The Minion Fanartist is one of the alias for user Aidan. The reason for him earning this title is due to all the minion fanart that's been produced by him in the lab, which at first started as an ironic joke that's starting to be questioned whether or not it's ironic at all.
For those of us who've been living under a rock or are generally unfamiliar, minions are a breed of small yellow pill shaped creatures that are signature characters of the Despicable Me series. They are childish but also intelligent creatures, who crave to serve the worst villains they can find. As of current minion lore, minions serve Felonius Gru, a supervillain who throughout the Despicable Me series, grows to become more than a villain into a loving father¹.
The public reception to the minions is varied. Initially they were lovable little creatures, but as Facebook moms started making basic memes featuring them, they have gained a negative press. They've come to be viewed as annoying and "cringe", and any interest of the minions is mostly viewed as satirical. Overall the downfall of the minions can be attributed to the overcapitalization of them. Minion merchandise can be found anywhere and the constant exposure eventually gets grating to the masses.
The Minions movie poster, featuring the posteriors of Kevin, Bob, and Stuart, the three main minions of the film².
Prior to Aidan's arrival in the lab on July 14th, 2020, there was a discussion about a minion AU³, suggested by Custy ("Dishonored AU where instead of the whalers Daud leads a gang of minions") in response to Lunar saying that the whalers are similar to minions (seeing a powerful figure and following them). Pip then suggested that the whalers themselves were minions. Lunar then put an image of the minions with Gru and an image of Daud and the whalers side by side saying "These spot the difference games are getting hard."
On November 18th, we sparked another discussion of another minion AU, due to user Whaler showing off a minion advent calendar they obtained from their parents⁴. Blue then asked "are there any cannibals in the minions universe?", leading to the answer of the Evil Minions (also known as the purple minions in the conversation). Custy then said "dishonored au where Hypatia is a regular minion and Grim Alex is her purple state," a seemingly innocuous comment that would presumably lead to nowhere, until Aidan later drew up a sketch of that very prompt⁵. Later in the day in #whiskey-and-cigars, Aidan posted another sketch of more minions as all of the Dishonored 2 villains with the caption "Girl help I’m having too much fun."⁶
Art by Aidan
On the 21st of the same month, Aidan dropped another minion sketch of Corvo, Daud, and Emily⁷, before going to bed (the full lined and colored pieces of these first few sketches have been posted to Aidan's Tumblr.
Later on in the day on November 18th, a mod secretly changed Aidan's name to "Minion Fanartist." A few days later on November 22nd, Custy renamed Aidan's color role to the same name and hoisted it up on the member list for all to see. Although the nickname has changed multiple times since then, the minion fanartist role still remains.
Screenshot of Aidan's previous nickname, obtained by Megido.
"Art" by Aidan
Over the next couple of weeks, Aidan continued to contribute both polished lined/colored pieces of the mentioned sketches above and newer minion AU concept art, the most notable and controversial one being a fully colored minion Horvaud piece. An abomination created on December 7th, the art was met with mixed results from Horvaud "fans" and other onlookers, the former reacting with positive reviews and the latter with disgust and negative reviews⁸.
Aidan (u: nectarish)
The Delicate Nature of the Void in Time, 12/02/2020
Digital artwork
Title translated from Minionese, originally named "The Dewneb Vatzoo de ta Ore een Time."
Aidan (u: nectarish)
Time Only Heals, Hearts Only Grow, 12/06/2020
Digital artwork
Title translated from Minionese, originally named "Time Solo Heals, Lexneg Solo Longo."
Aidan (u: nectarish)
Obtuse Arguments of the Key Players in Regicide, 12/30/2020
Digital artwork
Title translated from Minionese, originally named "Obtuse Amiit de ta Mis Toetwo een Regicide."
For the very purpose of naming the art pieces in this article, Aidan consulted a Minion Translator, before falling down a deep hole of translating various phrases into Minionese. The first translated phrase (dated December 21st) was "I come and go" from the infamous sk audiograph (for those who are curious, it translates to "Ka po yee ka go")¹¹. Blue and Aidan discussed various linguistic factors of the Minion language before it all went downhill from there.
Leelas yinauk! = Good morning!
Leelas rubbib! = Good afternoon!
Leelas nokka! = Good night!
Zuza = Blue (server member)
Aw = Edge (server member)
Nookor = FJ (server member)
Ptt = Fuck/shit
Le = He (pronoun)
Lam = She (pronoun)
Ka = I (pronoun)
To = You (pronoun)
On the same day (12/21), Aidan drew out a minion Pepe emoji but with Mindy Blanchard (Dishonored 2, 2016) with the caption "mods pls miniondy emote /j." Custy however decided to actually implement this emoji into the server, much to the chagrin of everyone else, most notably user Chungy.
Miniondy, in all of her full glory (art by Aidan)¹².
⁴Minion resurgence (The original image of Whaler's minion advent calendar has since been deleted)
⁹The Delicate Nature of the Void in Time