I have a wicked sense of humor, and particularly when I’m feeling downtrodden or angry at the subpar condition of the world, it might unleash itself with gleeful wrath. Recently I got a little fed up with the ascendancy and ubiquity of rather generic “fan art,” and its success drowning out most other kinds of submissions in online venues like DeviantArt, thus making it impossible for artists to get seen or have any hopes of selling their work. I decided to take matters into my own hands (or if not “matters” at least a drawing tablet), and lash out with funny fury at the fan art mentality, by making my own inferior brew of fan art. Over the course of a couple weeks I created 11 pieces, all deliberately horrendous in terms of anatomy, perspective, seemingly incidental unfortunate flaws, and other aesthetic barbarities. There were a few days where I was laughing so hard my stomach muscles got sore. Much later I even made 2 more.
Here I humbly submit them for your enjoyment.
I’ve never even seen this movie, but it pisses me off (sorry) because of all the goddamn, godforsaken, Pirates-fan-art I’ve had to slog through. I’m also a little bothered that the dude is wearing so much mascara, or whatever it is. So I really accentuated that and tried to make him look as ugly and stupid as possible. Note: Liked Johnny Depp in “Rum Diaries” (nothing against the actor, personally).
Next victim:
I don’t even know who this dude is. Some blond ninja. I just got familiar with him through countless fan art renditions of him. Do generic fan art of Naruto and find yourself a demigod of art. I made this as cruelly distorted as possible. This is one sad-sack ninja! Make it ugly, and uglier, was my motto. The following are excerpts from critique/comments I received on DeivantArt. Quotes from others will be set off in “blockqoutes”, and separated by author with a line.
wow! not even my dog could do this
A stunning realization of one of the most captivating animated series ever produced. Eric Kuns manages to perfectly capture the true meaning and feeling of what Naruto means to not only himself, but to millions of fans around the world. The depth presented in the character in the foreground perfectly compliments the striking motion of Naruto. The contrast between facial expressions also helps phone home the immense amount of thought and detail laid into this piece…
If Naruto is Japanese for “stinking wobbly pile of horse shit”, then this is a faithful representation of the subject.
Of course I know who Bruce is, and I’m rather a fan of his high-speed Kung Fu. The subject of the fan art isn’t a problem here. I had fun exaggerating the scratches and blood one sees in his most famous portraits. There is also a joke about the semblance of his hair cut to that of Spock, or vice versa, depending on how you look at it.
Bruce and Spock all rolled into one, kickass, spaghetti sauce drippin’ package. I wasn’t aware, though, that his left leg suffered from malnutrition, that his left bicep was actually a 70 year old scrotum, and his right hand was attached to his arm the wrong way round.
Jimi Hendrix
Hendrix was an incredible musician, so I’m not having a go at him per se, but rather at the myriad of rather racist depictions/caricatures of him that keep cropping up. Hasn’t anyone realized that grotesquely exaggerating his lips plays into the tradition of “black face” and classic racist depictions of blacks? Man did I butcher that guitar. It looks like some sort of “floaty” for wading in the pool. Despite my best/worst efforts, this one has some merit and the music bellowing out of the neck of the guitar captures some of the quality of his out-of-bounds solos. The camel shadow is purely incidental.
Oooooh, it’s a guitar! Sorry, I thought it was a wobbly, pink, pizza topping spewing, rainbow coloured squiggly shit generator. Oh, that’s an afro! Sorry, I thought someone had dropped some steel wool into a bucket of purple dye. Also, it’s well known that Hendrix was left handed, it’s not so well known that he played using a pile of dog shit wearing a pink thimble as a substitute for his right hand. It’s safe to say I’ll never look at Jimi in the same way again.
Spidey is often drawn in these really exaggerated foreshortened poses, usually with extended hands shooting webbing, and the unfortunate necessity of artists to render his crotch area. You know, I really had to work at butchering the anatomy here. I had to draw and redraw the muscles to get them just wrong. Finally I started inventing muscles and allocating blobs of meat where there aren’t any, and putting them on the wrong sides of his joints (i.e., twin bulbous biceps below the elbow). His right leg was intended to flop away like the tail of a kite, and the incidental placement of his left foot is really deliberately unfortunate because it looks like a big Spidey priapus. Note that this piece has gotten several reviews, including serious ones and ones that are hilariously vicious. Below are a few excerpts of the critiques it’s received:
You have been getting everything wrong because you are starting in an area which requires extensive knowledge to get right – muscles.
It looks like he has butts sticking out of his armpits. I don’t even recognize any feet. All I see is a floppy tail and a red penis.
There are no redeeming qualities from this artwork, there is nothing to teach or learn. The only thing that should be learned that trash like this should be burned and forgotten…
The muscle structure is completely blobberific, it looks like a gumball truck which collided with a used prophylactic stuffed full of walnuts, and finally came to rest in a heap of oversized potatoes…
… this really makes an impression, in the same way that a lump of dog shit leaves an impression on a goatskin rug.
I’m kinda’ OK with Arnoldo, mostly because of the those Terminator movies. He did once really piss me off because of a very persuasive speech endorsing Bush, in which he repeatedly hammered away with, “If you (insert perfectly reasonable sounding characteristic here): you are a Republican!” Anyway, a great opportunity for me to butcher more muscles, put a thumb on backwards, and give him a little, teenie, tiny hand in addition to one as big as his head.
I am so confused… does he only have one pec? Are you sure you aren’t cross-eyed? Is this abstract?
dud ur wrk is ttly awsme, sry did i say awsme i mean shit.
Never seen the Disney version, but have seen plenty of “Ariels” on DeviantArt. Among other clever innovations in making her a ugly as possible, I made the fish scales going the wrong way and continuing on up past her waste to cover her whole body, and her nostrils are innovatively on the outside of her nose (prompting one of my critics to describe it as a two-eyed trouser snake). I believe the crab may be doing something inappropriate to Ariel with one of his pincer claws. Can you blame him? Er, yeah, probably.
Hey, Eric, are you sure you haven’t lost your mind?!
Her eyes are like diseased coral adrift in misshapen pools of seawater, which have been flooded with raw sewage. And BTW is that a nose, a two eyed trouser snake, or a salt shaker with double vision? Either way, it’s an abomination.
Not particularly a fan of Marilyn either, though I’m interested in the tragedy revolving around her personal life towards its premature end. She’s beautiful, sure, whatever. I don’t care. In making this I noticed that the more I tried to do everything wrong, the more it looked like Picasso. But I wasn’t trying to make it look like Picasso, I was just trying to get everything wrong. And this process made me wonder if Picasso wasn’t sometimes just trying to see what he could get away with, and laughing his ass off.
Holy shit! Her right nostril has migrated to her cheek!
Yep, looks like her for sure, maybe two months after she died.
These game figures are enormously popular (not mine, but the originals), but I couldn’t care less about them. I just went about inventing new ways to get everything wrong, nimbly taking cues from children’s art and Picasso. You can see things like the socks from two distinct angles: the top of one sock will be as if looking down into it, and the other will be as if looking at the side. Appendages and features are moved and rearranged drastically (Amy’s nose is definitely on the side of her mouth and not above it!), and the hands are rendered as if I didn’t know what hands or fingers were and just used them as design elements. I also cleverly put the joined eyes in front of the character’s muzzles instead of behind them. In the end this became almost a beautiful abstract composition.
cocaine is a hell of a drug
Drugs.
Zomg….I dont mean to be a dick,but it looks like they just got raped up the but…
I used some of the same techniques I developed on Arnold, Spiderman, and Marilyn to transform Superman into a grotesque mutation and mockery of him. Note that the placement of the airplane and cloud make Superman impossibly large.
Why am I attracted to this :stare:
Superman by EricKuns is yet another classic rendering of a great superhero. Sure, the anatomy isn’t perfect, I mean unless you call a bunch of grapes fighting to escape a giant blue condom “perfection”. The anatomy is spot off, and those hands! Wow. Just wow. I love the red corrugated iron sticking out the back of his neck, too.
The thumb is especially beautiful.
this is craptacular how is super man is bigger than than the plane?i think you may need glasses.
Oh my God!! This is so realistic. I especially like the true-to-life depiction of his clenched fist and his 32948729387-pack abs.
Your process worked so well! It really does look like a real fist. Plus the scale of the airplane is amazing. It looks huge.
Gollum
The last in the series. This one was quite difficult because he’s already a monstrosity, so it was challenging to keep it recognizably him while further mutating him, while also making it look like a plausibly serious work. Please notice the Escher-esque perspectival mishap with his left hand, that is both behind and in front of his left leg. It might escape the casual viewer at first, but he could get the ring past his wrist and up over his elbow it’s so big. Below are excerpts from comments. Nobody made a critique yet.
Looks he traded his foot with an elephant and let his hair grow.
More like a sunburnt ostrich :lick:
YTF are his nostrils on the outside of his nose? And exactly why have you made his right foot look like a malformed parsnip?
Not to mention the completely misaligned eyes on the foul beast!
I thought that was where he was clawing his way through the snotwork platform, and his fingers left impressions in the snot. My bad.
Around a year later a friend suggested I make a new grotesquerie, and Lady Gaga in particular. Usually I’m not too keen on other people’s ideas, and prefer to follow my own internal compas, but in this instance I was happy to comply.
Lady Gaga
Once again, I have nothing against the subject, Lady Gaga, and as far as Pop music goes, I like her’s better than most. Her left leg is much smaller than the left and has two backs of the knees. See how many horribly flaws you can find.
Wow! I love the way you captured what she looks like. I mean, this is just spot on! It’s almost like you just took a photograph of her. Great job!
I think this is the best depiction of her.
And I’m not being sarcastic.
And finally, my crowning achievement, though this one is more of a caricature than bad fan art:
Miley Cyrus Twerking
I can’t remember what possessed me to make this. I even made a video of it, which came out really weird and otherworldly. let’s see what some of the choice comments were:
….I would still hit dat then the real life one…
god damn this is so horrible but i love it so much ha
And there you have my fan art abominations. ~ Ends
And I just made a calendar for them!
Lady Gaga is my fave of the collection, and I think you are probably correct about Picasso’s inside joke! More, more more!!!!
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You remind me of how Bad Art makes a hash of a genuine attempt at doing something well. By contrast, there’s a lot of good points in your attempts at doing these badly. I especially appreciate your use of layering to get the grad backgrounds. The multi-brushed outlines filled-in with softer colours work quite well also, as do the highlights / shadows – meanwhile, the deliberate anatomical errors are well-proportioned and balanced. I wonder if there’s scope for us to suggest a new art category here? Good Bad Art? Would-be Bad Art? Any offers?
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Yeah, you nailed it. I had a problem making something genuinely ugly. For example, I could make all sorts of errors, but I couldn’t stand using bad colors. Anyway, Zazzle bounced my calendar for copyright infringement. Apparently one in particular was the problem, but I have no idea which one. Which looks all too much like the original?
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