Drawing your favorite characters or writing fanfic isn’t just fun. It’s also a way for fans to explore their own identities.

画出喜欢的角色或者撰写粉丝小说可不仅仅是找乐子。对粉丝而言，这也是一种探索自身身份的方式。

I fell for Among Us， the multiplayer social deduction game， hard and fast1. While I hadn’t played any video games in over 10 years， now I was playing semiweekly and making fan art for the very first time. First it was a creepy theme song， then motivational posters， then Peeps2 dioramas. I had gone from fan to fan artist in a blink of an eye.

我成为了《太空狼人杀》的忠实玩家，这是一款多人社交推理游戏。虽然有十多年没玩过电子游戏了，但现在我每半周玩一次，还破天荒地开始创作粉丝艺术。一开始是一首令人毛骨悚然的主题曲，然后是大力宣传的海报，接着是用棉花糖制作的场景模型。一眨眼的工夫，我就已经从粉丝升级成了粉丝艺术家。

Why had I felt the need to make art in someone’s world， just as many others have done before me？ Talking with experts in the field and other Among Us fan artists revealed that fan art has a lot of benefits for its creators， and even for other fans.

为什么我觉得有必要在别人的世界里创作艺术，就像此前很多人做的那样？和行业专家以及其他《太空狼人杀》粉丝艺术家交流后，我发现粉丝艺术不仅对创作者本身大有裨益，甚至能惠及其他粉丝。

But what exactly is fan art？ Fanthropologist3 Meredith Levine describes fan art as “visual art made by someone about their object of fandom for themselves or for other fans.” Or even the object of fandom themselves.

话说回来，粉丝艺术究竟是什么呢？粉丝人类学家梅雷迪斯·莱文将粉丝艺术描述为“某人为自己或其他粉丝创作的关于痴迷对象的视觉艺术”。粉丝艺术甚至还可以指粉丝痴迷的对象本身。

Building skills by having fun

在玩乐中培养技能

Lynn Zubernis， a psychologist and professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania who has written extensively on fandoms， says it’s important to remember that not every fan makes fan art. But folks who have that intense engagement with a fandom tend to get inspired by it， and “want to interact with it in a different way，” Zubernis says， “you want to somehow make yourself part of the world that you have become engaged with.”

林恩·朱伯尼斯是宾夕法尼亚州西彻斯特大学的教授兼心理学家，针对粉圈现象着述颇丰。她指出，重要的是要记住，不是所有粉丝都会创作粉丝艺术。然而，深度参与粉圈的那群人往往会受其启发，并且“想要用不一样的方式与其互动”。朱伯尼斯表示：“你想以某种方式成为你所参与的世界的一部分。”

Some creators want to expand on the fandom itself through their fan art. For example， YouTuber 3D Print Guy， who created an animated horror trilogy of Among Us. He explains that while he worked on the trilogy， he was surprised at how many stories could be told just on the Skeld， a spaceship map that is the smallest in the game， and arguably the most popular.

一些创作者希望通过粉丝艺术对自己痴迷的对象本身进行更详尽的阐释。以优兔博主“3D打印客”为例，他创作了《太空狼人杀》惊悚动画三部曲。他解释说，创作三部曲期间，他惊讶地发现光是骷髅舰——《太空狼人杀》里最小也可谓最受欢迎的一张地图——就有许多故事可讲。

Fan art can also be a vehicle for honing4 or developing one’s craft. Levine explains that fan art allows people to “practice skills within a known universe.”

创作粉丝艺术也是一种磨炼或发展个人技艺的途径。莱文解释道，粉丝艺术让人们得以“在一个已知的宇宙中练习技能”。

3D Print Guy says part of the motivation to make the videos was to learn those new skills with each video he creates. With his trilogy， he discovered he had to make more filmmaking decisions than he had in the past， such as using music that would impact the mood of the animation. And when it’s time to make more fan videos and other projects， he says， he’ll use those same skills in future videos.

3D打印客说，他制作视频的部分动机是每次制作都可以学到新技巧。