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Why
the hell bother using gif2ansi?
by dangermouse (1st
January, 1999)
 Does
the picture to the right look familiar? This is, in fact,
a picture by Aoh that many of you may or may not have seen.
It is a half-drawn picture, one side has been cleaned up
whilst the other remains unconverted. (This is not the actual
picture but a comparison) Yes, I said 'unconverted'. Yes
the shit has hit the fan, it seems Aoh used gif2ansi to
convert a gif into an ANSI file.
To some,
this may be old news. But the fact still remains why the
hell anyone would risk using such a tool when it is widely
known that the scene has bitter feelings towards anyone
that uses the program. This article is not going to lean
towards any one opinion on the matter of gif2ansi, but rather
why an artist would want to use the tool in the first place.
I guess
the whole gif2ansi taboo started when Sudden Death was accused
of using the program earlier this year, but I wouldn't be
wrong in saying that the topic has cropped up before. The
Extremist came out saying that Sudden Death
used the program on his site 'Operation Rescue', displaying
so called proof of the fact. But even then people took their
sides, and rightly so. It wasn't until an issue of Gutter,
when Sudden Death admitted to using gif2ansi, that the possibility
that others could also be using it came up.
Now
this is the topic of the month, and has also been a raging
discussion on acheron in the month of December. Should an
artist who uses gif2ansi be labeled a ripper? Or even further,
should such an artist be frowned upon? Some say that yes,
they should walk the plank, whilst others say that they
shouldn't be shunned at all.
An artist
who uses gif2ansi. It still is a tricky matter. Ok, let's
look at it this way. A photo-manipulation artist takes a
photo that himself or even someone else has taken, and manipulates
to form his/her own artwork. Does an ANSI artist who takes
a gif and converts it to ANSI and then touches it up and
adds their own personality to the picture, fit into the
same field? Looking at it in a two-dimensional light, one
would say that yes, they are pretty much the same. I don't
think anyone has said that photo-manipulation artists should
be thrown out of the scene (even though still hirez artists
detest photo-manipulation artists -- but that is personal
opinion).
The
fact of the matter is that a lot of it is personal opinion.
Whether or not an artist starts a picture from scratch or
gets a little help from gif2ansi, there is still some skill
involved, although the skill to create a picture from scratch
must be seen as being considerably more. But even then,
saying that, I am treading on shaky ground. I can't say
that I can say the same thing of hirez airbrushers and photo-manipulation
artists.
If we
examine the word 'ripper' for a minute we also may shed
some light on this topic. Ripper, to me, means that an artist
has taken another's work and copied it pixel for pixel,
block for block. Calling someone who uses others photos
to form their own art in the hirez world is pretty much
the norm. Someone in the ANSI scene who uses another's photo
or piece art as a basis for the their own is labeled a ripper.
I think
this kind a mentality stems from one thing. Is pretty hard
to tell who uses gif2ansi and who doesn't. Someone in the
hirez would using another's photo is pretty obvious. If
someone sees a great ANSI and says "wow!" and
bases all of their inspiration on this artist for their
own work, and then later finds out that this person in fact
did not fully create the picture, they fell justifiably
cheated.
What
needs to be taking place within the scene, and something
which I'm sure will not happen overnight, is that artists
who use this gif2ansi program need to say as much when they
release their pictures to the public. If this happens or
not will remain to be seen, as many artists still find the
use of gif2ansi a taboo subject.
By simply
having a line saying:
"This
piece of artwork is based on the original artwork of someone,
by using the program gif2ansi"
or
"I
have used gif2ansi on this piece of artwork, and have manipulated
the original picture to my own liking"
or
"The
original creator of this artwork is someone. I have merely
captured it and styled it to my own liking"
Even
by saying this, I can see a certain reluctance to even say
to myself that using gif2ansi is an okay thing to do. In
a perfect world, gif2ansi would not exist, but it does.
If you're an artist who uses this product to help to create
your ANSIs, and are too chicken shit to come out say so
then you mustn't have much of a brain -- people take you
for granted, and yes, people probably look up to you.
People
are praising you for your artwork, your amazing outlining
skills. All along you know you can only touch up and shade,
but you still do not acknowledge the real source of your
talent. If you use gif2ansi, say so on your ANSIs, if you
don't, even better. If you cannot come to grips with the
fact that you 'cheat' as so many people put it, then perhaps
you don't belong in the scene anyway..
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Discussion
Topic this month:
I know this has been a heated discussion of recent times,
but let's revisit it! :) Ok, lets discuss it in the context
of this month's article. If people use gif2ansi should they
say they did? Or should they even be using the program in
the first place?
>> discussions
(ANSI Discussion)
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