A rant about flocks of gaudy peacocks

[ASC6000]

and could we get rid of the wavy checkered flag pa leez, iv'e seen some covering half the body ... bleh

[Coelacanth]

and could we get rid of the wavy checkered flag pa leez, iv'e seen some covering half the body ... bleh

Yeah, that's a good one. Another item that's really getting old is people painting the front headlights (and even taillights) of onroad bodies to look like angry squint-eyes.

[Eau Rouge]

Don't get me started...

[scr8p]

Don't get me started...

poke.... poke............... poke ......... poke.. poke........

[Coelacanth]

Don't get me started...

C'mon, please do, Doug...that's the purpose of this thread!

[Charlie don't surf]

Don't get me started...

poke.... poke............... poke ......... poke.. poke........

I have a can of motor spray and a lighter if you need help starting the fire

[Eau Rouge]

I'll leave it at this...

A few years ago, I started a thread on the "Painters" forum of RCtech. It was in response to the lack of creativity of many top shelf painters out there who have no new ideas, but a lot of talent. I don't care what the customer asks for, that's not what sells your work. I wanted to see true deep thought, creative painting and really something different.

I threw down the gauntlet, and proposed a contest. Any painter that wanted to take the challenge was eligible. The concept was to do something only using TWO colors. Fades were fine. Window trim, vents, grilles and other details didn't count as your colors. TWO paint colors. No vinyl, no wraps, no decals. That's all. Do something that actually requires some thought and creativity to be really cool.

The results were terrible. No one could do anything interesting. Everyone complained and whined that they couldn't use three colors. The best work was someone who did a detailed black and white mural on the hood of a touring car, but completely ignored the rest of the body, leaving it white. It took talent but no thought and zero creativity. And in the end, it didn't even really look good on the body. It was the winner by default, because everything else sucked. And these were the "best" that RCtech had to offer.

I never went back to that ego-stroking forum there ever again.




I think there might be FIVE painters in the world doing RC stuff that are talented, creative, innovative, and setting their own trends. Maybe not even 5. Most of the guys out there are doing rip-offs of things that were done 25 years ago or last year. Most of them paint the same old cliches over and over again, because that's all they know how to do.




Painting and art isn't just about the technical ability to wield an airbrush or a hobby knife. Most R/C painters can't grasp that concept.

[Charlie don't surf]

I will agree about creativity vs technical ability 100%. But, we need to take into account that 99.9% of the population are sheep in 99.9% of their ways.

I do think that there are trendsetters ( although I can't tell you who they might be now ) and then just people regurgitating the process with small variations to make it "theirs"

[Coelacanth]

Painting and art isn't just about the technical ability to wield an airbrush or a hobby knife. Most R/C painters can't grasp that concept.

That was well-written and this I think pretty much says it all. Liquid mask, cheap & affordable airbrushes, etc. have made it all the easier to showcase complex paint techniques. The talent showcased on forums like RCTech is immediately evident, but even more prominent is the lack of originality & creativity.

Interestingly, the exact same thing happened when the hobby of modding computers became popular and trendy in the mid 2000's. I first discovered this practice of modding "the boring beige box" in 2002, as a result of needing to cut fan holes in my cases to improve airflow for overclocking. I happened upon a new website (at the time) dedicated to this new hobby of cutting up, painting, lighting up boring beige boxes, www. pimprig.com (now long-gone). There were only a handful of people doing it at the time, and it was all old-school. You wanted a window to show off your tight wiring and hardware, you had to cut it out yourself, install an acrylic sheet, etc. You wanted lighting inside your computer, you had to wire your own LED arrays. Computers that were any color but beige were unheard of back then; this was before companies like Dell and Compaq got ballsy, went out on a limb and produced BLACK COMPUTERS.

For a year or so, the beginning of the surging trend saw a good number of people take to the hobby the "old school way", and it was amazing how original and creative people were. Then, computer modding became a full-on trend, and that's when things went to sh!t.

By 2005, tons of people were "modding" computers; by that, I mean they wanted to buy & install lighting kits, colored cabling, windowed computer cases, lighted fans, cases already manufactured with colors, etc...in other words, it wasn't really modding anymore, and all the old-schoolers criticized all these computers as "pre-mod crap". The manufacturers saw a market and mass-produced many of the things we did by hand. Computer case makers, and to a lesser extent the big names: HP, Dell, Compaq, etc. all began making computers in black and other colors, with windows, with blue LEDs (also unheard-of in the early 2000's), fluorescent colored lighting, etc.

The main point of this is once something becomes too popular and mainstream, and it gets so much easier to do something, creativity and originality often suffers.

[LTO_Dave]

I think there might be FIVE painters in the world doing RC stuff that are talented, creative, innovative, and setting their own trends. Maybe not even 5.

I hope you consider yourself a member of that elite group. Your work is above and beyond anything I've seen out there.

[scr8p]

and then just people regurgitating the process with small variations to make it "theirs"

that's where i roll..........

[Lowgear]

Coelacanth, you brought back a bunch of memories for me. I started overclocking and case modding in late 1999 when I was at college. I wasn't into partying, drinking, drugs etc... so thats when I discovered it.

[Mindwarp]

How's this for case modding?
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/19/tron-lightcycle-case-mod-is-totally-awesome-100-percent-3d/

[littleVETTE]

don't let me get started about skins on radios and chargers...

[RichieRich]

don't let me get started about skins on radios and chargers...

Right? It's like everything has gone douche.