I'm a bit of an oddity, maybe. I was never really very good at drawing and my schooling when it comes to Art has been, for the most part, abysmal. Yet here I am with a Fine Art degree and no idea how I managed to achieve it. Especially considering I was drunk off my ass for most of it.
Prior to my Art education, my great passion was Fantasy Art. To my dismay, I discovered that it's anathema to a lot of the Art academicians; and don't even dare to breath Salvador Dali's name. Over the five years of my Art education, I had Fantasy Art practically beaten out of me. If I could debate worth a damn I'm sure I'd have done better at convincing my tutors that it shouldn't be so readily dismissed, but I suck at debating, so I just banged heads with them a lot, lol.
While I gained a greater appreciation for High Art -and also learned that it's a very bad idea to view a Barnett Newman exhibiton while severely hungover- I don't feel I became a better artist. I wasn't any better at drawing, and when it came to painting you were pretty much left to your own devices. So any aspirations I had of learning how to draw and paint in a more realistic style were left more splattered than a Jackson Pollock.
That was many years ago, and in the meanwhile I've done very little creatively. Oh sure, I've been messing around with Photoshop on and off or the last few years, but most of that stuff is closer to Graphic Design than Art. So when I found out about the Daz Studio giveaway, I was on it like stink on a monkey. And somehow, I've come full circle. I'm not saying that High Art can't be created with 3D software, but it does seem to have a definite appeal to the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Artist. Look in the galleries here or most of any other 3D site, and it will turn up somewhere.
Now while I may not be a capable debater, the one thing that I did point out to my tutors was that Fantasy Art gave instant gratification. You don't need to study every little detail to further your understanding of a Fantasy Art image. Nor do you need to do Art History or any other kind of Art degree so that you have the slightest inkling of what the artist is trying to communicate. There's a wonderful feeling of emotion contained in a lot of Fantasy Art, and the response it brings is immediate. Which is what I always liked about it. Obviously, you can embellish it with symbolism, and you can integrate more modern styles/techniques into it. But it's not absolutely necessary. And while its subject matter may be seen as little more than cliche by the academicians, it's accessible, which can't always be said for High Art.
So here I am, riding the cliche. Saatchi will never want to stump up large wads of cash for my work, but at least I'm doing something that brings me, and hopefully some of the people who view it, some pleasure. Which is all I've ever really wanted to do.