It's worth mentioning that this artist was actually one of the concept artists for the Detective Pikachu movie. Pretty impressive considering he started out just making fanart.

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Blue_Stuff said:

It's worth mentioning that this artist was actually one of the concept artists for the Detective Pikachu movie. Pretty impressive considering he started out just making fanart.

More impressive on the studio's part actually.

A simple browse through this very site can already tell you plenty that many times the 20-something people doing these things for "hobby" can be better than even the veteran professionals.

In creative fields, what divides nameless amateurs from the best of the best isn't as much skill as more of opportunities. It's why we often hear of currently world-renowed artists and authors like Van Gogh or Lovecraft actually having died both nameless and penniless while currently having hacks like Michael Bay or Kawahara Reki make banks.

azurelorochi said:

More impressive on the studio's part actually.

A simple browse through this very site can already tell you plenty that many times the 20-something people doing these things for "hobby" can be better than even the veteran professionals.

In creative fields, what divides nameless amateurs from the best of the best isn't as much skill as more of opportunities. It's why we often hear of currently world-renowed artists and authors like Van Gogh or Lovecraft actually having died both nameless and penniless while currently having hacks like Michael Bay or Kawahara Reki make banks.

The world isn't what it was a hundred years ago. Lovecraft got published in serialized science fiction magazines and books, which is actually pretty good for the time considering how little people thought of the whole genre. (Besides, Lovecraft would have probably gone the Kurt Cobain route if he'd become really famous, considering his hatred of society...) There wasn't an Internet back then to find a lot of artists, or for fringe genres lovers to find their genre. There was only really room for the mainstream.

Also, there's a difference between working amateur hours and working professionally with a deadline. A professional chef may not produce a meal the same way that a home-cooked meal may be tailored just to your tastes, but the professional chef is cooking for a dozen people at once with the expectation that food will be on the table as quickly as possible, so the process needs to be as streamlined as possible.

This is actually part of the reason why Fifty Shades of Gray or Kawahara Reki's stuff exist, as well - web novels tend to rise to prominence based upon ability to reliably produce quantity of output over the quality of that output. Serialized works especially don't have the same needs for a coherent plot, so long as there's more of the popular characters getting their deban.

Anime (especially TV broadcast anime) where there are tens of thousands of frames to draw in the span of a week or so where you need to coordinate artstyle with dozens of artists (meaning: lowest common denominator art style) is always going to look shit compared to a single image a guy spent days perfecting. (That's partly why I prefer manga nowadays, as well...)

NWSiaCB said:

stuffs

Not referring to TV broadcast anime, or even Disney level production animation though. I'm firstly referring to official illustrations and character designs done by professionals in similar veins to this very image, where both the professionals would presumably has the same amount of time to create their work as an amateur.

I mean I'm not one of those "Gamefreak is running out of ideas!" people, but you can go look up some fan-made Pokedex and you can still see that a roster of 150 mons made by a single amateur can sometimes contain more unique and interesting ideas than a dex of 80 mons made by a collaborative efforts of dozens of professional designers.

I'm talking how you can see amateur dubbing groups like TeamFourStar on Youtube actually having voice talents on par with the professionals, having millions of fans, but having minimal success breaking into the actual voice acting career.

I'm talking about people making amateur films on shoestring budgets having more acting skills than some of the actual actors and writers being paid millions in Hollywood.

I'm talking about the writers on amateur fanfiction sites who hasn't even graduated high school having their own fresh and unique ideas while the "professionals" keeps churning out the millionth same old cliche-ridden Isekai exactly because meeting a deadline is more important than giving a shit.

I'm talking about the bunch of publishers turning JK Rowling down at first because they think her works are garbage. I'm talking about how Shuueisha kept Bleach running 10 years after it fell into stale repetition.

I'm talking about the hundreds thousands people wishing to become a filmmaker in LA, most of which who will have to go home crying and broke not because they're insufficiently skilled, but because they just didn't have the connections to talk to the right people.

Sure, in professional works maybe being able to consistently churn out an "acceptable" quality all the time might be most important. That's something which many talented amateurs might not be able to do in the long run, I agree. But I'm talking more about the industry's standards being very arbitrary on what quality it deems "acceptable", and will often turn down potential geniuses without even giving one look at their resume.

That's why it's impressive to see a studio willing to give an amateur such a major opportunity.

Worth noting, RJ Palmer/Arvalis is a professional artist, not just a hobbyist. His "day" job involves working for Ubisoft an artist, but he also takes on commissions for books and other projects. Additionally, some stuff he just makes for fun. But make no mistake, "amateur" does not apply to him. He is absolutely a professional.

Garrus said:

Worth noting, RJ Palmer/Arvalis is a professional artist, not just a hobbyist. His "day" job involves working for Ubisoft an artist, but he also takes on commissions for books and other projects. Additionally, some stuff he just makes for fun. But make no mistake, "amateur" does not apply to him. He is absolutely a professional.

Is that so? Well I'm still happy for the guy, considering he clearly show enough love for the Pokemon franchise to put in the massive efforts to make this image.

Better than having someone who doesn't know anything about the franchise comes sodomize the movies *look at Milla Jovovich Monster Hunter*.

I mean I'm not one of those "Gamefreak is running out of ideas!" people, but you can go look up some fan-made Pokedex and you can still see that a roster of 150 mons made by a single amateur can sometimes contain more unique and interesting ideas than a dex of 80 mons made by a collaborative efforts of dozens of professional designers.

I’d love to see some examples, if you’d care to share them with us. 🙂

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