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THIS IS COPY/PASTED FROM MY DEVIANTART JOURNAL:

If you are familiar with my presence online, i.e. my gallery here on DeviantArt and my Twitter feed, then it should be of no surprise to you that I am a fan of the cartoon series Daria. I quote the show all the time on Twitter and in real life and can do a startlingly accurate Sandi Griffin impression impression for a dude. It's a show that I find to be more clever than your average cartoon and it has a level of sarcasm and dark humour that is also a rare find. It's one of those television shows I find I can put on for a day long marathon and not get bored and still laugh at certain jokes even though I've heard them all before.

Well, my interest in producing Daria based fan art turned into my "latest thing" in 2011. I had found quite a fun source of artistic inspiration in the creating of Daria character alter-egos. If you have not seen the show, over the end credits they display the characters in a variety of "costumes." Here is a sample on the YouTubes: [link] The alter egos shown during the end credits can be a crossover into anything. They can be as simple as dressing Brittany as a surgeon to performing straight up film parodies such as Daria as the Barbarella poster. I was always amused by this idea. Daria characters as ANYTHING. It looked like it could be fun.

The main appeal for wanting to try out creating Daria Alter egos of my own is twofold. First: there are typically no backgrounds. If you've seen my gallery, then you know I have no talent for them. All the Daria alter-egos require is a solid colour. Easy. Second: The characters in the actual end credits for the most part simply look as though they are posing for a photo shoot, in other words, no action scenes or crazy camera angles; it's all look at the camera and smile stuff. Most of the time my figure drawing tends to look rather overly posed and stiff, and these alter-egos WANT to look that way. It's how they are SUPPOSED to look. These are two big wins for me to be able to produce them. It also doesn't hurt that my own inking style tends to be on the thick side, which is in sync with the canon Daria art style.

I had already drawn four alter-egos by the time I got my DeviantArt account, and they were the first things I uploaded to my gallery. They got a comment, maybe two. Nothing of note happened. Then I drew Mr. O'Neill as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It was weeks before he got any faves. Months before a comment. But then I drew Jane Lane as Coraline Jones, and she got noticed. Five comments in three days (I felt like John Grisham) and the Jane Lane Fan Club solicited me to add her to their gallery. A club was asking me?? What? It wasn't long after that when I realised I ought to list and link my all of my alter-egos in each description so that people who may have found one Daria pic by accident would know there was more without having to search for it. That's when I noticed that my Daria alter-ego series was BY FAR my most popular art stuff on DeviantArt. My most popular pic in my whole gallery is still Jane Lane as Coraline Jones with Daria as Clark Kent second. My most popular NON-Daria art is an evil comic book villain likeness of an online friend and it has only a FRACTION of the views of my Daria art.

The steady views and frequent comments (pretty much ALL PRAISE, oh my ego) inspired me to keep the series going strong. They are fun to create, but it feels even better knowing people actually LIKE what you're putting out there. I have made one to two alter-egos per month in 2011 and it was some of the most fun I've had creating fan art ever. I was having fun, and I'm getting positive feedback, yes sir, this is as good as it gets.

Or so I thought.

I had NO IDEA there was a hugely active Daria fan community out there. I had even LESS idea that these fans had been showing around and talking up my Daria Alter-Ego series for MONTHS. So, imagine my surprise when I get a comment on my DeviantArt profile informing me that I had been NOMINATED FOR AWARDS. The Daria fans all got together and decided they liked my pics so much they nominated me for their 2011 fan art awards. WUT?

Now, people who know me know that I am a bit of a whore. I like to draw stuff and I like it when people look at it. I post links to Twitter when I have uploaded something to my DeviantArt gallery and I am a member of a forum where I have an art thread that begs people to look upon my arty offerings. AND YET these Daria fans found my art ON THEIR OWN without me having to unceremoniously shove in their collective faces and shout at them to look at PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. It just feels good, is all. They found it and checked it out without my having to ask; and then they showed it to their friends. And then they nominated it for awards. And then I was so grateful that I joined their online community that I didn't even know existed until they decided to tell me they might give me an award.

The voting for the 2011 Daria Fan Art Awards is over. My pictures didn't win any awards, but that's okay. I didn't even know they COULD win awards. The other art nominated was lovely and there was that one pic that I knew no one could beat. I was simply so honoured to be nominated. I know that sounds cheesy and cliched to say, but it really is true. How often do people I don't know put me in the running for art awards? Let's go with NEVER, so being nominated alone shot me over the moon.

My pretty pictures may not have won any fan art awards, but, well, I myself did. Yes, not only were my pics nominated, but so was I for "Best New Artist" and I freaking WON. How that happened, I haven't a clue, but WOW.

I AM THE NEW DARIA FAN ARTIST OF THE YEAR FOR 2011, SO THERE.

I learned of this about three hours ago and I STILL haven't gotten over it. I'm just so... wow. I can't even. srsly.

I want to say also how welcoming the Daria fan community have been since I joined their forum. They are a bunch of cool people who are really nice and talk about other things besides Daria as well and will be nice to you if you are nice to them. If you like Daria and talking to cool people about Daria (and other world events, too) you should really join: [link]

I do plan on continuing my alter-ego series, and since they've given me this HUGE boost in confidence, I think I MAY take on this CRAZY Daria fan art project I've had rolling around in my mind. I just hope I can get it to work. If I can, it'll be freaking EPIC.

Once more: THANK YOU, DARIA FANS!

Cheers,

William the Bloody

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