Angles

This week, I was fascinated by the online trend of the “Frieren Angle”. An artist online asked for tips on drawing an anime character named “Frieren” looking towards the sky with her chin pointed out. Initially, people were making fun of the original drawing and the position of their anatomy.

I have to admit, its’s very brave for inexperienced artists to seek out advice online and post their drawings for the world to see. Instead of facing ridicule for their unconventional drawing style, many other artists online took to helping the original poster learn how to draw faces from that perspective. Hundreds upon hundreds of entries of the “Frieren Angle” flooded the web, offering other takes on tackling the low angle of a face.

Before long, the seedling of a tiny post discussing art anatomy advice spurred an entire movement of different artists collaborating, sharing ideas, and building their own communities with the shared interest of drawing the “Frieren Angle” to their best talents.

No two artists replicated the exact same piece, but that was part of the beauty of it all. Similarly to how the Junction Journal’s many writers have all shown off their rapidly different but equally compelling styles of writing, the Angle challenge brought together flesh and blood artists in a way like never before.

Flesh and blood? That’s a little morbid, Nicky.

Well, I didn’t mean it in the horror movie slasher way, excuse you!

In an online landscape dominated by thousands, maybe millions of AI generated images circulating around the web, stealing from artists without properly accrediting them, human artists have felt insecure about an uncertain future involving creativity.

Generative AI is extremely powerful, able to work much faster than a human in many regards, while at the same time devouring extravagant amounts of water and electricity to power servers. Artists have felt less needed, less noticed, less seen with the amount of human work being substituted by prompts typed into image generators.

Fortunately, with the “Frieren Angle” challenge, artists from all branches of the internet have been making money from commissions, making their portfolios better known, and even encouraging newer, less experienced creators to try their own hand at picking up a pen and trying to sculpt a face through the page themselves.

Who could have anticipated this from a simple, silly post of Frieren looking up into the sky? It has spread into multiple branches adding onto the tree of authentic human creativity.

Perhaps after this exam period and finals have come to pass, I’ll try my own hand at this challenge. I’ve never seen the show where she’s from nor have I ever drawn her. I don’t expect it to be perfect, and I’m sure many people have had the same experience. But what I do know is that just by taking the time to pick up a pen and messily scribble out an impression of her face, I’d have united with others who aren’t going to let the future be completely dominated by soulless machines that think for us.