“Copyright 2008 Julia Lichty. This item is not authorized for posting on Steam, except under the Steam account named theghostfire.”
Edit: Wallpapers are now available for both the Red and Blu Teams!
Dear god, I don't think I want to open this file up again for at least a month. Each individual character was done so I could print them at 11x14 inches, so when combined into one, the file bloated to over half a gigabyte! I started this over a month and a half ago, and it's eaten up an unfair amount of time. As much as I enjoyed creating this bit of Team Fortress 2 cheesecake, I can't wait to do something in a more normal (for me) vein.
Many of the pieces from this gallery are available as prints on my website at ghostfire.net or specifically at the ghostfire market.
Edit: Wallpapers are now available for both the Red and Blu Teams!
Dear god, I don't think I want to open this file up again for at least a month. Each individual character was done so I could print them at 11x14 inches, so when combined into one, the file bloated to over half a gigabyte! I started this over a month and a half ago, and it's eaten up an unfair amount of time. As much as I enjoyed creating this bit of Team Fortress 2 cheesecake, I can't wait to do something in a more normal (for me) vein.
Many of the pieces from this gallery are available as prints on my website at ghostfire.net or specifically at the ghostfire market.
:origin()/pre00/383f/th/pre/i/2015/126/5/8/this_cake_is_not_a_lie__by_ghostfire-d152511.jpg)
(The best one: Sniper)
That being said, you still seem like a good artist, and you've improved a great deal since this was posted. 8)
Why on earth is it deemed necessary for a female version of a character to be misogynised and turned into a skinny little bimbo with balloon boobs? Even the characters whose male counterparts are SUPPOSED to be pudgy (Heavy, Enginner, Medic to a degree) are completely toned and perfect-looking.
The whole idea behind their character design was to make them instantly recogniseable, just by their silhouette. Herre, even Pyro isn't safe from this uniform, idealistic look you've plastered onto them. Even their faces are all the same. Speaking of Pyro, why the hell is she blue?! She looks like a deep-sea diver. And that's just ironic.
I wouldn't be so pissed off if this were obviously poking fun at the classes, like those pinup versions I've seen floating around. But there's no indication of that. For all I know, this is your true vision of what the female versions of the TF2 classes would be like, and that saddens me more than anything else. On top of that, people are going to be walking away from this thinking exactly the same thing: If Soldier were a woman, her boobs wouldn't fit in her jacket properly and she'd have completely bare legs and a miniskirt, which is incredibly practical for rocket-jumping!
Jesus fucking christ
This fucking offends me
<3 Logan
Also, I like how you said "I can completely understand not wanting to spend a lot of time drawing a girl and then feeling like I made her ugly". Take a look at this: [link] and come back to me.
Another thing to take note of is that studies have shown that the most attractive people all have similar facial features and characteristics. Digital artists were asked to make three very different-looking women look prettier and the end results all looked closely related. Take a look at the original picture here and you'll see that all these women look the same. Take a look through some of your art and, underneath the clothes and hairstyles, how different are they really? Take a look at almost any given anime or cartoon and you'll find pretty much the same pattern. Artists who have this weird aversion to and imperfect visage need to grow up and face the facts of life if they are ever going to mature as an artist, because one of the most damaging things in media are lack of representation for people who don't look like they were carved out of gold by angels. If all we're seeing are pretty, perfect people then we will eventually come to see that as "normal" and ourselves as hideous because of some artist's refusal to acknowledge the existence of variation. I've been affected like that more times than I can count, and so has pretty much every girl who's watched a cartoon. I spent the best part of my adolescence hating myself and wishing I was somebody else because of those freaking bratz cartoons and what-have-you. Google Valeria Lkyanova if you want to see just how messed up this can make people. And if you still don't believe me when I say most "ideals" set extremely unrealistic standards, have a gander at this little beauty: [link]
Another thing about ugly characters is that they are interesting, challenging and (believe it or not) fun to draw. You need that kind of variation if you want to improve your work. Drawing beautiful people all the time is lazy and stupidly idealistic.
I'm sorry if this has come a cross as abrasive, but I honestly don't think you understood what I was so angry about in the first place.
1) I think it's funny that you rage about mysogenistic bullshit when the artist herself is female. Are women capable of misogyny? Or are you just mad that she chose to draw the classes in a way that would appeal to the majority of the TF2 audience - adolecent, teenage and young adult males - and not to pander to your own personal feminist preferences?
2) "Not every man I draw turns out like Arnold Shwarzenegger because I understand and recognise that not every human is perfect and no two people are the same," you say? Having gone and looked at your gallery, I think this has more to do with your level of skill as an artist rather than your understanding that human beings fall short of the ideal. This is not intended so much as an insult rather than to point out you're picking on ghostfire's level of skill and growth (and not even for constructive criticism) while you yourself are still budding.
3) The link to "Ugly Guy, Hot Wife" on TVTropes doesn't negate Logan's point about not wanting to spend a long time drawing something less than ideal. All of Hollywood feels the same. I don't think ghostfire needs to grow up and face the facts of life, I think you do, because it's the bitter, ugly, fat, wart-covered truth that in marketing, you don't present the truth; you present the ideal to the masses in order to sell your product. And it works, as evidenced by how many comments, favourites, views and downloads this artwork itself has. And because it works, it WILL remain a fixture of advertising whether you like it or not.
4) Rather that being mad at this artist for effectively appealing to the masses, I think you should be mad at parents who don't engage with their daughters enough and explain to them clearly and ernestly that they ARE beautiful, special and worth something, no matter what anyone says (multiple, multiple times.) Because that's what can and does need to change: parents need to start doing their fucking job and steer their kids around the jagged rocks of marketing schemes, not blame the ocean for having rocks in the first place.
TL;DR: 34,303 people downloaded this picture.
"Cry some moar."
1) "Prime" example. Not primal. Sieg heil, sieg heil, the diction nazi is here. And picking on people's English and level of artwork is something you have every reason to expect if you get up on your high horse about things on the internet; while it may be immature feel the need to correct the mistakes of someone you never met, it is far less mature to post the first thing that enters your head and neglect to proofread it (additionally giving yourself time to emotionally detach from you statement and analyze it like a logical human being.)
And let's not forget that "devalidate" is not a word. "Invalidate" on the other hand is the one I think you were looking for, although you're wrong that my argument is invalidated just because you don't understand what advertising is.
2) Ghostfire is advertising and marketing her her artistic tallents and profile with this artwork. Advertising has very little to do with money and a lot to do with gaining people's attention (although the end often IS to obtain their money.) One of the most (if not THE most) effective techniques in getting the attention of a male audience is the presentation of the female figure in asthetically pleasing proportions. And as you yourself said, it's frequently women themselves who are the authors and executors of this approach. So maybe some individuals feel down on themselves and decide to stop trying at life because the standard is impossible. Cue the carton of ice cream. But what they need to do is find a proactive way of dealing with their own expectations instead of telling the world to handicap itself for them. It won't, and they'll just get more and more frustrated as it keeps knocking them down.
And there is an indisputable difference between drawing pretty girls because you want to and enjoy drawing them and drawing pretty girls because of your lack of skill. By the logic you utilize on that front, `yuumei should never draw anime and always be drawing fugly monsters with her incredible skills. Some of us can draw anything, but we choose to draw what's beautiful because we WANT to.
3) Here's the bottom line: you didn't even compliment the artist on the amount of time and effort she poured into drawing this, did you? Nor did you bother to acknowledge the cleanness of the image, the color pallete, the lighting and shading, the details or the texture! You just latched onto the one area you felt you had a right to criticize - the subject matter - and went to town on it. Do you have the slightest idea how rude and disrespectful that is? Maybe if you have given Julia the credit she's due for the many strengths of the artwork before voicing your concern, your opinion would seem a little more valid.
But no, you just had to go and vomit your personal insecurities and social justice bullshit right here in front of the entire world. That's inexcusible, and it makes you look like someone with a skull thickness comparable to the La Couple dome.
PS: You are one of the more articulate individuals I've met here.
Before we go any further, let's disspell your faulty assertion that Julia has no ugly characters in her portfolio with this fav.me/d5hju79 this fav.me/d4cb1e7 this fav.me/d1jlz1k and this fav.me/d42f9kg. There's no lack of ability or fear of extra effort in trying to draw diverse facial structures and body types. She draws skeletons. She draws fat ghouls. She draws aged vampires. And what's more, she does all of them with more realism than anything you have ever done. YOU are left without a leg upon which to stand (although the fact that you entirely miss the point of cheesecake and can't deal leaves it up to debate as to whether you had a leg to stand on at the start.) Now, for the bleeding stumps you're still using to crawl around:
1) In my entire conversation with you, I made a grand total of one grammatical error, but it wasn't even the thing you picked out and tried to laugh at; this, which is neither a grammatical error nor a logical error, is merely you childishly pulling words out of context and twisting them in a rediculous and faulty "no u" counter. I should rephrase the final sentiment of my previous comment: you DO have a skull thickness comparable to the La Couple missle bunker. It no longer just looks like it. For fuck sake don't just think twice before you reply, think six, seven or eight times, because your failure to do so thus far has revealed you to be a total moron. And stop making it even worse by pretending to take a high road that doesn't exist.
2) The bullshit washes over their heads because it IS bullshit. You need to get that through your La Couple skull, okay? YOU'RE the only one who can't digest cheesecake and whipped out your bare assertion of who will or will not see this AND who will or will not be affected by it negatively. You don't know shit. You have nothing to base your argument on but your own empty, inaccurate perception.
3) "Plenty of other people raved about all the time/effort/etc" does not excuse your shit. There IS no excuse. ~Popinsnow said the same thing you did and nobody has a problem with her. Being fair and ballanced in your criticism is not the same as sugarcoating, and you CAN state the truth firmly and honestly without being a gigantic fuckhead about it, the way I tried initially with my point about your artistic skill. But you just ripped on the artwork like an ignorant, insecure fuck. Consequently, you awarded yourself no points.
Get off the internet or send *ghostfire an apology. Doing both is preferable.
By the way, "I have no insecurities" is complete gorillashit. Everyone has insecurities. And you DID display yours here, as transparently as a factory-fresh window pane, by showing how "fucking offended" you were that people like to idealize shit for fun, sealing it with your comment to ~animpostertookmyname about how Bratz and other shows like it made you hate yourself for most of your adolescence. Lawyered. You have nowhere to hide.
It has a lovely art style but i'm just incredibly disappointed by how unidealistic and sexuality all the characters seem to be, especially when compared to the originals..
Still quite cool, though.
youknow. ifiwasagirl.
Is nearly exactly what I imagined for the Fem!Fortress.
but i love the Sniper <3