Post by Santa Melty on Dec 9, 2009 3:48:24 GMT -5
FOR THE SAKE OF EVERYONE'S SANITY (TL;DR VERSION OF MLT's SPEECH):
A Composition by Dashe the Forum Admin
We're having another art contest to promote the spirit of giving, expand our artistic horizons, and generate fanart for our game series. Yay.
It works just like last year. You request something for someone else to do, and someone else gets assigned to complete your request. Keep requests brief and open enough to allow for some interpretation on the artist's part.
Participants must work in a medium they think they suck at, and they have 24 hours to do it (I'm sticking to my 24-hour guns, since you get to pick which 24 hours over the next week you draw in).
Absolutely must be Legends-themed, no fan character requests. **Be sure and specify if you want to keep your request PG-13/PG/whatever.
If you want to include a fan character in the picture YOU'RE drawing for someone else, that's fine. Just expect confusion and/or eyerolls if they don't know the character.
If you want in, post here with your art request. You can do this until December 13th. Somewhere in between the 14th and 22nd, you need to PM MLT for your subject assignment, and once you get it you have 24 hours to make your work and send it back to MLT. You need to submit two files: The finished piece and a 700x400 px. thumbnail for the site homepage.
Get it? Got it? Good. For more details read MLT's heinously long post.
There are no prizes.
...
Hey, wait! Come back! It gets interesting again, I promise. I’ll even try not to be too tl;dr.
To those who remembered last year’s event and who PMed or posted asking about the possibility of having it again, I want to make it the first order of business here to thank you. Seriously, it feels good to know that the goodwill and the healthy interest in art still live on. Alas, there are a couple of changes to the criteria, as well as a few specific things we wanted to address from last year, so you still have to read through my shtick.
To those new to the whole thing, I know what you’re thinking.
“Now see here, you handsome stranger. What is all this goodwill and art nonsense about?”
Well, for those unfamiliar, a Secret Santa is an event in which all participants are randomly assigned the name of another participant, and are tasked with presenting a gift to that person. Here, of course, the gift in question would be a piece of art. Some dorks attempted organizing something like this last year, and it turned out pretty good, so we of the Mod Squad thought we’d try holding it again. We do have a couple of minor twists, however, so stay tuned.
For starters, I thought I’d begin as I did last year by explaining what the goals for this whole thing are. First, we think that it would be lovely if, in some small way, we could help to promote a greater sense of generosity in those who choose to participate. And herein lies the goodwill part of this thing. Too often do people allow their actions to be dictated by the prospect of some return, be it money, material possessions, or just recognition. Thus, we thought that it would be pleasant, especially given the season, to give anyone interested an opportunity to make a kind gesture to someone else, not out of obligation or for gain, but out of simple generosity. The chance to make someone else’s day that much brighter, with no promise that you will receive anything that you might want in return. It’s that kind of open spirit of giving that the world simply doesn’t have enough of these days, and which we hope to instill in everyone involved here, if only for a passing moment. To that end, we've chosen to use a format of event with no prizes or rankings of any kind; this is an event of fun, not acknowledgment.
Secondly, we want to give everyone an excuse to expand their creative breadth. What does this mean? Well, this is where one of the aforementioned twists comes into play. We want all participants to create their piece of art using a medium, technique, or style that they have little or no experience with. Perhaps you’re a digital artist who has some paint lying around they’d like to play with, or a modeler who’d like to try some photomanipulation. Or maybe it’s as simple as wanting to experiment with a new tool in Photoshop. Anything that is new to you and will result in something that can be presented visually, whether it’s modeling, visual poetry, sculpture, drawing, or what have you, will fly here.
“Now stop right there, you long-winded image of manliness you,” you tell me. “No one can just pick up a new medium and turn out a masterpiece in one go! What if I’m not good enough?”
Well, for those who wish to partake but are worried that they will be unable to competently handle their chosen medium/style, I’d like to encourage you to do it anyway. Likewise, to all those who wish to partake but simply feel that they altogether suck too hard at art to bother, I’d like to encourage you to do it anyway. Why, you ask? It is a philosophy of mine that in art, as in life, one of the speediest ways to learn is to screw up beyond all reason. I speak from experience. Give something your all and then absolutely bomb, and you'll come away with something you didn't have before. To improve, you can’t be afraid to make mistakes, and so we encourage you to be fearless. Do not fear sucking; embrace it. Cherish it. Become the suck. Remember that we’ll all be trying something unfamiliar; we’ll all be in the same floundering, waterlogged boat. Produce your eldritch abomination of a drawing, then stand back and have a good laugh. There's nothing to lose here, so be courageous. Take your shot. Even if you miss, you’ll have tread new ground. Discovered something you hadn’t seen before. And you will learn.
Then, finally, our third goal: to bring new Legends artwork into the world. Because I have it in good faith that those games don't get enough love these days.
In short, have fun, love thine neighbor, and learn something new. Then, participants and non-participants alike can all huddle together near the hearth and enjoy a nice new batch of community artwork. Not a bad to-do list, if I do say so myself.
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Now, on to some specifics. Everything from here on down is subject to change should any problems arise. We will make exceptions to rules for anyone who has any special concerns, so feel free to ask.
First, here is an at-a-glance timeline for your convenience. We’ll use the forum clock as our common frame of reference for the day/hour.
- Now-Dec.13: Announce your participation.
- Dec. 14-Dec. 22: Open timeframe to work on art. Submission details below.
- Dec. 23: Thumbnails begin circulating on main site.
- Dec. 24: All submitted artwork revealed. You may now post your finished artwork elsewhere if you like.
- Dec. 24-Beyond: An optional group critiquing period, for anyone who’d like to participate.
+ During the entry period up to the 13th, announce your intention to join here. PMing me will work as well, if you prefer. The only requirement for throwing your hat in is that you have an account here, only because it makes everything cleaner. We don’t expect a lot of off-site interest, but there’s no penalty for creating an account just to join in, if you like. Along with your intention to join, you may include a short description (1-4 words will do, methinks) to give the artist who pulls your name a direction to go in. We want it short because we’d like your description to be more of a suggestion than a full-blown request. A prompt of sorts. And we want the artist to have room to interpret that prompt/suggestion as he/she wills. Check last year's thread if you want some good examples of prompts. You need not include one at all if you really want to be surprised. All requests must adhere to general forum policies for content, so no requesting pornography or some such thing. We’re also going to ask people not to request fan characters or crossovers this year. Your artist can feel free to include fan characters (still no crossovers, though) if they think you’d like it, but no requesting them, please. And we thought we'd mention this specifically, since it came up: you may request to have no mature content in your image, if you don't want any.
+ And then we have the submission period, which begins on the 14th. Here’s where things get interesting. Now, last year we had a relatively short deadline (the 14th-22nd) for finishing artwork. The short deadline was to ensure that people didn’t spend too much time fussing over details; a habit that can be detrimental when you’re working with something you’re not accustomed to. This whole thing was intended to be a semi-spontaneous foray into a new artistic realm, not a week-long crash course on mastering it. We were trying to avoid that perfectionist mentality here; you’re not making a masterpiece, you’re simply giving your chosen medium/style a good try. Now, this year, we wanted to experiment with something different. We’re taking that same concept up to eleven. You will have ONE DAY to complete your piece.
“Now just one bloody minute, you double-talking Adonis!” you tell me. “My hectic holiday schedule can’t possibly accommodate your hackjob time restrictions! What if I’m busy on the day you specify?”
Well, this is the thing: YOU are specifying what day you wish to work. Here’s how we’re hoping it will go. At some point between the 14th and 22nd, we’re counting on you having at least one free day available to work. When that day comes and you’re ready to go, PM me or post here. I will then try to get back to you as soon as possible with your assignment. You’ll then have the 24 hours after I send that PM (again, by the forum clock) to turn in your completed work. And I reiterate here, feel free to speak up if you have any concerns or would like special accommodations (particularly if you’re using some traditional medium that requires time to dry or something), but it would be nice if we could be uniform about this 1-day thing.
The exact specifications for submissions are coming up in a bit.
+ Then there's the front page update of the 22nd. Like least year, all participants will be getting a little bit of extra incentive from our glorious puppet master in the shadows whose identity shall remain Fab. Previews (in the form of image crops) of all submitted images will be randomly circulated on the front page of MMLS’s main site for a few weeks.
+ Then, on the 24th, all the submitted images will be posted up in this thread for all to view. We ask that no one post completed versions of their work anywhere before this time. It’s more fun that way.
After that, we’ll hold an optional critiquing session as we did last year for anyone who wishes to opt in. Several heads can often be better at locating flaws than just one, so if you want some second opinions of your work and advice on improving, feel free to say so. And of course, try to offer some thoughts on other people’s work, if you can.
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And that about covers what you should be doing when. Now, as for submission criteria, you’ll need to send in two things on your personal deadline: your finished image, and a crop of the image to be used on the front page.
The dimensions of the final image can be whatever you like (feel free to experiment). As has been said, the image should be made using a style, technique, medium, et cetera that you are not familiar with and wish to try out. Naturally, we can’t actually confirm this bit, so we’re going by the honor system here. Content-wise, restrictions are pretty loose. It has to be Legends-oriented, but does not have to be seasonally-themed in any way. Fan characters are allowed if you like, but avoid crossovers. Other than that, most anything flies. Mature subject matter is allowed, as long as it’s not TOO mature; keep it reasonable (consider who it is that made your request and what they might enjoy) and within the scope of what would be allowed by forum policies. Anything in the realm of full-blown sex scenes or people being hung off of rafters by their own entrails will most likely be turned away, but anything on the level of pin-ups is acceptable. It’s a bit subjective, but keeping it PG-13 or thereabouts is a safe bet. If you have an idea you’d like to run with but are unsure whether or not it would be acceptable, feel free to ask me or one of the other mods via PM or something. If your idea/image does get turned away, please don’t be offended; we do have to uphold the rules. And of course, if the person whose name you’ve received has requested against mature content, please respect that.
One last thing on this, since it came up last year: You only need to submit one image for the sake of this event, but doing multiple ones is perfectly acceptable. Like heck we're going to stop you from making MORE giftart. As for how this will work with the one-day deadline, we'll only hold you to the one-day thing with your first submission; anything after that is free game, as long as it's in to us before the end of the 22nd.
As for the crop, this is the smaller, preview/teaser version of your final image that will be circulated on the front page of the main site. The dimensions for this image should be 700x400. Also, try not to have anything too vital in the 50 pixels on either side and the 25 pixels on the top and bottom, as these areas can be cut off depending of the version of the site being viewed. If you don’t turn one of these in, we’ll make a quick crop for you, but it would save us some trouble (and probably be much more personal) if you do it yourself.
And that, I believe, is that. And just to repeat myself once more, this is a contest for fun. There are no prizes, and nothing significant to gain. So don’t take it too seriously, hmm? If someone should drop out at the last minute or otherwise find themself incapable of participating and you don’t get your request done, it’s not a big deal. Rejoice in the fact that you were able to fulfill someone else’s request. Cherish this accomplishment. It’s a good feeling. But getting upset over something like this? It’s not worth it, trust me. Love and peace and all that.
This went swimmingly last year, so we’ve got higher hopes for this year. I want to see some serious gift-giving going on up in here.
Again, questions, comments, and suggestions are all welcome, we can make exceptions to the rules if you ask, and all rules are subject to change. For most matters, you can consider me the first go-to guy, followed by Dashe and Fab. Also, I fail at being brief. It’s too late to be concise.
Signups start now. Get to it.
