“It’s such a pity, being exposed to this kind of studio feels like having a piece of dog shit stuck in your throat. Whether you swallow it or spit it out, it’s twice as disgusting.
In her apartment in London, Leigh Louise was browsing the Fiverr store homepage while holding her little daughter who had just started to learn painting.
Ever since Lei was defeated by this mysterious online illustrator with a crushing advantage on the same theme, she has remembered the other person's store.
She occasionally goes to Detective Cat's homepage to take a look.
She was attracted by the latest bad review on Detective Cat's homepage today, and jumped to the online store called "Cheap but not bad" to take a look.
Lei only looked at the other party's store for a few seconds before shaking her head in disdain.
This store is already one of the leading studios on Fiverr, and the volume of orders it receives is huge.
Lei glanced at its store poster and already knew it.
This is an assembly line factory-style cheap illustration studio.
This kind of studio is also called the sweatshop model. After receiving the task, most of them are subcontracted to some cheap art students. Although the fee is not high, the profit margin is very considerable.
A lot of business is about creating an information gap.
For example, a simple painting charges ten dollars, but if it is subcontracted to an art student in Argentina, it may only cost five dollars, and if it is a poor student from Venezuela, it may only cost one dollar.
The middleman didn't have to do anything and made a net profit of nine dollars.
Most of the cheap painting studios on Fiverr have this model.
Of course, it doesn’t matter how good the painting is, but some works don’t require any technical content in the first place, and many people just buy a simple picture.
In fact, the contractors in these studios have enjoyed a better life than many mid-level painters in the past few years.
Although their charges are low, their business volume is very large. When there are many orders from all over the world every year, they can be counted in the unit of 10,000.
That translates to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
In recent years, the business has not been as good as before. The main reason is that it has been impacted by AI painting, and many low-end painting businesses have been diverted away by free AI.
However, at least today, AI cannot completely replace the work of low-end painters.
The simplest example is that AI may be able to understand what "Detective Conan" is, but when faced with complex instructions and task requirements such as "Detective Conan is kicking a ball with a dorayaki in one hand", the current amount of picture training is not enough. This allows independent AI painters to complete such work.
There is a reason why this kind of industry can survive, and there is nothing to ridicule about it.
But this studio is obviously a typical example of self-destruction.
It seems to be eyeing the recently popular detective cat, and is ready to take advantage of the popularity.
The poster on the store's homepage has been artificially replaced with a female cat peeing into a wine glass.
Next to the picture and text is a famous quote from the famous Austrian critic, Karl Kraus - some things are hip flasks, and some things are urinals. No matter how beautifully carved a urinal is, it cannot be placed on the table for drinking.
This sentence was originally a classic quote used by Karl Kraus to criticize the meaningless extravagance of "fin de siècle aesthetics". Sometimes it is also used to evaluate all meaningless beautiful things.
This "Cheap but not bad" studio is paired with extremely insulting posters, and the yin and yang meaning is very obvious.
In the art world, illustrators are most often described as taxi drivers who were once driven by their employers.
The concept of this studio directly treats illustration art as a portable urinal.
It is a satire that no matter how good the detective cat sketch is, it is meaningless because the online illustration itself is not recognized by the art market.
Even if the opponent carved flowers out of the urinal, he could not turn the urinal into a wine pot.
Since everyone is a urinal, instead of looking for a professional illustrator to create beautiful illustrations, it is better to draw them yourself.
Not to mention Gu Weijing, Lei, an illustrator, felt a little bored looking at the poster on the store.
"Don't you like that detective cat?"
The younger daughter heard the indignation in Lei's voice.
"But that doesn't stop me from admitting that the other person's realistic drawing of characters is better than mine. Being defeated by such a person is just sad, not embarrassing."
Lei's tone was filled with admiration and a bit of dissatisfaction. "Only online illustrators would spend so much time on comic characters. If the subject were changed, I believe I would still have a chance to defeat Detective Cat with dignity."
"But this kind of stuff is different... I have no respect for art. All I feel is disgust."
"That detective cat lady just let the other party say that?" The daughter stuck out her tongue as she looked at the poster.
"How can she deal with it? The art market really doesn't recognize online illustrations."
Lei looked helplessly into her daughter's eyes and shrugged:
"Show off your painting skills? People are deriding you as a fool who uses a urinal as a wine glass. They would care if your painting skills are better than his."
"This kind of guy is here to show off your popularity. The more you fight back, the happier the other party will be."
Lei handed the phone to her daughter and educated her.
"So, sometimes choice is more important than hard work. If this detective cat is an orthodox painter signed by a gallery, he will not encounter this kind of thing. Internet illustrators who have a good background and good paintings will encounter such doubts .And the lower you are as a painter, the more villains will dare to step on you."
…
Lei is right, facing this kind of thing is like facing a puddle of dog shit that fell on your shoes with your bare hands.
If you don't deal with it, it will stick to your feet.
If you deal with it, it will be even more disgusting.
Gu Weijing really didn't have any good way to deal with it.
Since this bad review came out, buyers on Fiverr have even proposed to terminate transactions in the past few days.
The price of Detective Cat is not too low on Fiverr. Many customers came over to make impulse purchases after watching the video.
Now it is said that his paintings are not worth the price and they want a refund, which is understandable.
Gu Weijing agreed readily.
What he is really worried about are the orders that have ended but have not yet been evaluated.
However, things suddenly unfolded today completely beyond his expectation.
Gu Weijing was originally chatting on his mobile phone.
It's already February, and school will start soon, and the chat groups in the school are becoming more and more bubbling.
When he was having lunch, he saw his classmates in the school discussing his Detective Cat account again.
He was already used to this.
[Mr. Hyperion] This is a super Internet celebrity who is very famous among teenagers.
The other party chose to shoot a short video with an art theme, and the ending was so gimmicky.
There is no gossip subject that arouses the curiosity of art students more than this.
Now Gu Weijing even sees others talking about him online, and he doesn't even feel the slightest sense of disobedience.
He scrolled up the chat history.
The first thing I saw was a colored pencil drawing modeled after my own work.
"What do you think of this painting I drew? Doesn't it sound like a detective cat? Unfortunately, it would be great if Mr. Hyperion could find me."
The first person to speak was Miss Ko Ko.
Just by hearing this name, you know that the other person is a native of Myanmar.
Koko is her full name.
In Myanmar's traditional culture, there is no concept of surnames. This leads to the daily identity registration and declaration process in Myanmar. In addition to your personal name, you must also fill in your father's name.
This is not because the government is supervising you, but simply because there are too many identical names and it is difficult to distinguish them.
Ms. Kou Kou's family background is also very good in the international class. Her father is a local military and political official. He has a charming and cheerful personality. He once sang "Love Story" at a school dance imitating a European and American singer wearing a golden super skirt.
The jade legs are shaking, which not only carries the risk of having a happy couple, but also makes many people's hearts swell.
Although her boyfriend changes frequently, it does not affect Kou Kou's charming charm, which makes her still very popular among boys.
Usually no one would object to what she said, and the boys naturally spoke enthusiastically.
Gu Weijing also sent an emoticon of approval.
"The painting is good, and it looks decent."
Although from his point of view, there are many distortions in the other's works, not to mention compared with himself or Sakai Katsuko, even Sakai Tsunamasa is far behind.
It's just an entry-level level at L2, and at most it's barely L3.
But this is an imitation.
There are also people who draw imitations of themselves!
Gu Weijing was a little excited about the treatment that was usually reserved for masters.
"@Gu伟经, are you sure? I don't agree with your point of view."
Mona, who had not chatted for a long time, suddenly raised her eyebrows and objected.
"Is this your ability to appreciate sketches?" The childhood sweetheart's tone was unkind, pointing the finger directly at Gu Weijing.
