Art Fight: What is it and what you do

Art Fight is in a bit less than a week and you might be seeing its name pop up a bit. What, exactly is it? It has a rather violent sounding name and when I explain it to those older than me, they even sometimes sound concerned, as if I'm taking out paint and battering people with it. But Art Fight is essentially a game. It takes place across the whole month of July, from the 1st to the 31st, on the main Art Fight website.

What do you do?

You are sorted (or sort yourself, if you prefer one over the other) into teams. There are two teams - this year is Crystals vs. Fossils - and you add your characters to your profile. Your characters can be original characters from your own story, characters from DnD, fan characters from media, or basically anything you've personally got a claim to. (Alas, you can't go uploading Loki from the MCU or the like. But you could create a version of Loki and as long as it was distinct enough from the original, you could use it.) From there, go looking for other people's characters. Often, because this is a game, you'll go looking for characters on a team opposite from your own. So if I was on team Fossils, I'd then go looking for characters made by other people on team Crystals.

Once you've found other characters, you start drawing those characters at the start of the game. It's basically one big art trading game. You draw someone else's characters and they can either draw your characters or someone else will.

If someone attacks you by drawing your character/s, you can 'revenge' the attack by drawing one of those user's characters or pay it forward and draw someone else's characters.

I'm not very good at art though ...

You will get points for how well the art piece is - not if you are good at drawing, mind you. Any level of artist can participate. Rather, you rate how much effort you feel you put into a piece. Did it have shading or a background or good color use. Then, based on that, you'll get a point score. Someone who does beautiful digital art for 15 years is not getting a leg up from someone's grandmother who picked up watercoloring yesterday. It's all about effort and fun.

But what if I want to draw someone's character's who is on my team?

You can do that! In-game, that's called 'friendly fire.' This means that you are attacking someone on your own team, doing art of their character despite being on the same team. You will get less in-game points than if you were drawing someone on the opposite team, but you will still get some points. Some users don't revenge friendly fires, but you can often check a user's profile to see if that's the case, if revenges is a reason for why you're attacking them.

But I can't do art at all ...

You'd be surprised about the creative nature of people on Art Fight. Not everyone does digital art. In fact, at the end of the year, there's a whole section for people who do unusual attacks.

Some people make DnD themed character dice. Some make charm bracelets themed off characters. Others do book binding, repaint minis, do 3D modeling, create plushies, make paper crafts, or any number of things.

Some even make games! There truly is no creative limit and there isn't a restriction. I won't lie to you - those who have experience with art or who do digital art get attacked more. But it is a giant game and even those just starting out get attention, even if they might have to make the first artistic move.

Is it just in July?

The main game is held in July, but the Discord hosts events during the off-season which makes for a great chance to community build and continue exchanging art. But July is probably the most lively. To the point where it isn't uncommon for the website to go down the first week, meaning that many users have to save character refs ahead of time or get character images off the Discord. It isn't expected to go down this year, but many veterans prepare just in case.

How do I get started?

Join on Art Fight! Now is a great time to get started, since it is still a week out. You'll have to upload a character of yours, so if you don't have a ref on hand, you are allowed to upload art done by others with credit. Or many users enjoy adding a 'Design me a character' profile, if that is of interest to you. I can highly recommend.

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Postscript:

This will be my 8th year doing Art Fight, which I can't wait to give a shot. I'm primarily a traditional artist on there, with more recent dabbling into digital works. I've quite enjoyed improving my skills over the years and look forward to doing more this year, including maybe dabbling in 'stranger' attacks like book binding or needle-felting.