I like the way you think. "post old crap to make some sort of illusion of activity"

Cool work

A witch! Burn 'im!

was this back in the "he who must not be named" days?

<Checks the filename dates.>

Uhh, close enought - 6 months after the last one. No stinking color already. :)
But I'll post something from back then sometime.

yay!

Above comment has me curious.

Glad to see you around :) You've been scarce. I've been wondering.

All those harsh lines of the people in the background really add to that angry mob feeling.

This makes me want to cry.

love the rigid linework

I can relate a bit, and wonderful job with the shadow, and the faces :] I'm really curious as to who the writer is that you mentioned.

I've been looking at the strange being at the centre of this image, and wondering: if it were isolated against a dark background, or placed in a different context, would I recognize fear on its face? Or would I see something else -- malevolence? Evil? A completely alien personality?

If the same being were presented to me in different circumstances, would I be less afraid for it, and more afraid of it?

In other words... how much do I have in common with these accusers?





Mark

It's alien. Animals are alien too. Just how much emotion can you read while looking at a cow's face? There's a limit to how much people can understand without relating, especially once stereotypes and preconceptions come into play. Sometimes people just don't try, because they don't have to - it's more convenient getting rid of the problem, than trying to understand it.

If you'd look at it in a different context, you wouldn't clearly understand what the being is about, because it's somewhat ambiguous - you only see a wide open eye and partially open mouth (and a hint of a lifted eyebrow, which is pictorial cheating on my part), those can mean different things, depending on movement, gesture, sound... In a context we can imagine how it would move or react, but without it... You would prolly see what your preconceptions would tell you it is, which might be - "run, just in case" - it does have nasty teeth, it's not what you're familliar with and it's ugly, it can't be good.

Gotta love finals.

Love the energy in this piece - heck, in all of your work. Capturing motion and energy is quite a skill to have, here it has the added weight of the emotion.

This genuinely makes me uncomfortable. Excellent!

People talk about the wisdom of crowds sometimes, but there's a kind of enforced ignorance there also, that can have brutal consequences if it gets out of hand.

I've had more confidence in myself as I've gotten older, but I still don't consider myself a social person.

This picture really captures its theme in a striking way.

I have to admit - this is the first time I hear about "wisdom of crowds". And I'm having a really hard time trying to imagine it... I can imagine how several people could have a productive discussion, but that's a bunch of personalities, not a crowd. A crowd is an emotional mess lead by a few loudmouths, people don't think in a crowd, they give in to the illusion of unity and do what the crowd does, because many people can't be wrong, right? A wise crowd is just something I can't imagine.

Actually there is scientific evidence that groups of people are more likely to arrive at correct answers. Of course, this assumes that they're starting with correct data...the "wisdom of crowds" idea is also often used by pseudoscience to justify a lot of nonsense.

There's also the recent investigation of "dialectical bootstrapping", which I think is kind of cool.

(a summary)

Wow cool so Humans are like bees when they get together in swarms?
I didn't know hive intelligence worked with Humans. Any other mammals? This intrigues me. Well I guess Sperm Whales, Dolphins, Orca Whales use swarm intelligence.
And I like pseudoscience. My favorites are String Theory and Chaos Theory. Like a plate o' shrimp. <--(that one you'll understand if you've seen the movie Repo Man. I recommend it if you're interested in pseudoscience

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087995/

It also has a cool 80's punk sound track.

Does the inability to grasp what constitutes normal by default make one abnormal? Feels like...some sort of abstract averaging of arbitrary things. Seems ridiculously complex for something that's usually more on the subconscious side of things. See already it makes little sense. Or that's just me. Eh.

This makes me curious though...

That's the thing really... Nobody's normal. Normality is an abstract ideal held by a crowd, social group, society, culture, whatever. It's context dependent - what could be normal in one society, could be unthinkable in another. Imho, the very notion of normality is just plain silly, it can exist only in a limited, narrow, naive mind.

Sometimes a person who's "normal" in the context he's used to can end up in a context where everyone else view him as abnormal, even hated. A homosexual in the company of neo-nazi skinheads, for instance, would prolly be in a very similar situation to this one. I think people usually experience something of this sort atleast once in their lifetime.

I feel the same way in crowds. I'm an introvert with a convincing extrovert coat of paint.

Crowd psychology and behaviour is dangerous, hence why mass media is such a powerful weapon these days. Even despite that, crowds unsettle me like hell. XD

stigmata said it well.

This is really very pleasing. The crowd look really vicious and bestial.

This is.... wow.... just perfect!

I feel like this a lot. I'm constantly surrounded by people high on Jesus that don't understand why I don't want to join up. It's exceptionally lonely, even amongst "friends." Especially when you know they think you deserve to go to Hell but pretend they like you anyway. *sigh*

Oh god I know I hate that feeling. I get all nervous and twitchy and feel really violent and defensive. Some times it's kind of difficult to keep myself from lashing out and socking someone in the face.
Usually it's at places that are over crowed with annoying people that make me want to murder them with my bare hands.
Like Disneyland or a punk concert with too many fucking drunks.

Awesome picture!
*faves*

Let me just say that this looks absolutly amazing!

Awww, he looks so distressed!

I don't know the context, but with that feather quill, it reads quite clearly that this character is a writer: a valuable fact the mob is ignoring.
Great job capturing a most unpleasant concept, here.