# Drawing rave scenes



## TeenageAngst (Oct 8, 2012)

Drawing people dancing is a difficult feat, I get it, but rave pictures always come off as a Marmaduke comic to me. You know the ones where the artist just says, "I feel like drawing lots of dogs today" and he kinda hopes humor will follow when there's lots of dogs in an absurd situation? That's kinda what happens in these rave pictures, except instead of dogs it's paraphernalia, and instead of humor it's dancing. Generally these pictures will include the following:


- Everyone holding glowsticks. You cannot dance if you're not holding neon colors. Everyone needs at least one. Sometimes there's glowsticks on necklaces or people are swinging glowsticks on ropes but it's always haphazardly done and nothing like how actual people dance with glowsticks.


- Someone's arm will be behind their head for an "armpit shot". I've never actually seen someone do this at an actual rave, but it seems to imply dancing and is ubiquitous.


- Arm in the air. Not like a natural dancing motion, it's more a cross between the Jersey fist pump and throwing up the horns, and neither of those belong at a rave.


- Someone hardcore dancing like it was a 1980s Misfits concert.


- Tripp pants and fishnets everywhere. I don't even know where one would buy Tripp pants anymore. Granted both of these are really popular at raves but so is variety.


- Skanking. I don't even know.


- The background has like one interesting aspect, like a cool dance floor or part of the laser show equipment, and after that you can tell whoever was working on it just said "f*** it, neon airbrush".


There's nothing inherently wrong with any of that but it's not realistic and overused to the point of cliche. The worst part is it's usually just frame clutter to distract from the fact the artist doesn't actually know how to portray dancing. That's not their fault really, as I said it's *really* difficult to draw people in motion. What's bad is usually this kind of compensating will override the desire for the artist to improve at drawing people in action and thus they get really good at drawing stoic cluttered rave scenes and never actually learn to draw people dancing.


Of course I'm probably looking too much into this as these images are usually just an excuse to use bright colors and to dress their characters up in sexy neon outfits with the insinuation that they're partying hard and probably on hallucinogens or ecstasy.

I'm interested to hear what actual artists have to say about drawing rave scenes.


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## Heliophobic (Oct 8, 2012)

TeenageAngst said:


> Tripp pants and fishnets everywhere.



Tripp pants are my fetish.

They look dumb as shit, I know... but they make me so god damn hard.


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## Taralack (Oct 8, 2012)

I draw quite a lot of rave scenes myself. Usually I look up photos of people glowsticking/stringing before I start.





There's a reason why the armpit shot is common in rave scenes and that's because it happens a lot when stringing. 

One of my main pet peeves found in rave art is when the artist draws the subject glowstringing, but the string is not taut. That never happens unless the stringer is a complete noob, and even then it's not something you want to depict, ugh. 

Let's face it though, majority of the people at a rave stand around high, and only a handful will be truly doing something with glowsticks. I suppose to the ignorant audience something like that would construe a boring image.

Oh, and you forgot "someone has to have a glowstick in their mouth". :V


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## Heliophobic (Oct 8, 2012)

Toraneko said:


> Oh, and you forgot "someone has to have a glowstick in their mouth". :V



Or nostrils.

This happens all the time in raves. I'm sure of it.


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## Fuzzle (Oct 8, 2012)

Oh TeenageAngst, you remind me of myself 
Finding obnoxious similarities among a vast number of observances per subject, getting annoyed by it and then ranting about their inexplicable prevalence. I don't know anything about raving, It's totally not my scene, though I was commissioned to draw something similar. Glow sticks are fun though, you gotta thank the ravers for supporting the glow stick industry.


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## TeenageAngst (Oct 9, 2012)

I have nothing against glowsticks and I think raves are fine, not a fan myself, but if it works for other people, what ever. Also, the armpit shot never actually happens at a rave because people who legitimately dance with glowsticks do so kind of like a cross between a hacky sack and working a pair of nunchucks. Going above the head is kinda sketchy when people are crammed together like sardines. And yeah I forgot about glowsticks in the mouth. They're usually those pacifier things IIRC. Anyway, it's mostly my disdain for people skimping on actually practicing movement and proper anatomy. If they could just get that down it wouldn't be a problem to have everything else in there.


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## HipsterCoyote (Oct 9, 2012)

I go to drag shows and not raves so I am thinking up a different image but, I kind of want to draw the poor son of a bitch who has to run around and pick up empty drink glasses and is sort of weave-meandering his way through the crowd with this precarious stack of glass and meanwhile, drunk people flailing and stomping around and pushing each other.  Is there anything like this at a rave?  The unfortunate water-bitch who has to navigate?


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## mapdark (Oct 9, 2012)

My feelings on it are similar . I get that most of the people in the fandom only experienced raves as part of a con (and they're about as far from a real rave as you can experience) . But Jeez,  in real raves most people are not randomly swinging glowstick through the air, and do not wear candy-raver-wear from 1998!


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## mapdark (Oct 9, 2012)

And raves have evolved beyond "let's have neon-coloured lasers scan the room" .






This is the kind of lighting setup one could find at the Bal en Blanc in Montreal for example.


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## Heliophobic (Oct 9, 2012)

mapdark said:


> And raves have evolved beyond "let's have neon-coloured lasers scan the room" .
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That looks disgustingly appealing.


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## HipsterCoyote (Oct 10, 2012)

God I miss drag shows now


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## TeenageAngst (Oct 10, 2012)

Raves are like the antithesis to metal shows in that it's basically an excuse to show up, do hard drugs, and party to a live show that's heavy on the pyrotechnics.

To their credit though, I'd take a bunch of awkward people flailing glowsticks around a con rave to an actual rave in the same way I'd take a basement punk show to a metal concert. You're in better company, you know exactly what to expect, and no one is going to think you look ridiculous.


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## Taralack (Oct 10, 2012)

I'd love to attend a rave, or even an EDM show, but I'm just too much of a pussy. Plus, I hate crowds.


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## dinosaurdammit (Oct 10, 2012)

TeenageAngst said:


> Raves are like the antithesis to metal shows in that it's basically an excuse to show up, do hard drugs, and party to a live show that's heavy on the pyrotechnics.



But- what?


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