Truth, context, perception, and planets

Rather differently from my usual fantasy doodles and occasional opinionated rants, today I've got a bit of an art history essay to share.

I recently watched a very intriguing and thought-provoking lecture by Randall Rosenfeld, archivist for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, where he discussed the late 19th-century astronomical illustrations of Étienne Léopold Trouvelot. (You can view a gallery of Trouvelot's lovely renderings here: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-trouvelot-astronomical-drawings-atlas)

At the crux of Rosenfeld's presentation was a question he had no satisfactory answer for: why are some of Trouvelot's illustrations almost photographic in their accuracy (such as the Orion Nebula), while others appear highly foreign and almost caricatures of their subjects' true appearance (such as Jupiter)? Trouvelot was a trained and very skilled artist, using the best telescopes of his time. When his lithographs were published, they were widely praised by professional astronomers who saw nothing wrong with the way he had depicted anything. Other artists before him actually rendered these subjects with more accuracy (you can see a good selection of early Jupiter artwork here), so what was going on?

Rosenfeld ended the lecture with the question remaining open. But as I was absorbing the information he presented, a hypothesis sprung into my mind and I wondered if it might not be along the right track. I emailed Rosenfeld but never heard back from him, so I'm posting the contents of that email here (slightly edited to read less like an email and more like a formal essay), in the hopes that maybe it will help someone along in figuring out the answer to this interesting historical conundrum.

 

Zoltan Arnyek, the darkness-aligned Halloween Kyrii battlemage from my Neopian Times series Shadow Play (the link goes to part 1; you'll have to navigate to subsequent Times issues to read the rest). I've actually also written him into a few other Neopets fics that I never submitted to the Times; I'll put them here on the blog eventually.

Zolt looks like a villain, but he's actually a goodhearted warlock who cultivated his dark powers and let the wild turn him into a Werekyrii in order to gain the upper hand against evil magic users that he spends most of his time hunting down in the Haunted Woods. He's an old associate of Isengrim's, and while at first in Shadow Play he's grouchy and distrustful, Terra's family helps him understand that it's okay to have friends, and while it's noble to put other people first, it's also important to take care of yourself so you can be there for the people who need you.

Zoltan has absorbed so much darkness magic that it quite literally flows through his veins and causes glowy streaks in his skin and mane. Between his mastery of spellcasting and his excellent swordsmanship, he's not somebody you want to be up against in a fight. He's also a great example of how none of the Neopian magic elements are inherently good or evil; it's got everything to do with the intentions of the spellcaster (Skoll, for example, was a rather nasty earth mage). 

Also, he's surprisingly good at embroidery; the designs on his cloak and vest are his handiwork. It's not just for fun, though--the designs are actually protective spells, which he uses in lieu of armor. Zoltan was a fun character to develop and I enjoy writing him when he pops up on occasion.

 

Another old sketch, some humans in Neopets wardrobe items. (I wish the Space Grundo outfit looked that good on Hyren, but his site artwork makes him so stubby.)

Some old Pokémon illustrations. I maaaaay have submitted something (not one of these) to the Pokémon TCG illustration contest last year. Would be cool if I placed. I guess we'll see when they announce the results later this year.

 

Here are some old sketches of anthro Neopets wearing customization items from the website.

I will be completely honest, I feel like the idea of allowing you to dress up your Neopets sounded fun on paper, and the old site artists came up with some really lovely clothing items (as evidenced here), but I think a lot of the clothes just didn't translate well into the fact that on the website, owned Neopets have much more animal-like physiologies than many canon characters. As a result, wardrobe pieces that would look really good on something shaped more like a human just come across as a bit doofy on, say, a stubby-legged quadruped or a cartoony-proportioned dinosaur.

For example, back when I still played the website, it annoyed me that the real(?) Blynn's pose had her sitting on her haunches, so any tops, pants, or skirts I put on her made her look squat and fat, when Zafaras are actually quite svelte. Clothes looked just as bad on Hyren, and it didn't help that the new Grundo artwork gives them even shorter torsos than before, when I consistently imagine Grundos looking like Gorix from the Return of Dr. Sloth plot. There's a huge discrepancy between how Neopets are portrayed in canon material and the graphics used for user-generated Neopets, and you can't just slap clothes on the latter and assume it'll come across the same as the former. 

I just feel like overhauling the pet graphics and introducing a dress-up system was unnecessary, somewhat devalued painted pets who used to have unique (i.e. non-palette-swap) artwork, and in many cases actually made the species designs less appealing (cough Zafaras and Grundos cough). Unfortunately, it was a decision probably made by the fact that offering wardrobe items for real money would likely be a great source of revenue, because plenty of site players aren't as pedantic about design as I am and just want to stick some shiny clothes on their virtual pet.

I mean, it worked, and that's where most of Neopets's revenue has likely been coming from since they introduced pet customization, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

At least it's better than (shudder) NFTs.

/opinionated rant

Character design for a story idea I've been tinkering with. Cyberpunk kitsune because why not?