I have to take leave of my wish do draw Ragnarok Online doujinshi.

Realization of the story would take at least one year, but during this time the subject becomes outdated and irrelevant. I'm sorry, but there is no time, to do all desired things at once. This inner farewell gave rise to some thoughts about fanworks at all.

It is widely believed that fanart is on lower level of art than original works are, and many people have no respect for fanworks. Some artists don't draw fanart in principle, being afraid to worsen they skills by this occupation. There are also artists who don't welcome fanarts based on their works. I remember some common statements that fanart is meaningless, unethical, and negative for drawing skills thing. They are below with counter-evidences.

1. While drawing fanart, you cannot form your personal style.
There is big difference between plain copying and embodiment of perception. Images with same characters and scenes could be very different, because author's style is unique (if it isn't a question of intentional imitation). As proofpics could be taken fanworks based on any popular thing. Just browse them on DeviantArt or Pixiv.

2. While drawing fanart instead of your own ideas, you will not be able to learn anything.
Quite the contrary, fanart helps to learn expressiveness and accuracy of drawing. While trying to draw characters in fanciful chothes, you may understand, how it is hard - even to draw already existent clothes сorrectly. Drawing well-known characters, you may learn to notice their typical features and understand, which details make these characters known. It is important skill, to be able to draw easy recognized, remained in memory characters. At this point, drawing fanart is like practical work in your education.

3. Creation of fanart is far easier than creation of original work.
The process is the same. You need to think out the concept of pucture and walk through all stages of drawing from draft to finishing touches. You don't need to invent appearance of characters, clothes, and background, but it is compensated by the necessity to paint already existent appearance/clothes/backgrounds authentically to keep the atmosphere of original subject. Otherwise, it will be just picture, not fanart.

4. While drawing fanart based on popular subjects, artists earn a reputation for theirselves at the expense of authors of the subject.
Usually, artists draw fanart because the subject is interesting. If the subject is popular, then it is just logically that there will be a lot of fanarts based on it. Also, there is no fanart that makes original work worse and bereaves it of its audience, fame, and profit. I can't adduce proofs of cases that fanart became more popular than original and took away its laurel wreath.

To summarize these rants, I think that so-called "low grade of quality" of fanart is just prejudice. Fanart is useful from the educational standpoint, interesting from the standpoint of creation, and ethical unless it is offensive (the same applies to original works as well). I would like to draw more fanart based on various subjects, if I have an opportunity, really.

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