So, I hosted a pixel battle last Sunday. Out of all 10 battles hosted that day, mine was literally the only one that would have been a boonloss if I didn't submit a second entry with an alt.

Also, kleeder hosted a visuall recently. It was a legitimate boonloss. And now, she only hosts chipist and mixist battles.

What is going on? Where are our pixelists and grafxicists? I am here to listen to you.

tbf, my battle had a warmup time of 5mins, while most of the other battles had a warmup time of hours.
I still agree that there seems to be a lack of visually interested xhbists atm.

also, hate to be the one, but submitting boonsave entries isn't allowed and results in a 2 week scrub

There was honest effort in my second entry, though. It would have scored slightly highter than 25.000pnt if it wasn't a latist entry. I get what you mean, but it's not like I just submitted whatever with low effort, either.

you started it after the deadline for the sole purpose of saving your boons. that is a boonsave entry.

Not for the sole purpose of saving my boons, because, again, it was an honest effort.

At least damifortune agrees.

>Where are our pixelists and grafxicists? I am here to listen to you.

i am busy

Anyway, this is exactly why I created this bulletin. I'm wondering what's going on because I don't want to do this again.

If I have to invite 10 people in advance to join a mere pixel OHB every time, then I will.

This is pure conjecture, but maybe it has something to do with the higher concentration of non-grafx OHB's recently? I could see some "music first, graphics second" people choosing to only do 1 or 2 OHB's in a day and deciding to only do the music ones

Hmm, this makes sense even if it's pure conjecture.

Most people who draw are also musicians, but not most musicians also draw.

So, people are more willing to risk being unexperienced at a music format than a visual format.

But visual formats can be pretty fun, too, peeps! I know some people are like "I can't draw for shit". Well, my visual entries don't always turn out the way I want, but neither do my music entries! It takes practice just like any other class format, I think...

r/e "I can't draw for shit": I've spoken about this before, but I think visual art is harder to make something you're OK with because (most of the time) it's more objectively representational.


We all know what a forest "is" visually - trees, plants, some animals maybe, etc. Each forest is unique, but they have these elements in common. And we can recognize these elements, even if they're rendered in different styles or levels of detail, or presented in a different mood or framing, etc etc.

It's more subjective what a forest "is" in terms of audio (outside of, idk, birdcalls?), so it's harder to look at a forest song in progress and say "this is clearly not capturing the feeling". Music is abstract art, after all. So you have more freedom to lean into your strengths and ignore your weaknesses as a composer.

But if I can't draw something that I think sufficiently represents a tree's rough bark, or its crooked branches, or the way light pierces its leaves, then it's harder to feel like you're making a quality result. You need better fundamentals and a clearer direction to get to somewhere relevant.


I can just kind of "make a song" and then worry about how it fits the bitpack separately. But a lot of the time it's not really possible to just "make an art" without addressing the bitpack directly. Visuals require you to "check boxes" in a way that music usually doesn't.

Basically getting to the "bare minimum" in visual art seems like it asks more from you, because the artist's (and the audience's) standards for representational art are narrower.


Maybe the secret is an abstract art OHB series?

I mean, we have the photomash format, which allows for more balanced competition, since you are only meant to work with an already existing image and manipulate it as collage art. But I have the feeling it comes across as a "shitpost format", so people are even less likely to join those.

But correct me if I'm wrong.

I think the formula for ohb participation is something like
(Awareness + Interest + Availability + Accessibility) * MagicForces

I think Blast Bros has some good points about the differing accessibility of visual arts for some folks. It probably chalks up to a person's individual strengths and tendencies (some people are more abstract thinkers, some more concrete, etc).

It would be cool to see a bit more abstract art in some cases and that's why I try to encourage that in my Auditory Imagery battles (although I've only done two of these so far, very likely will do more). As for voting in these, I found it can be tricky to know how to score more abstract drawings along side more concrete drawings, but I guess this applies to music battles also.

just want to chip in and say: abstract art xhb's would be awesome!!! i would so be up for that

I don't do art battles because I just don't like doing art. Admittedly, it's because i'm bad at it.... but I still don't enjoy drawing stuff that isn't simple.

Music is my main thing. I can look at a bitpak and instantly think of instruments, chords, melodies, etc that would go well with what's written... It's harder for me to do that with art.

Just my opinion though. TL;DR Mad cause bad.

I'm interested in pixel stuff and I like the format of your recent battles, Tex, but they are starting at like 1-2 am for me :/

there is a reason many of us have called this site "online song game"
I always tell my visually inclined friends to join but have yet to see any take the bait!

I think botb generally lacks notoriety as a place for visual art because there is undoubtedly less of it already here, leading to less visual art centered people thinking to be here and even less of those who are being on the lookout for (and in the habit of participating in) the historically uncommon visual XHB. I can think of a handful of visual artists who were rather present when I was new here and recall distinctly this sense from them that they felt some manner of alienated from everything. I can also think of musicians (one or two) who got more into visual art and then seemingly left the site and just post art on twitter and such.

As an additional factor, I think musicians are generally way more starved for feedback than all other kinds of artists, which is a part of the appeal here. I have a full BOX of tapes and CDs "gifted" to me at shows and we all know firsthand the stereotype of the desperate beatmaker trying to give you their mixtape or the local no-name band trying to hawk their demo on social media.
With art you can just post a doodle on the very visual-centric internet and get strangers across the world sharing it, saying "me tbh", etc which is a much harder accomplishment as a musician. You experience visual art instantly, but music takes up a non-negotiable amount of actual time from your day to even just assess on a base level. Speaking for myself, I have a modest enough following for my music that it's a genuine source of income for me, but I still feel like the only way to actually guarantee I'll get feedback is to do an ohb lolllllll

Anyway, this isn't a naysaying post, I'd like more diversity in active formats here myself and have, as mentioned before, tried to get my artist friends on here. This is just my own understanding of the circumstances.


tl;dr we got a lot of hungry musicians and not a lot of drawing types, (who I think are less hungry anyway), but I hope the ones we do have and will have can unite to form an XHB alliance.

kaytse made a good point tbh.
idk if I wld join many visual battles because it's just not as much fun for me as musicing, but it wld definitely help if they wld happen at a better time.

I also like to get addressed personally for battles. I know you can't (and shldnt) ping every botbr personally before every battle, but asking "who wld be up for a gfx battle now?" in chat helps already, because maybe I see it and reply.
OR if you go into the chat and see people taking, for example me, go in and say "hey kleeder, you seem like you have nothing to do because you're spending your precious time talking nonsense. why don't you join a gfx battle now. I want to host one" and the chances of me feeling invested suddenly go up by a lot