Hello every person who happened to click on this video. My name is Solar Sands, and today, we'll be browsing DeviantArt.
— Solar Sands
Solar Sands
is the alias of a YouTube creator who mostly talks about online artmaking, but is especially famous for his Browsing DeviantArt series, where he views and comments on random drawings (and other pieces of visual art) he finds on DeviantArt, usually around a special theme. Most of the time, these drawings are very low-quality and awkward, and Solar reacts accordingly.
Since 2019, Solar has mostly moved on from disparaging DeviantArt artworks and transitioned into an Analysis Channel where he discusses art genres and fandoms, specific (and often obscure) artists, and art and animation in popular media.
Tropes related to Solar Sands and his shows:
- Accentuate the Negative: Solar mostly shows the worst drawings he can find. Although, sometimes, he shows some he finds good and even tries to find something positive in a drawing he otherwise finds bad.
- Author Appeal: Really enjoys Boards of Canada, and uses their music frequently in the background of his videos.
- Berserk Button: Gradually explodes in rage when he sees that someone commented that a diaper-fetish Tails picture is "priceless."
- Big "WHAT?!": In "Anime Death Star," when he finds a very strange photograph of a person wearing a leotard, anime mask and holding a phone.
- Catchphrase: "Hello every person who happened to click on this video. My name is Solar Sands, and today, we'll be browsing DeviantArt."
- Characterization Marches On: Solar used to be much more negative and judgmental in his comments in earlier videos, but he has tried to become more fair and analytical later, covering a wider range of art-related topics.
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Don't Shoot the Message: In the part 2 of his now on-going series on AI Art, he broke down common analogies within the discourse, and he viewed that bad analogies along with bullying behaviors from the professional artists and their supporters only hurting their case. - The Faceless: His avatar wears a paper mask with an orange hourglass on it. When he appears live on camera, he also wears a paper mask like this.
- He finally showed his face in the video "What Does Your Imagination Look Like?" albeit with the addition of sunglasses.
- Fetish: A lot of drawings he comments on are fetish pictures.
- Foil: He notes that artist Thomas Kinkade is this with the much more well-regarded Bob Ross: Both are devoutly Christian artists who rose to prominence around the same time, died at virtually the same age, and became popular for their easily accessible paintings. However, while Bob Ross became famous for his humility and trying to spread, well, the joy of painting, Kinkade instead used his paintings to become famous and to make money. Furthermore, while Bob's Christianity was only a small fragment of his character, Kinkade instead often stopped for long segments to proselytize and insert his conservative beliefs.
- Let's See YOU Do Better!: In "Can you even draw?" he lambasts the argument that he shouldn't criticize art because he can't draw. He points out how this argument fails because (1) a layman's observations, although less succinct, may still be as valid as an expert's, (2) this line of thought means you also can't accept positive feedback from non-artists, and (3) he CAN draw, and has a DeviantArt account where he posts his own works.
- Mix-and-Match Critter: Cowcat who, as the name suggests, is part cow-part cat, specifically a cat’s head on the body, back legs and tail of a cow/bull.
- Nerdy Nasalness: Not incredibly prominent, but he addressed it in his video "Is Squidward Really A Bad Artist?" telling his fans that he "does not sound like Squidward."
- Not So Above It All: Lampshaded in one episode, wherein he admits he can't get too mad about people when it comes to shipping—this is followed by a quick gag of him crying over his personal OTP, Judy/Nick, not being canon.
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: Discusses this in "Why Battle Droids Deserved Better." The abuse of the battle droids by the narrative is one of the criticisms he has of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and other Star Wars media. He even admits it actual got him mad on a few instances.
- Video Review Show: Instead of reviewing movies or video games, he reviews drawings on DeviantArt.
- At least, he used to. Now he reviews a variety of topics, not sticking solely towards art.
