a leopard girl. Both of them were cringe. But you know what? It was innocent and fun! I feel like kids (and people in general) have forgotten that wisdom and skill comes from _experience,_ so you're kinda supposed to embarrass yourself at first.
Yeah I agree, I used to have dozens of Mary sue MLP OCs but now I'm here, designing and writing my OCs lore. It was a huge step for me in becoming an artist.
@@errortryagainlater4240 my first OC was also an edgy tokyo mew mew fox girl!!! 😁 I kind of brought her back with my current webcomic about a super edgy OC. It's about a half demon, half angel, and half magical cat girl whos really bad at maths 😅
I really think that bases do make people lazy. It takes a long time to be able to understand human proportion.
I agree that if you're tracing it, all of a sudden you are understanding the intricacies of anatomy in a way that you might not have before. For example, right now, I'm trying to draw the generic, Caucasian white skull and although I think I understand it, putting the image next to my drawing showed that I changed up a lot of the proportions.
However, if you're doing it a lot, especially using screenshots from shows and using bases that don't understand anatomy themselves, are you really learning? Tracing is not the same as using reference, and you can use screenshots as references. You just need to come to the place where you understand the human body. Sure, there are probably professions for tracing, but a lot of artists want to make stylised, original works without understanding anatomy. I get that kids don't know a lot but I really dislike bases.
Alright but for real?despite being for a joke, Izzy’s little art commentary avatar is adorable!
She even has the crossed arms. The only thing she's missing is her telling me about how The Last Jedi murdered her cat and burned down her house
The last thing we need is a sprite that says "I'm facepalming because I need to show how better I am than you by acting mature"
Plus it has her entire outfit, including earrings and make-up!
agreed
That avatar is ready to start some "serious" drama XDDDDD
I like how bases have grown from dramatic anime poses to absurd cartoony "draw ur squad" sort of pieces- those are always fun to see ahaha
Exactly what I was thinking! Those and other meme tracing pictures are pretty much bases of modern fanart community.
yooo, draw the squad memes are my favorite
YES i love those, I do them for art warmups because it's a good simple thing to start the day with
actually I prefer the anime ones especially the ones who made by korean and japanese people. Draw ur squad is absurd and extragaged
@@Limacinablues That's the thing. It's supposed to be funny.
It makes me so sad that I missed the “make ‘cringey’ OCs because it’s fun” phase of my childhood. I watched these videos about making art perfect and do this not that, and I skipped over the actual fun part of learning art. There’s so much pressure that makes kids think their character is “bad” that they lose passion for it, or end up being self conscious for the rest of their art career. I’m still trying to unlearn that.
Me too, I have a baby sister and I'll shield her from these types of videos where it stresses kids out to make sure your OC is not a "Mary Sue". She'll have all the fun making characters and she'll make it as rainbow and eye bleeding as she wants and I will love her :(
Same. Though I had fun in the beginning, presence on DA and concept art site had me learn «never draw fanart» and it really damaged me. im in my 30’s now and lowkey hate drawing, however i dont have that block in 3D modeling so i am pivoting. trying to learn to not care about others opinions. yes to mary sue self inserts!
it's never too late to make the cringy ocs of your dreams!
@That guy I agree. Kids have the innocence and confidence to make bad art and cringey OCs because they don’t care about standards, and they just want to be creative and happy. Once you start being self critical, it’s so hard to go back and I just hope it gets a little better, yknow
@That guy I wish I could relate. I still like cringy stuff so I create that sometimes and don’t care and get too anxious to do stuff of quality.😶 I mean, look at my pfp.
You have no idea how loud I "WHAT?!"'d when I saw my shading tutorial (which I've hated for years now, it still regularly gets likes and I cringe thinking of new generations using that thing as a tutorial lol) show up cited as oldest on the site. I had a website where I provided pixel drawn bases back in the day, so yeah, we did call them pixel bases, and by the time I posted that it had been at least a couple months of me diving deep into the pixel doll community. And even back then, many of the bases (including some made by myself) were done by tracing anime images, official art and so on.
It must be really freaky to see something you created in 2004 show up in a random video on the internet, haha.
haha amazing!
Oh that’s pretty surprising and congrats on getting it on here-
If it means anything from an internet stranger, I don't see what's cringeworthy about it
You were one of my favorite pixel artists. You, Lei and Angy. Good times. Wonderful memories of my early teens.
omg i used to make these too, they were so much fun to make and use!
Oh cool, love your animations!
And this comment right here is a perfect example of why the "base users will never be real artists" statement is bullshit, your animations are AMAZING and I watch them all the time, your music videos for nsp are jaw droppingly well-done and your living proof that anyone no matter where they start from can become an amazing artist :)
Hell yeah, I even made my own KISS doll from a base (that I credited) 😄 And I loved having my bestie over, pulling up bases, and then editing them together until they looked like us!
Hey, Shoocharu! Loved your GG Animated videos!
did your brother kill a man
I was that five year old who held my paper up to the television screen and traced off what I now realize were bases from Bambi. Its how I learned about things like line weighting, spacing and perspective, and now I'm a professional artist!
Good for you!! I don't recall tracing stuff a lot as a kid but I would constantly look at pictures for reference (and still do that sometimes). Any way you can learn is a valid way of learning 💖
Yooo my sister did that too! I remember us both putting paper over an iPad screen and drawing characters from whatever show we were watching
i was the 1 who would sit my toys in front of paper n trace the shadows 😭😭
LITERALLY SAME I TRACED SO MANY POKEMON LOL
me bruh 💀
I used to carry a bunch of tracing paper around with me in middle school and early high school and whenever one of my more experienced art friends would show me a new picture they drew, they'd lend it to me at lunch and let me trace it. I used to make weird collages of parts that I really liked, such as the facial expressions, poses, or clothing details. I eventually did start drawing my own art and slowly abandoned the tracing paper altogether, but I truly believe that helped kick off my own style that morphed into a hybrid of all my friends' art to make something new. There's genuinely some merit to copying things, especially as a young or developing artist.
This is just such an interesting quirky thing haha. And I don't mean that in a sarcastic way. It would make a cute character trait.
thats super awesome! collage is totally underutilized, if you ever feel like it, i think you’d probably have fun with playing with collage considering your history! i’m personally FOR tracing in cases for personal use, as it can help people, especially beginners, figure so many things out. glad to see it helped you out! even experienced artists still trace sometimes
As someone who is studying costume design In college, bases are incredibly helpful. Whilst they are mostly unrealistic they’re so much more fun to use for my costume designs than normal costume design bases that are just stiff women standing with their hands on their hips.
oh wow i haven't thought about that
That is a great use for them ^^. I've been using a base that's more accurate to my body type to get a better idea on how a costume will look when sketching.
As a seamstress, I 2nd this! Can't draw people to save my soul but bases really help when wanting to but a design on paper. Yeah, it's not normally realistic but I've seen fashion designer from all different time periods. Even ones people hand draw themselves never looks like real people.
Fr!! Bases are also really fun because there's more dynamic posing in them (usually) so it's easier to think of "how will this color look from this lighting angle" or "how does this material fold over" etc etc (I'm not a college student or professional, though. I just love fashion and drawing lol)
It really helps with fashion design in general. It also helps me focus on specific aspects of my art, like how certain fabrics fall, without always having to draw my own base to practice on.
This channel never fails to tap into a part of the internet that traumatized me but also brings back an odd sense of comfort due to nostalgia
(Edit: spelling)
same lol
So true. I remember all the videos about "DO NOT USE BASES OMG" and all the drama with stuff like that.
you worded it so well
so true
Traumatized? 😳😳
I remember discovering bases when I was young, and loving them. I had a lot of trouble drawing bodies, so they were awesome for me! When I discovered the “you’re a fake artist if you use bases” I was devastated. I even quit drawing because of the fear of “not being a true artist”. Thankfully I was able to get back into it, and I’m going to be an art teacher now, but man…some of those base barking people really crushed my dreams
same
Right? I used them for the poses
my brother was super strict about drawing, and when i used bases or tutorials or looked up ref, he would say i was a poser. And I stopped. That rlly stunted my growth as an artist, and he has apologized and now is growing his style too, but the important part is YOU CAN USE BASES AND TUTORIALS AND TRACING TO HELP YOUR ART GET BETTER. As long as if you trace, dont take the art as your own, you can always use it for practice.
Yeah, there's always going to be people saying 'this art style isn't real art' because they don't like how they look lol, art snobs are everywhere. :'D
What I think that they don't understand is that everyone takes their ideas and drawing styles from someone else and makes it their own.
@@Diamond1234 "What I think that they don't understand is that everyone takes their ideas and drawing styles from someone else and makes it their own." Not according to Plexplero, a guy who accused a young girl of stealing from vivziepop.
Pro tip: use the pencil tool instead of the paintbrush in paint to avoid the gross outline gap when filling. You can change the thickness of the pencil, too.
THIS. MS Paint has no tolerance like other paint programs, meaning even the slightest difference in color will be ignored.
and i had to learn this ALONE when i was 7, im still a ms paint pro tho
don’t forget about the eraser tool
LIFESAVER
and you can replace a color with another by eraser tool. set the color you want to color over as color 1, the color you want to use as color 2 which is what the eraser uses, and hold right click when using eraser tool
Oh goodness. I remember when these bases flooded the pixel doll community, it made finding a quality base extremely difficult.
It still does. The bases section is still clogged with “adoptable bases” and it’s infuriating, especially since the pixel dolling community has become so small and obscure.
Absolutely, it was a huge pain for me- I’m a roleplayer, so finding bases for creatures I couldn’t draw like cats was very helpful, but I kind of just cringed whenever I saw the pixel doll bases. I usually just found someone on DeviantArt who commonly made bases and stuck to them instead of constantly going through other bases. So it was pretty much: Go to a base-makers page, see if they had a base I could use, and if not, go to another base-maker, and so on and so forth
I remember transferring from bases to pixel dolling because I liked the smaller scale that they tended to use. I remember the only reliable way to find one account and dig through their favorites/watchlist until you managed to find something good (or find one creator and cling to their content for dear life lol)
I remember this too. I liked doing pixel art and I followed so many doll artists, but after these bases became popular, it became VERY DIFFICULT to find them.
Oh my god, I remember back in the day where I would use bases for my OCs instead of actually drawing them from scratch.
omg same lol I still have mine saved
Same! I'd get people asking why my OC's always looked different (bc I used different bases) and I would say I was experimenting with styles lol
Samee
sameeeee
yeah same here
When I was younger, I had a friend who could draw really well and I wanted desperately to learn how to draw like her! She'd actually make little "bases" for me in my sketchbook and I'd modify the character body types, color and shade them, and turn it into a full piece. Weirdly enough, I actually learned a lot about art from doing this. I'd have to look at anatomy to understand how to change the bases without warping them, I'd have to learn about lighting and weight and perspective to bring a scene together, and it was a lot of fun.
I did a little bit of digital art back when I was a little kid playing in MSPaint to make designs for my neopets, and discovered bases and frankendolling through there, but I never really stuck with it because it was not very fun to do with an old, shitty mouse lol. Still, though, I get so many flashbacks looking at these old pixel doll games and what they evolved into. Bit of fun history I sometimes thought about, but never really knew much on.
That's so cute 🥺
That's so wholesome
This is literally so sweet ;-;
That's so sweet! I did that for my friends too bc I was always "the art friend" 💀 It was super fun to all make our characters together. It actually helped me out because I'd use the bases as a way to experiment with poses.
i think a big part of why people hated bases back then was also this feeling of "unfairness". I remember when i started drawing fanart back then and posting it on deviant art i would only get a few views. it felt so frustrating to see poorly drawn over bases get more attention than my original artwork, even though i had poured in hours of work into it.
13 y/o me back then believed that base art was a lazy and quick way to steal the spotlight while the REAL artists of my fandom (me) were left to rot. oh tween entitlement, how i miss those simpler days :")
@KaKaeru grow up please
@@alicemadness999 I think it’s deleted now 😅
@@seven-kilometers awesome
@@alicemadness999 yo wtf happened
@@Rqndomasprson they grew up
I always hated the controversy around using these bases, they're literally made to be drawn over. You don't hate someone for creating a custom character in a game instead of using the default.
They'd probably get mad at you for playing the Sims
@@davieholt4742 " how dare you use the base from the sims, program your own game and use your own character"
I think the controversy is because tracing and bases alike make an end product (art) in a way that side-steps many of the skills that are used in character drawing. (posing, proportions, and how style factors into it are done for you by the base)
That and art theft being super common with the thing, but things are certainly getting better.
It's less like using a custom character, but more like taking another person's custom character, or their race settings, then adjusting it into something else. It can be done well and credit to the original can be made, so it's not inherently bad. It's just got a history of abuse.
Pixel doll bases are okay of course, but as someone whose art was stolen for a deviantart base, I can tell you it's really not nice. I felt awful when it happened to me because they never asked for permission, much less credit me. You can't blame me for disliking them.
I think a majority of people have more against legitimate art theft than this strawman of an argument.
Thank you for covering this topic, Izzy!! This really brought back a lot of nostalgia for me. Especially the lick icon and anime bases, god those were such cultural keystones back then lol
Wow, a crossover I needed but not a crossover I deserved 🥺
I just subscribed to you recently ! Epic to see you here you are so cool :)
WE NEED A CROSSOVER
@@wolfgangamadeusmozart1532 I know right! I am also amazed to see them here! (Recently subbed too~)
@@RomulusMorgan seeing them here made me do a wjole double take this is E P I C 😎
It's so weird how many people had the misconception that base users were planning to become artists. Most I encountered (and me myself) were just people with vision but not enough artistic skills to make something from scratch, who just wanted to visualize their idea. The question is "how many base users want to improve to professional artists in the first place?"
Edit just to make it clear: I was referring to all those ranting youtubers who say "you'll never become a real artist if you keep using bases". Cause, some people who use bases just do harmless fun and don't indent on becoming artists. There are also of course those who don't have in mind to become artists and move on from bases. God, nowadays I use a base for proportions and then erase it piece by piece once it start drawing the clothes and edit the body type. Outside the pose nothing stays
I've tried, on and off, to get into art for at least two decades now. It's not gonna happen. I love bases since they allow me to get character ideas and color pallettes fleshed out.
I've got friends who ARE good at art, though, and when they're out of stuff they wanna do sometimes they will sketch out my ideas and I'll go through and do digital inking(?), coloring, and starting to learn shading.
I don't consider myself an artist and never will, but I do still have artistic ideas and do want to get them out there.
Facts
A lot of the folks I met in the pixel doll community did go on to become professional artists. But that was on the 'making from scratch' side of the community, not the 'I want to make art of my OCs' side.
I used bases for the exact same reason! But then it sparked a passion in me for art. If I had never used bases at my time and made things, I don’t think I’d ever think of doing art in the future.
Personally I used bases just to waste time with drawing really :/ tho when I got older I got seriously interested in art and learned until I was able to drawfrom scratch. I'm still learning and I kinda cringe at my base art but it was fun and that's what mattered to me back then. Fun.
As someone who had to overcome debilitating nerve damage and paralysis, bases were *incredibly* helpful to not only re-teach myself how to draw my favorite characters but to rebuild the muscles. My PFP is one of my favorite recent pieces of a character I adopted because of this community. I had a blast because of bases helping me get through when I could barely just draw hair and a cute shirt. It helped me simplify my OCs and even design new ones. Now I draw them in my style again!
they were super helpful for me too, learning how to work with my disabilities. DIY physical therapy!
This comment and it's first reply is so wholesome and amazing. So happy you guys were able to continue doing what you love!! Your PFP is gorgeous!!!! Love the glow effect. (I can never draw 'glowing' right so I tend to gush over people who can do it ahaha)
I'm the OP of that thread you found, and I had totally forgotten bases even existed. This makes me feel a combination of emotions that includes: pride (at my old post being found), shame (at how cringe it is), nostalgia (for my early 20's), shame again (for my early 20's), old (because this is now internet history), and other (other).
ETA: the main reason I posted the thread was because I was looking for things to complain about, because it was literally the Complaints Forum where all the discussion was driven by complaining. I never had strong feelings about bases, I just thought I was being real funny!
No sht you were in your 20s complaing about some kids using bases? Touch some grass omg
IT'S YOU!!?
Wha-pow base now outdate because i never hear anything about them anymore help
Huh, small world!
"Other (other)" lmao
I think a lot of people forget that you don't HAVE to always strive to improve your art. Sure, a lot of artist want to be better and want to make a career out of their work. But we have to remember that some people literally just draw for FUN. If they don't like drawing hands, they don't have to learn to draw hands. If they can't draw realistic anatomy, they don't HAVE to stress over learning proportions. If they only know how to draw one pose or one face, they can draw that one pose and face as many times as they want. Every artist's expression is different and we shouldn't have to put down other artists to feel "good".
Preach!
THIS!! something that i ignored for so long was drawing for fun and not to impress someone else (teachers- i was an art student-, friends, people on the internet, etc.). forgetting to draw for yourself really really ruins motivation
Yeah!
I really have to drive into my head sometimes that I'm not somehow "wasting my free time" when I'm sketching "easy" things in my pencil sketchbook, just because I'm not pushing my skills to be better or making things that are internet post-worthy. Sometimes I just want to draw to relax or make myself laugh, and that's ok.
i used to wanna pursue art as a career and that pushed me to improve, but after realising i wont like it im content with my silly little pen and highlighter doodles of eyes and cyclops girls :]
This is such a good point! I want to improve, because it adds to the fun for me personally but I need to take more time to just have fun and experiment. Thank you for the reminder💕
In fashion design there is a tool called a "croquis" (crow-key) that is essentially a base of a human or an exaggerated fashion pose. I have a huge notebook full of these that I made from my University classes and they are helpful when you need to quickly get a design onto paper. We started with tracing humans but by the end of class had to start making our own poses.
honestly i go through so many sketches when working on projects it got too time consuming to do my own croquis, so i just bought some pre-printed croquis sketchbooks. they're printed in blue ink so they don't show up when you scan them. and yet, my teacher still said that was "cheating" like...i can draw my own, but why draw 50 of the same pose over and over for thumbnails i'm likely gonna toss out?
@@kerricaine my prof would let us use notebooks like that for quick ideas or during planning but we couldn't turn in a sketch that used one. I've started buying a small sketch book and filling it with my own while listening to podcasts. Then just carry that around in my bag.
That just reminded me of the existence of a webcomic called Spirit Fingers. (The main cast meets regularly to do croquis)
Hehehe I just pictured a crow holding a key
I miss coming home from school and browsing deviant art for hours. I would often find a wonderful new artist and look through their entire gallery in one night. Something I never understood was Adoptables, that would be so cool to have a video on! I thought some of the artists making them were incredibly talented and it made sense to me someone would want an original character with an intricate design to show on there page, but there must be more to it than that! I also didn't get into bases but spend a lot of time with other artists posted sketch pages of hand, pose, and facial practices.
She actually did make a video on adoptables
Seen it on Gaia too. People with no life roleplaying and doing these imaginary craps. While I was leveling up playing games making progress these would sit all day in one spot and write dumb RP comments and posts spamming the damn pages and chat I had to block so many people it's not even countable. So yeah adoptables was one of their things.
Whats a adoptable
@@minmogrovingstrongandhealthyman you must be no fun and completely dull in the brain
@@Curoiuskoala Many artists will create unique character designs and then either sell or raffle them off to other people. These designs are known as adoptables (or adopts). An earlier reply states why people usually buy adopts.
I feel particularly old watching this. I was a part of the dolling community too, but before Deviantart really took hold. Back when the pixel dolling community was webrings on angelfire and geocities. You could 100% still get bases, but they were originals offered up by popular pixel art designers to use for your own creations, to link back to their page, and it worked as branding. Making a doll using a particular base was like a badge of coolness in a way? The pixel art dolls were actually very small pixels though (especially with the tiny screen resolutions we all had).
While I saw the rise of the anime-style traced bases, that was well after my time in the dolling community. This video was a fascinating look into it.
I remember dollpalace
This was my journey in the pixel doll community as well. Making my geocities galleries was how I originally learned programming. It was only HTML and CSS at the time, but that base knowledge has helped me throughout my life. I miss the old communities, it was such a wholesome introduction to the internet for me.
I’ve hoped that someone would do a video on the 2000s era ‘dollz’ to be honest! I remember Xandorra and Angie-Chan in particular being huge dollz creators and base makers. I think it would be difficult though with the majority of creators and websites now offline.
I remember making websites on Matmice, angelfire and geocities hahaha!
Oh gosh yes, good times. I remember everyone having websites and pixel forums in the 2000's. Eden Enchanted was my first doll forum and I adored creators like Angychan. I miss the pixel doll community's. There arent much around anymore but there are still a few forums up, although dieing slowly.
@@plague_doctor0237 I miss DollPalace! That’s what got me into dolling.
The dolling community is still clinging to life. I really wish it could be revitalized.
So glad someone's actually defending bases!!
I'm now 18, and able to draw well without bases, but I still like to use them every now and then, just for fun, or to get something done quicker!
Without the bases available nowadays, I would never have become an artist! I used nothing but mlp bases for... Around 3 years maybe, like from ages 8-11. The bases allowed me to create my own characters, my own universes without needing me to be super skilled! It was amazing, so much fun and genuinely helped me out a ton!
Yeah. Bases are very helpfull. I use DAZ3D models to make base or references for many of my arts :D
Sameee, I used bases and the such to show off my OCs. On instagram it was known as the editing community and people would use anime screencaps and bases alike to show off characters, but we all knew each other were editing and we were having fun.
Same!
If that profile image is anything to go by, you still have a long way to go.
@@SirBlackReeds I'm sorry but who asked you
"you're not going to learn anything by using bases" stuff like this is why I don't agree about cheating existing in art because art doesn't have to be about learning. Sometimes you just wanna create
plus it can be a good start.
it really is like they think you just need to Will your skill into existence. When I do metal work its with materials and equipment that someone else made, I lean how to tie new knots by untying them. you can learn a lot by tracing and red lining, just don't say it was all you.
And drawing has always been about how to make it more effective. Erasers, guidelines etc are all shortcuts and thats okay, we dont need to do everything from scratch
I dont know, there is people tracing over someone else's work and making profit out of it. Art theft exist.
It helped me learn how to draw proportions properly and how to get a feel for how the character was “built”. Then once I traced a few times, I could draw it by hand.
As an artist my biggest struggle is getting rid of the harmful concepts that DA and old tumblr gave me as I was just getting on the internet. I still feel like im cheating by using a reference in some way. The attitude towards beginner artists was definitely negative and impacts people for years. Despite drawing for years, its never gone away. Designing characters on base is honestly so fun and calming
I eventually stopped drawing because of this and even though I still draw from time to time, I hardly post my art anywhere. I remember being 14 and just really getting to art, and freehanding a picture of Absol that looked very similar pose wise to the reference of Absol I was using, and I posted it to my Instagram with virtually no following outside of my friends and parents, and some Deviant Art snob found it and accused me of being talentless, and an art thief, and of tracing all my work.
Jesus, I was never super "in" the DeviantArt scene but that lick icon and the MLP heart base still got something out of me
I would find that MLP heart base EVERYWHERE while looking for Perler Bead designs!
@@galaxymew5138 oh god, yeah! Perler patterns and pixel art
@@Pokemanic33
It was the same with the simplistic looking chibi pastel goth girl too! I'd always find her no matter that kind of Perler Bead designs I was looking for.
I used MLP heart base once as a reference for Inktober challange.
But yes, I also own my OC as a cute heart pony! The memories...
yep same. never used deviantart but i did use scratch a lot when i was like 9 and that lick base was everywhere there lol
I wish a video like this existed when I was little, I feel the entire “don’t use bases, references, or trace anything ever as this is cheating and makes you a worse artist” really stunned my art development as now in art school I am encouraged to do this (especially the reference one) and I have improved more now then I ever had before.
It's so funny how there was this whole culture of "you can't reference anything even a little bit" but then in art school some of the first classes you take usually involve life drawing, aka copying whatever is in front of you.
Oh wow. As a current art student who grew up that time period this makes total sense. It blew my mind when my professors encouraged us to trace certain parts of our drawings to make whatever we were drawing more accurate or speed up the drawing. Apparently even some famous painters used to do it. Though I do understand the the issues of tracing someone's unique piece of art and not giving credit (that's plagarism!), there are definitely some acceptable cases.
Digital fundamentals class was basically lessons like "hey let's learn about how to do digital linework by tracing over a photo in Illustrator". And the constantly talking about remix culture and how everything is a copy of a copy but with a twist.
god i hate those type of people. i feel like they're either hypocrites or they probably draw shitty anatomy and have inconsistent artstyle (if they have any that is)
I remember the "references are cheating" discourse and dear lord that was awful. Like, had those people never heard of life drawing or models or anything like that? I mean, I know (or at least, I hope) that the people engaging in that discourse were children, but it's still a weird sentiment to hear from someone who claims to take art very seriously.
i'm a musician, not an artist. but this feels a lot like the arguments i've heard about if autotune or using backtracks in live performance is "Cheating". at the end of the day art isn't a sport, you can't cheat at expressing yourself. Great video!
well said
That's different though because you're still writing the song, that's more like using photoshop tools to put filters on your art that make it look better than you would be able to draw, which I do hear some traditional artists call cheating and that is a bullshit claim, but the reason that's more similar to what you said is because the artist still fundamentally creates the artwork, they just use shortcuts and available tools to make sure it comes out exactly how they want. Bases are more like writing your own original lyrics to an existing song, anyone can do it, the quality ranges from terrible to excellent depending on your musical and writing ability, and even though you've put an original spin on it and contributed your own creativity no one in their right mind would call it an original song, they'd call them original lyrics. So a drawing made with a base isn't an original artwork, but it is an original character (in most cases, if it's fanart I'd guess that's more of a mashup than something original, but still that takes skill to do well)
@@butasimpleidiotwizard the amount of music that is the same chords with different lyrics or a different rhythmic/melodic structure is insanely high. There are lawsuits about it that set a very dangerous precedent for musicians and music as a whole. Granted, it isn't the exact same as art and I'm not going to claim to understand the intricacies of this issue after watching one video about it but as far as music is concerned people reuse melodies, chord progressions, rhythmic structures, etc. all the time and most of the time no one cares as long as the song feels different. It does lend a bit more lenience because there can be a chord progression in two songs that is exactly the same and most people aren't going to notice because the song has so much more going on and what pops out is largely based on who's listening to it and what they've listened to in the past. In art it does seem like if there is a pose, you can make it different but the general idea is always going to be there if the person seeing it knows where it's from. Either way, thank u for ur thoughts they got me to consider another side to this discussion that i may not have otherwise thought about.
@@tue-tired to put it bluntly, visual art does not work like that, and there's a very clear difference between posing characters a certain way and using somebody else's lineart as the basis of your drawing. Chords are building blocks, just like colours or line weight or things like that, that's why when artists use a base but trace over it with their own style of lineart and add so much extra detail and variation to the base like in the good examples in the video it becomes different, because at that point the base provided less to the piece than the artist did, but when it's just some 13 year old drawing bad anime hair in overly saturated colours over the top of it in mspaint that's just editing and messing around, it's not art but it doesn't need to be because the point of doing it is not to create art, it's to have fun.
Drawing with a base is like covering a song. Someone made a thing and you did something with it. The cover wouldn't exist without the original, but it's still its own song in its own right. Sometimes people sing other people's songs because they can't write their own and just want to sing something, regardless of their own skill, and sometimes people sing other people's songs because they're accomplished and talented musicians that wanna play with them and make them something their own.
In short i think you're entirely correct.
i love useing “draw your squad” for my oc’s, i use them as references and sometime draw over them for my own enjoyment
There's actually another way bases can be helpful: Practicing drawing wireframes for certain poses. Basically, find a pose you like and want to get better at drawing. Import it into your art program of choice, bring down it's layer's opacity, and sketch your wireframe in a separate layer above it. It'll give you a good idea of how the specific pose's wireframe should look.
not just that! You can also try figuring out the basic shapes and depth required to create convincing poses within the base (by drawing guidelines) and whatnot, training your eye so that it's easier to visualize it on your own next time!
This is actually how I taught myself how to draw better as a kid! It's super useful tbh
This healed my inner child. I loved bases because they let me experiment with character ideas in a fun, easy way. I used to pride myself on my work looking more like "tooled dolls", or pixel dolls with more complex shading and designs, but I was still using the same bases as other people.
I remember feeling so distraught when people came at me with base hate that it really weakened my feelings towards my work. I'm older now, and can recognize that, despite popular belief, bases did help me grow. I wouldn't have trusted myself to make these complex designs and interesting concepts if I didn't have the base to start with.
I'm still a digital artist and, though I'll use a base occasionally for MLP work (damn you, weird... pony... bean bodies), I'm relatively on my own. All the controversy has given me a weird complex about using references. I wish it hadn't.
That being said-- thank you for this video!! It felt like a kind of closure to my old art. :)
Speaking as a DeviantArt kid who still uses bases, exactly this. Often times they’re really helpful for character design and other aspects of just learning how to use digital medium in a stress-free environment. Sure, it’s not high art most of the time, but I’ve seen some pretty amazing things out there. It’s a lot more common in the furry community to have folks accept that, since that fandom is based around (hah) creative expression from all ages and skill levels.
10:58 you literally unlocked memories for me oml. As a kid I used to love bases and I think they're harmless fun. I used them to make some of my very first character designs and digital art on DA and now 8 years later I'm going to art school! It's really funny to see people trashing bases as if they are a stain on deviantart when they are FAR more innocent than many other things on the site...
Oh yeah, thee are plenty of less innocent things in DA and I need bleach for my eyes. But bases? Yeah, those hardly do any harm, unless you don’t credit or something.
Same!! I used to use mlp bases and draw over in paint ahaha, i was so proud of my edgy Mary sue ocs. And now im going to art school and creating my own original art. I even think creating bases sounds pretty fun
Same here, I started off using bases as a kid. Now I'm in art school, graduating in the spring. It's funny how many people in this age bracket got our starts with DeviantArt bases and tracing anime.
Hell, I started off _making_ bases when I was like 10 💀 they probably weren't very good but it got me interested in figure drawing and learning anatomy.
14:48 I love how this person is so mad. When most of the base making and using was done by tweens and teens. I can confirm how this progressed. In grade school(2002-2007) I played with pixel dolls and dress ups(and editing them in paint if there were no suitable assets for what I wanted). In late grade school to middle school I used anime bases to make my first OCs. In high school I did all of the above and made bases for deviantart. And now, as an adult, I am making orginal art and fanart on Tumblr and Pixiv. How time flies. Also, Winx OCs are still really popular. I can't log into deviantart without seeing them.
I remember my older cousins being shocked at how I used old Microsoft Paint to edit pixel dolls. I thought it was the normal use of paint because thats what my sister and I always did. But, looking back on it, we were pretty advanced 8 and 10 year olds when it came to digital art(at least for the early 2000s). I really wish I could find my old pixel art files. I remember having some adorable characters that I would love to redraw in my own style.
Bases is one of those topics from my childhood that I remember being such a big deal to me. I remember watching a bunch of deviantart rants and taking notes on “Dos and Do not on becoming a successful artist” and I legitimately thought that if I ever used a base I would be shunned by the art community. As I gotten older, I’ve come to realized that bases aren’t that big of deal and they’re something for fun! I’ve even used bases as pose references for when im drawing cause they’re really helpful for stuff like that!
Same! But honestly..My time on Deviant art honestly led to me giving up art entirely. I was GOOD! But the amount of drama, hate, homophobia, predators, stalkers, harassers, and creeps on da 100% made my mental health struggles worse. 🙄 I used to draw to help with my depression, now I'm too depressed and self critical to draw!
oh my god YES! i use bases for poses til this day n yes i trace them what abt it🙄 deviantart was awful if u were a beginner in art. and what’s crazy is my art improved the moment i stopped listening to the little voice in my head reminding me the don’ts list i read on there when i was 12
@@AngelCaz7 seriously, same! The second I decided not to listen to advice like that is when art became less stressful for me. Idk why people on DA had such toxic mindsets when it came to young artists/hobbyists, especially the one person in the vid who was like “I hate, hate, hate, HATE, bases!” Like chill tf out and let people draw their MLP and BNHA OC’s using bases 😆
@@bluessbelles so glad we stopped listening to those ppl n let ourselves just do what we love
my 9yo baby sis has been drawing digitally for a couple months now but shes recently discovered bases (mostly pokemon and, unfortunately, gachalife 😔) and has been having a blast creating her edgy little demon wolf ocs 😭🙏💞 i remember playing with bases myself when i was just starting my foray into art and i wholeheartedly agree with u, bases are harmless, esp nowadays, and are a good stepping stone for the youngins :)
What’s wrong with gacha life? It’s actually good for making art so you know what you’re drawing
@@c4tzrul3 :,) like all things, it’s the gacha life community
@@maiyo2916 the gacha community is like every single community. Toxic members scaring people away from the majority of the community who are good members.
@@c4tzrul3 i dont have any issues with gacha life on the surface and i dont think theres anything wrong with liking it, there's just some notoriously questionable content that comes outta there 0_0 tho, tbf, that can be said for a lot of fandoms 😔
Your pfp absolutely sniped me
I started doing original art after using bases because it taught me how to use art programs without stressing over the actual drawing part of it. I still use bases sometimes because I like the particular pose and/or style, but I do original art, too. Bases allowed me to be more involved in the community I wanted to, even with a lower skill set. As long as credit is given and you respect the original artist, I see no problem with them.
I remember being misled to think that using references and tracing was 'bad art' until I was in college and looking into Rene Descartes' work, where he'd sketch ballet dancers and trace his work repeatedly. It is a valid form of learning how to draw the things you intend more naturally.
I don't see why tracing over and working around these bases wouldn't be similar.
Tracing is used in animation. Not actual art. Depends of the subject but in general you learn to draw from source replicate it best you could not trace it since tracing is not developing any skills whatsoever. Next to tracing you still need to know how to finish properly that piece. Again depends what is the theme and subject but often tracing is plagiatirism too especially if you make money on it it's illegal. So I would be careful about that.
@@minmogrovingstrongandhealthy you're just completely wrong lol, I'm currently in art school doing animation and my teachers have consistently explained that tracing is a tool outside of animation, it's a part of art, whether you like it or not.
@@justine4581 Depends of the artform really, and if you really go to animation school tell your teachers they are lost idiots and creating ones too. If you are from US then I am not surprised at all. With that said I am done on this pointless subject.
@@minmogrovingstrongandhealthy tracing is really useful actually. It helps build muscle memory and helps you deconstruct what your working on and gets you thinking about all the pieces. Like if you where to trace an arm it can help you get a grasp on where the bends are and how it looks. It’s a big recommendation when your starting anatomy to trace some pictures first to get the feel for all the lines, then start drawing them yourself.
@@fandomtrash7505 Tell that to a person the other day who got kicked out of his jobs for tracing art XD We lost a 'reputable' person for this and he will never work in art again... It ALL depends what you do... In lots of things tracing is illegal and will result you lose your job and even end up in jail ...
People parade this tracing like it's a good thing.
Practice and refine your skills, build your style. Tracing is very specific and what is it used for.
I used to use deviantart bases ALL THE TIME, especially when i first started digital art back in 2017. They were my best friend
asdfghjkl I feel old, read '2017' as '2007' at first. 🤦♀️
@@aspen1713 Both years had bases so nothing wrong was seen really
I didn’t really know English as a child, so I would spend hours trying to find mlp bases. I remember when I finally found out that they were called bases, I actually spend the time revising that word so I wouldn’t forget. I loved watching people use bases and create beautiful pieces of art, and I also loved doing it myself. Now I want to go find my old laptop and see my old mlp art aaah
It's amazing seeing how far you've come now, being able to write all of this in English!
Of all the obscure things on DeviantArt I somehow remember AMA, or ask me anything, blogs most vividly. I know they were mostly popular on Tumblr but there were quite a few ones on DeviantArt, which was the reason 12 year old me made an account and then abandoned it a few minutes later when they couldn’t figure out how to submit an ask. It would be a really interesting topic to hear you cover!
Fffff the amas 🤭 I ran one on wattpad back in the day, it was definitely not limited to da or tumblr
Haha I used to run a super cringe ama called "ask Jeff the Killer" that was actually fairly popular back in the day. Haven't thought about it in years 😅
This will probably get lost in the comments but I've been binging your videos while I'm in the middle of a career/identity crisis right now, and the way you cover weird artsy internet culture from my early teens with such academic thoroughness is oddly comforting and reminding me it's okay to be who I am. Thanks, keep doing what you do.
this comment has not been lost 👍
on another note izzyzzz videos are so interesting especially ones that hit close to home
i remember in my country you could literally buy sketchbooks filled with bases made by actual companies (TopModel, Lillalou) . i used to love drawing on them.
I REMEMBER TOP MODEL
Wow I forgot about TopModel
Yes, I used to love top model! I was never one for colouring books so the design element really appealed to me. I doubt i still have any, certainly not in my room, but I actually bought a set of their colouring pencils and I'm still surprised by how good they are, ngl.
Anyway, TopModel was Top tier
Oh yeah i had this too it was so fun !
TOP MODEL YEESSS
Those things are definitely still a thing though most I‘ve seen now are fantasy themed, so that’s cool, I guess?
I think Izzy's videos are the only ones I click the instant they pop up. Always worth it
True lmao
same
i used to be one of those people who cried about bases being "cheating" as a kid, but now i basically always use them for reference sheets and adopts because they're really convenient. surprisingly, my art hasn't "become bad" like all those people said it would
almost like it was bs panicking.
Same
I've noticed that today bases are most common in the furry community due to the need for fursuit makers to have a ref sheet and not everyone having the skill to make cohesive refrence sheets so you'll find a lot of fursuit ref bases and people taking commissions to make fursuit friendly bases
man, this takes me back... i used to collect bases back in like 2010, categorized into folders like "ponies" "wings" etc, i had to have had up to 2 gb of them saved
I only learned to draw ponies, back in my heavily brony fandom phase, from bases. At some point I went from tracing art to using bases to referencing bases, to not needing a reference at all. In the present I can still draw ponies from memory because I learned it through the slow process from literal tracing to actively doing it myself. So. Yeah. Bases good.
What technique do you use? I typically use a three circle rule (Head, Chest, Hip)
I learned that way as well, i went from heavy referencing for poorly shaded art to actually being decent. wouldn't recommend my method though; didn't use tutorials and brute-forced talent with drawing every day for 1.5 years now
I'm so happy Izzzyzzz's channel exists, because she encapsulates so many things from my childhood on the internet I never thought would get talked about - and I was on there during a time all the adults were reminiscing about 80s/90s kids things, so it's weirdly so comforting to have someone talk about all the things that are nostalgic for people like *me*.
Ahh same!! I remember seeing everyone talk about the 90s stuff I wasn't alive for, and wondering when it would be my time to reminisce. Seeing it finally happen makes me feel like a part of internet history lol
ikr!! i feel so nostalgic when i watch her vids
It's the same with the next generation. Someone born in 2011 didn't know what they were same way you didn't know 80's things. In 2027 or smth they will feel old internet nostalgia too. It's a never ending cycle.
God, this brings back memories. I was active-ish on deviantart around that time. i remember drama around people tracing art for bases, and then not crediting the art, or even passing it off as completely their own. This ironically fed into the whole 'if you trace you're not legit' cycle.
Really happy to see someone defending bases. I think it’s a great learning tool that helps novice artist start out before they learn how to create their own drawings. In general as long as there’s no stealing involved, I’m all for young artists drawing what makes them happy and developing their art overtime.
i was OBSESSED with kiss dolls. i'm about 5 years too old to have gotten into bases, but i definitely used kiss dolls in a similar way, more as reference than tracing over. i'm so nostalgic for kiss dolls still lol. wonder what kimiki's up to these days.
I think it rlly helps that you were involved in a lot of the topics you make videos on, so your videos aren't just making fun of dumb things kids did back in 2010, but instead reliving nostalgia sometimes along with the rest of us, which is way more fun imo :))
17:50 you did it, with the background music, you completed my childhood nostalgia trip. Thank you so much.
“Casual artists exist”! Yes! I remember when I was lots lots younger it was common for fanfic/oc writers to just take a character and go MS Paint ham on it because we were good at writing, not drawing! I always found art really frustrating because I could never do what I saw in my head, but instead of that inspiring me to learn and get better, it just made me angry and I preferred to just write the same thing. I was meh, average, at art as in I could draw something from scratch that looked like a character in poses and whatever. My Mom was always impressed 🤣 But I was also really good at “copying”, as in looking at a picture and redrawing it, or redrawing what would basically be a base and then change it how I wanted. But oh boy, the HUGE negativity regarding this at that age turned me off for life, which is so stupid because I learned far more about posing and anatomy and how clothing and such worked from doing this, rather than the HEY nothing I have now because I felt so discouraged and resentful and hurt by the whole thing I never kept it up. If I’d kept drawing and doing art, of course I’d be better now after 20 years, but because we weren’t allowed to just have fun and do our own thing, I’m sure there are loads of people like me who gave up art and never went back.
Funnily enough, same deal has always surrounded fanfic and how “real writers” call it a “crutch”. I know loads of fanfic authors that have far more talent, skill, imagination and creativity, than half of those “real” writers.
Just let people do what they want and have fun if it’s not hurting anyone! Sheesh!
Honestly, I grew up on cringe culture and refused to do anything that I or random people online deemed as cringy
Unfortunately, like you, this just made me frustrated when trying to make anything because I was a literal child and not a pro at character development
Now, years later, I still have a hard time pursuing interests because I'm gonna be bad at it/it's embarrassing
It's so genuinely frustrating that I can't just let myself enjoy and be bad at something solely because of the stigma around it
Stars, this brings back memories.
I can totally relate to this!! I’m a writer, not much of an artist. Art can be discouraging to me due to the learning curve and frustration over not being able to perfectly show what’s in my brain, so bases were such a lovely thing for me!
Glad I’m not alone in everything you said.
Yes I'm the same! I'm a writer but I also imagine *very specific* scenes I want to draw! That's where bases (and merging multiple ones on a program with layers like PaintDotNet) come in!
I've heard "frakendolling" used recently. Apparently the concept still applies in the modeling community. My sister used it in reference to MMDs, which have a lot of similarities in regards to dubious credit and communal creation.
Franken dolling is a term in the doll customizer community too! For when you mix two different doll parts together
It's been a thing in the hobby scene for decades, but we call it kitbashing.
yeah, the frankendolling issue runs absolutely rampant in the MMDC, mostly as a result of the western community paying little to no mind to the rules of the original modellers of content. I mean, we still have a ton of issues with people combining model types that are illegal to part transplant together, or people that illegally redistribute parts of other people's models for others to make their model edits from. Tda models are by far one of the worst cases of this, since Tda literally stated in their readme file not to make bases from their original Tda Miku Append model, and yet someone still went and did it, and now no one bothers to read the rules enough to see that what they're doing is illegal and there's so many variants of just Tda bases alone. People honestly wonder why the eastern MMDC doesn't trust any of the western MMDC with their models anymore, but then we have cases like this.
THE WAY I GASPED WHEN I SAW YOUR COMMENTATOR SPRITE-
This video was done so well as always! I love watching your videos and seeing one about bases really makes me happy cause I used to use bases when I was 9
Tbh, they were such an important part of my childhood, so I'm really glad you made a video on this topic :))
gosh, bases were such a huge help for me when i was younger. i remember having a favorites folder for just bases bc they helped me with posing my characters so much! i never used them digitally, just used them as a reference for traditional art. but wow, this was such a flashback.
I'd like to throw my perspective out there. I'm autistic, my limited ability to see and understand facial expressions and body language hinders my ability to express my ideas when drawing people in general. It's never gotten better with time and practice. I dont USE bases persa, rather I keep a catalogue of them that I can reference when I'm struggling while drawing a person or people. This helps me tremendously.
So... you never learned facial expressions when you were younger?
I struggle with body language a lot too, and I like how a lot of pose bases will say what kind of thing they're going for, like powerful base, or relaxed base, or whatever the theme may be. I sometimes use them just for getting ideas down, but I make sure to give credit, as people have taken my art without credit before, and I had to report it to the site it was on.
@@ARCtheCartoonMaster its not something you can learn. autistic people have a limited understanding of emotions and social cues.
That's always what I do, mainly because it helps me get ideas when I absolutely need to come up with a pose and I'm struggling
So true. I'm also autistic and although I'm not an artist, facial expressions in general are very difficult for me to understand. It's such a struggle, and an aspect of being autistic that i feel like a lot of neurotypical people don't know about
I think another thing that's really important about bases is their usage in the adoptable community! I know you mentioned it a couple times, but bases are genuinely really helpful to a lot of people who are designing OCs to sell.
Bases as actual character art are a little bit iffy in my opinion (in terms of the value of it, obviously do whatever you want if you follow artist TOS and the base is F2U), but bases work super well for adoptables where the goal is to design something unique. The actual lineart doesn't matter all that much, its all about accessories and color. And I think it's very valuable to allow people who may not be that good at art a chance to design and sell OCs!
Thank you so much for having a nuanced and interesting discussion about it, though. The only other times I've seen bases being covered were in rant videos from 2017 lol, and obviously we weren't getting a lot of depth in those
soooo useful in the warrior cats community when i want to "test-run" a new oc's design or quickly make a visual reference for a character im using in roleplay.
Yeah definitely!! I personally was an adopt artist using those mlp bases and I knew a lot of such talented people who could make good money from adopts and commissions and stuff. So much amazing pieces were created with it!
I'm not against bases, I think they're a neat idea, but I feel really really uncomfy with the idea of literally using someone else's art to make money without 1) explicit permission and maybe 2) sharing some of the profit. If the artist explicitly states that it's ok to do that with the work, I'm fine with it, but if there is no overt permission/you don't have a contract with those rights or some other agreement then that makes me clench up a bit in discomfort. I would be unhappy if someone did so to my work.
If you intend to break into the industry, you do need to learn early that contracts and permissions are incredibly important to honor. A lot of otherwise talented individuals have been frozen from the field because they didn't honor boundaries.
Bases are great and a cute idea, but do get permission the moment money becomes involved.
now that i think about it adoptables are basically nfts lmao
@@hellbreakfast
+ (just adding on) Most base makers usually have a description w their base, explaining whether they are okay or not with someone using their base for profit.
The vast majority are, but it is important to check nonetheless ^-^
As an artist rased on bases (who occasionally gets a little lazy and still uses them to do things like outfit design) I would even argue that it does start to teach you anatomy. My art teacher's best advice on "how to get better" was trace the heck out of everything. It helps build muscle memory and you slowly start to notice when an eye is of center or an arm is to long.
nowadays i draw my own bases for costume designs because i can, but it defiently helps not fokus on the clothes and not fiddle around for hours trying to get something anatomically correct and good looking done
Also you don't always want to practice anatomy. Practicing clothes and draping is so frustrating when the entire body underneath is wonky and you have no idea how to fix it. Without bases you're SOL if you want anything on your character to look good before you know anatomy
I remember before I found Deviantart, there were "makeables" on Neopets where people made pixel bases for other users to draw their neopets on. "Custom" pets were very popular, even though there wasn't really a customization system on the site, people would re-imagine their neopets with a design inspired by the pet image. I ended up with several cool characters that way.
4:22 I love that DeviantArt user mngamojemo woke up on Christmas morning, 2009, and decided that this was the day they've had enough of these goshdarn weeaboos and their bases.
Furries still use bases! Lots of artists sell bases for various animal species and they're really helpful for non-artists when making new furry characters. Plenty of fursuits are commissioned using designs that use bases :)
Bases are useful for artists too! When you just GOTTA get that design out or want to bulk up adopt sales theyre a life saver.
They are very helpful! I don’t use them, but they are great reference, and wonderful for fursuit designing, as a new maker, its super useful for when I need a quick reference sheet
They're definitely useful. I'm no artist, not the best at describing, so when I want an artist to draw a new character I use a base just to convey.
:o i had no idea fursuits had a similar system, i guess it makes sense considering sewing patterns are like ye olde bases
@@esotericpince the bases being used as reference help a lot with figuring out where markings need to go and exact colors. Also ye old bases is so fucking funny but accurate
I like bases to use as reference. The “naked” bodies make it so I can see how the clothes would fall, etc, I don’t think I ever traced over bases, but I used them as references A LOT as a little kid.
OMG, dress-up dolls were my childhood (I'm 35). I barely knew English back then, so participating in any sort of community was not available to me. I was very disappointed by the influx of "ugly" unrealistic bases (I didn't know anime exists, let alone be familiar with the style). I remember being 14 or 15 and figuring out how to make a detailed "base" out of my own photo in gimp. I had so much fun playing virtual dress-up, I was doing that well into my early 20s with "techniques" taught by dollz tutorials.
this video made me realize how much deviantart is carried on the shoulders of dweeby little kids
Maaan! I used to make theeese!! A few weeks ago, me and one friend actually choose one of the mlp "couple/pair" bases, and set up a challenge. We got some random palettes, create whole new random OCs from it in our original art, and made a wholesome collab with crazy designs and even a background. It was really fund to do, was pretty nostalgic and we spend hours chatting while searching the "choosen base" and making the designs. That crazy years of Dev were part of my childhood, and if wasn't for them i would never try to draw on my on and go on with it. (im sorry if my english/grammar is bad, thats not my firts language)
That sounds like a really fun game!
I was actually part of the dolling community from 2003-2011 or so. I specifically remember how upset some people were when the anime bases started showing up. In large part, a lot of the frustration came from them being in the same deviantart category as the dolling community, and so it made it very difficult to find the kind of bases we were looking for on the site (forums were still the big thing for dollers at the time, though). There were some people who were a bit more extreme in their vitriol, but that was a small minority. For the most part, the conclusion was that they were a different community.
Also, if you are planning on doing a video on dolling, feel free to contact me. I still run a fb group for ex-dollers.
i'd love a link to said group! i was also part of the 2003 community too! i still make dolls on occasion too!
@@nothanks7263 look up Dolling Undead because I apparently can't post links. We're not super active, but discussion is always welcome and we're a good crowd.
oh ,y god sheesha! I remember you!
HOLY SHIT that thumbnail got me, i only got deviant art in the last 5 months for the point system for adoptables, but that licky cat gif base. i grew up on scratch and it was EVERYWHERE there where chains and chains that people added onto and you just unlocked that memory
Deviantart bases were how I learnt to do digital art. They gave me the help I needed to learn how to use different techniques and tools before I was confident enough to start drawing freehand. I also used to make bases for a while, but some people using them and then lying and saying it was original art took the fun out of it and I'm pretty sure I deleted the whole account I used for bases. I'm really glad you made this video, it brought back so many memories (both positive and negative) and I really appreciate how nice you were, so many people are so nasty about bases in general when original bases and bases made from tv shows can be really fun and useful
That ranty Deviant art journal about bases brought back so many memories of my time on early 2010s da...
The thing I remember the most that actually affected me and my art development was edgy people who would make fun of "wolfaboos", basically people (usually kids or neurodivergent adults) who were obsessed with wolves, wanted to be a wolf, made wolf ocs, ect.
These people would make really aggressive stamps talking about their hatred for wolves and wolfaboos, basically as bait to get young kids like myself to comment where they'd proceed to insult and make fun of them and their art. I got so many full grown adults calling me slurs and stuff because I defended wolves on these stamps , or because my art was done on ms paint and had inaccurate anatomy (I would have been 13 btw).
There were also deviantart pages specifically made to make fun of people's unprofessional wolf art, with inaccurate anatomy and stuff, by redrawing them in a deliberately terrible way.
And don't even get me started on so xalled "sparkledog" ocs. If you had a dog/wolf oc that had unnatural colours these people would go out of their way to make fun of them, calling them sparkle dogs and stuff because their colours weren't realistic.
This actually messed me up quite a bit growing up and for the longest time I was too anxious to try drawing new things because I'd get the anatomy wrong, my art became stiff and bland and I was too scared to branch out because a bunch of edgy adults thought it was worth it to go out of their way to insult a 13 year old child. This is actually something I've only recently broken out of and as a result I've started to find drawing fun again.
There's so much more I could go into with this topic but basically yes, early 2010's DA was wild.
Imagine if someone actually made a sparkledog oc and it got called a sparkledog as an insult
I get what you're saying but I think it's a bit disingenuous to say the wolfaboo crowd was just "innocent neurodivergant kids who liked wolves", you have to keep in mind a lot of the hardcore wolfaboos in addition to spreading misinformation regarding animal welfare also advocated for eugenics, genocide, and would often go out of their way to dox and harass users they didn't agree with (there was this one guy in the wolfaboo scene in particular who has a massive streak of going after and doxxing DeviantArtists and UA-camrs for not agreeing with him on trivial things, I won't namedrop him but anyone who's well versed probably knows who I'm talking about). Unfortunately you got caught in the crossfire in a war between two very militant groups on DeviantART, the Wolfaboo and Anti-Wolfaboo crowd both could get extremely nasty and innocent people often did get hurt. I'm sorry you got caught up in that but that part of DA was an extreme mess around the time and neither side was truly good.
this dynamic from fandom/art communities was always so weird bc it felt like friendly fire, meaning you’ve got literal autistic people that happen to be mean attacking autistic kids and not mean/more severely autistic adults 💀
I'm so sorry. Sure "sparkle dogs" or whatever are def overdone but omg, you have to start somewhere and no child innocently trying to learn how to draw should be so ridiculously criticized
@FunnelVortex If I were very honest.
I would've prefer your wolf-weeaboo-goo goo g'joob drama over this apocalyptic dimension I'm living in called "The Real World".
Be thankful.
Wow, this brings back some memories. Working off bases and free lineart was how I originally started learning to draw. Now, nearly 10 years later, I'm in my Senior year of college, studying for a Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design. So I guess that means I owe my future career to Bases.
I also actually started off with the same method that Izzzyzzz mentioned at 10:20, just putting printer paper up to the computer screen. Then I discovered how to actually draw digitally.
Wow, I never thought my old DeviantArt account from when I was a teenager would make it into a UA-cam video LOL! I used to make and use bases because I thought they were fun, and they genuinely gave me a lot of stress relief during my younger years when I had no outlets. I don't do that kind of stuff anymore, but this definitely brought back a LOT of nostalgia and I was so shocked (in a sort of good way) to see myself on here.
hey! timestamp? id love to know your username :)
@@wrightcemberMy timestamp is 3:31 or 3:32 when Izzy says "Pokemon"! They don't feature my username and honestly I'm kind of glad LOL because I'm kind of embarrassed abt the whole thing. It's been a loooong time since I've even logged into the account but it was yoru-bases. I was like 18 or 19 when I last used it and I'm in my late 20's now so don't judge me too hard lmao (;ŏ﹏ŏ)
I can only imagine how hard you got jumpscared when it came up 😭😭
@@MimoriAzume NO FOR REAL. I saw that part and immediately was like "THAT'S ME?!?!" I was SHOCKED
god i was there when the lick emote was everywhere-
i shall never stop making bases, it warms my heart to see (what i think are) kids just having fun makin neon ocs on mines ♡.
I used to use cat licky bases back when I was six! I started coding on Scratch because my mom thought it would be cool for me to start learning code at a young age, so I joined with my sister. I used cat licky bases as my profile picture, and I would also use bases as "coloring sheets". I never remembered posting them online but I liked to keep them to myself :))
I've abandoned Scratch by now just because I don't have time for it though but this brings back so many memories, like when I was stupid and forgot to give credit to someone for a reference picture. Someone pointed that out though and I added them in the credits lol
Yes! I actually started when I was 7 and also remember those cat licky faces! I was very fascinated with coding at the time, so I decided to join my cousins and create an account.
i never ended up making one of those cat licky gifs but it was so fun seeing everyone have them as their icons on scratch
As someone who's been posting art online since 2005, I was super excited to see this video pop up, and I was not disappointed! I definitely used to be one of those folks yelling about how they hated bases back in the day, but now I'm over 30 and I agree with all your takes on bases. A fun, nostalgic watch
Bases are fun, I studied fashion design a few years ago. When it came to fashion illustrations, we were supposed to use bases to make everything look uniform. I was the only one who drew the bases myself beforehand. The others were provided with some. There are just official sites on the Internet for fashion designers regarding bases... xD
Gotta say, using bases, especially when I got my tablet, taught me quite a lot about anatomy. I had to start understanding how things would look natural and not out of place. It also taught me how to draw in the Winx-Style (yes, I was in the Winx Base Community), so saying that it will make your art worse is not quite right. It always depends on how you use the medium, and I think, especially for beginners, it is a great way to get comfortable!
Love the fact that you share such a positive opinion. Too many people hate on children especially for using bases. You learn, you grow up and maybe out of it. It's just a way to .. you could say, jump start and take some pressure off
i never really used bases, but i can see how starting with them can really help you improve your anatomy quickly, which is pretty cool especially if you're a beginner
ppl that on beginners, especially children, annoy me to the core like come on? acting like all of our beginner stuff was perfect
I think the people who ranted about "tracing isn't really drawing and it doesn't improve your skills!!!11eleven!!" listened a bit too well when art teachers scolded people for tracing. I can honestly say that tracing helps some artists by improving their hand-eye coordination, their observation skills, and so on. Not all, but it's useful for some. Nobody gets to tell anyone else that their method of learning isn't valid.
All I can think about was people I knew in high school who were wildly impressed by my mediocre art skills who couldn't even do circles and straight lines well.
If you don't know the basics like "how to make a line that looks nice" you need to learn somehow.
but it isn't lmao
Exactly! Growing up, I used to trace over so many pictures in the books I read and stuff while I still drew separate from that. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that's why my art skills were improving so fast but now I'm a fully self taught artist and am planning to go to college for animation or character design because of it.
@@pastelpurpledeathbed What, it's not valid? I used to use bases very often, it helped me understand VERY basics of where body parts go, from there I was able to branch off and make my own art, which is 10x better nowadays...So yeah, it's a valid thing-
Literally professionals in the industry trace to a degree
17:24 you know it's getting real when the commentator's cartoon character crosses their arms
Bases gen actually helped me grow as an artist. I still use a few to this day, while also branching out and being able to make my own things too. I just enjoy making art for art's sake so ty! :D
I remember using bases because everyone was and they were so easy! But then my skill outgrew the bases and I wanted to explore and do my own poses, so I moved on. I think bases are great early on for practicing (if ur like me and actually edit the bases lol). But you should always move on from them in a few years or you’ll just be stunting your artistic growth.
I'd imagine it would improve it? I mean, i used bases for a while and they helped my art improve a lot.
Thissss
Tbh as someone who considers themselves an artist, as long as you’re honest about using bases and credit the right people then I don’t see a problem at all. Like if you aren’t stealing anything (the base isn’t made from someone else’s original art and you credit the person who made the base) then it really isn’t that serious! :)
If the base is just a trace from the show credit the show, not the person who traced it but otherwise agree
I remember being like 7 when I discovered MLP bases and you have no idea how much fun I had drawing original characters on the bases and making stories- It was basically my first taste of digital art, just me on a summer day, with my mom's toshiba laptop and making Crystal Pony versions of my characters. 8 years later I've improved so much, doing commissions and I'm going to get into an art school soon.
Thank you MLP bases for literally sparking my fire that is digital art.
12:20 oh hey I have one of those tattooed on me. A derpy one. I didn't even know about the base stuff, I just knew there were several different versions and I wanted my favourite.
I am so excited! These things used to be a huge part of my life on dA and I didn't get why people had problems with them. Looking back, I get it now.
I was definitely an art thief and frankendoller when I was, like, 10-13 years old.
I remember using these so much in high school lmfao- they actually helped me pretty much to improve, mostly because I was too depressed to actually have the strength to draw « on my own » so bases were really helping me because if I wasn’t using them I wasn’t drawing at all
I got my first computer in 2005 and remember finding the world of dress up dolls the first day I turned it on. I would spend hours sitting there playing with pixel dolls, roiworld, etc. I'm now in my 20s and still dress up games and character creators. I think bases are a good thing as long as people know if the origin of the pose (like a TV show or something) is known. I feel like even super popular artists are open about using references nowadays, which I appreciate. :)
I am speechless, this unlocked a long forgotten memory. I now remember being on DeviantArt and collecting bases when I was 12 (i didn't even use them that much, but they were so popular I was just downloading them for nothing lol). I was also really into pixel art. I completely forgot about this part of my web-past, this is crazy!!
I see art bases in the same light as fanfiction: fun training wheels for new artists/writers to get their feet wet, and a fun way for established authors/artists to "kick their feet back" and play with something a little less stressful and complicated sometimes.
Hi! a uni art student here. Bases really helped me with my introduction into digital art and they are a really good way on how to start not only painting digitally, but for traditional art too - I learnt a lot from bases simply because I could see the body underneath and wasn't able to simply copy the clothes and wrinkles that could've been in the original picture. They are a great starting ground for young artists like me back then (I was like 10 at the time they were popular) and really make the "first step" so much easier.
It's fair to say that if it weren't for bases, I wouldn't be studying and making "serious" art now. Just let people have fun! As long as they credit the artist and don't copy someone elses art and claim it's their own (yes, we had that in our OC community back then lol), it's okay.
bases are actually useful as hell to someone whos been drawing for like 8 years if you know the krapette base, i will sometimes use that to get a visual of what i want a character to look like, along with bases of other species. its super helpful when you want to get a quick ref without going through the full process of drawing something yourself. plus it can just be fun as hell!!!
also we should totally bring those gif pfps back
LMAO this video killed me. For awhile, I was original base creator on DA (as in, I actually drew the bases from scratch for people to use and didn't trace screenshots) and it made me really happy to see people using them. I also agree that so long as crediting happens, who cares? I'd see some people take my bases and completely change them in amazing ways and were so grateful for me sharing my linework. I also used to draw over Lion King screenshots when I was 10 and it DID actually improve my art skills and ability to use photoshop. Art elitism has and always will be a problem in the art community and frankly is just a huge waste of time for the elitist person 'cuz they're expending their energy on something so insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Let people have fun.
This brings back a lot of memories. Some of them being how people were so negative towards new artists who used bases.
I'm glad it's starting to not be shamed that much anymore. Like we all know, everyone learns differently.
In regards to the final point of “Bases stagnate art skills” I’d like to share information on my experience with bases.
I was also one of those dumb kids on DeviantART who took bases to MS Paint and even further after getting an iPhone and a drawing software on said phone.
I was never allowed to take art classes so I had to teach myself, and tracing over hundreds of bases from face to torso to legs and hands, it helped me get a feel for how anatomy worked. It also gave me a reliable anatomically correct build to practice clothing physics on, without those so called shitty bases I would be much further behind on my skill.
I wish to be like you. You pursued something you loved even if everyone was against it and I’m proud of your development
the struggle of trying to draw art on your phone…. I share your pain
This channel covers a very specific niche form of nostalgia that will only make sense to a select amount of people and honestly I'm here for it
the way you threw away the phone actually convinced me to get one