Art Creation Help

2008-10-26 [NOOOPE]: Sweet! Things are worded a little awkwardly here and there... and can do the moderates do the critiquing or oversee the place? Can everyone critique pics?

2008-10-26 [Hedda]: "and can do the moderates do the critiquing or oversee the place?"
And you say I word it awkwardly?

I'm not sure what you mean, but I think the everyone who have anything good to say should be able to say it.

2008-10-26 [Hedda]: "Critics" is a damn stupid word though! I should change it. "Helpers" is better!

2008-10-26 [NOOOPE]: Gah! The moderators. Their specific job. Are they the only ones critiquing? Or do they oversee the critiques that everyone is allowed to do?

2008-10-26 [Hedda]: The moderators basically only do 3) and keep an eye on everything. I guess they will generally be the most helping ones, but anyone can help. Doesn't it say so clearly?

2008-10-26 [NOOOPE]: Yes. That sounds good. Eee, I'm excited for this!

2008-10-27 [NOOOPE]: This is my suggestion for an intro edit: 

This is a project for everyone with a half-finished artwork they'd like help with, and for people who'd like to volunteer their knowledge to help other artists improve.

We welcome every level of artist, from professionals to people who can only manage stick figures. It doesn't matter if it's a photo manipulation, a drawing or a sculpture. If you want help, we will do our best to point you in the right direction!


Oh! And should we have something about offenders... people who flame or give rude critiques. How should we handle them?

We should also put our heads together and make like a... proper critique page. The kinda, does and do-nots of reviewing someone's artwork.

2008-10-27 [Hedda]: I prefer using "you who" instead of "everyone", because it makes it more personal.

"volunteer their knowledge to help other artists improve" sound too complicated and it's to the wrong point as the goal is to improve the current piece of art and not about general improvements.

2008-10-27 [NOOOPE]: alighty

2008-10-27 [Hedda]: I don't know if sculpture should be written there really... They're welcome to submit it, I guess, but I wouldn't write it.

"If you want help, we will do our best to point you in the right direction! " is wrong. The text isn't written by the ones who are helping, so it mustn't sound like that.

And we don't want to go on and on and on and on about people being rude or how to handle that. If you treat everyone like they are about to behave rudely, they will do just that.

I think a critique page sound like a waste of space, but I might be wrong. No one who needs it will read it, and it will be pointless for the others. And there is no general thing to say. Maybe we'll notice things when it gets started though.

2008-10-27 [NOOOPE]: Ok, I see all your points. I'm just paranoid about bad critiques because off all the madness I've seen on deviantart and other art galleries.

I guess if people flame, we can just handle that when it comes up, but well meaning people may say stupid things, or say totally useless things, which is why a brief how-to-critique page might be something useful. Mods can direct bad critics/helpers there, in a friendly sorta "here's some advise" sorta way.

2008-10-27 [NOOOPE]: you're professional who want to have suggestions about how to an image funnier or if you're a newbie that can't make the stick figure's shadow look good.

This is the part I really find awkward by the way.

2008-10-27 [Hedda]: I don't know if I can make it more clear. Is this better?

2008-10-27 [Hedda]: But Deviantart is just stuffed with PMS-bitches who have nothing else to do than hating people to feel good about themselves, unlike Elftown that only has very nice, friendly and helpful members!

2008-10-27 [NOOOPE]: Hahahah, oh [Hedda]. Bless this little utopia of yours.

I think... lemme see,

You're just as welcome to submit if you're professional who wants ideas on what to add to your piece, or if you're a newbie that can't make a stick figure's shadow look right.

Hah, I only changed two words kind of. I think right sounds better than good. Good didn't sound right to me (excuse the oddness of this statement).

2008-10-27 [Hedda]: You missed the missing "a" (otherwise it's wrong) and that "or" should be "as".

2008-11-09 [Hedda]: I've posted a to here from <URI:start.html> (to the left).

I'll make an alarm about it later when everyone has taken a last look at this page.

2008-11-09 [NOOOPE]: Are we gonna have a finished art page and an advice on critiquing page?

2008-11-09 [Chimes]: That would be a good idea.

2008-11-09 [Hedda]: What would the "finished art page" be? Where we show the last versions of people's drawing? Yes, I think that building such a page, would be nice when we have something to put there.

Advice on critiquing? Do you think anyone will comment if they have to read through 4711 "do":s and "don't":s first? I think it will scare people away, and the ones who need to read it, will not read it anyway.

2008-11-09 [NOOOPE]: I'm working on the how to critique page right now. I think it'd be helpful and prevent a lot of drama. We don't need to use it if you still don't like the idea

2008-11-10 [NOOOPE]: How to Critique


Art critiques are actually very complicated. There's an entire artistic language... books dedicated to how you look at art. People who haven't been to art school, or who haven't studied art criticism somewhere else in their lives really do need some little baby pointers, at least.

I also think a page dedicated to collecting art resources might be cool. I can imagine we'll be telling people over and over what human proportions are, so it'd be nice to have some quick easy links.

2008-11-10 [Chimes]: Like the Photo reference marathon, for example? :P

2008-11-10 [NOOOPE]: http://www.posemaniacs.com/ <- biggy

That'd be good, but there are tons of off elftown things that really rock

2008-11-10 [Chimes]: That is very true.

2008-11-13 [NOOOPE]: Can I edit the page a little? Pwease? Add the wiki for finished art, the one for quick references and the crit guide?

2008-11-14 [Hedda]: But we don't have any finished art yet. And I really think that we should see how this works out before defining how people should do when they help out.

What is the quick references?

2008-11-14 [NOOOPE]: Links to wikis or web sites that have simple tips, like a guide to human proportions, or perspective.... or links like posemaniacs that people could use. I feel like we'll be repeating the same things over and over, like, well, anatomy like I said, so it'd be nice to collect pages we could just throw at 'em instead of go on and on about how many heads tall people are and blah-de-blah.

And would it be useful though to have the finished page prepared so we can use it when there's stuff?

2008-11-14 [Hedda]: But the tips should be placed in Elftown Tutorials and Tips. And then we can link to them.

2008-11-14 [Hedda]: You can of course prepare a page, but it's annoying with links to empty pages. It's like calling people for dinner before the hunt is done.

2008-11-15 [jaraden]: m!, this place sounds mint!!!! brilliant idea and i will definately keep an eye on this page, i love helping others, heck, half the time i'm the one who needs help!!!!

har har

wicked!
seb

2008-11-15 [Nocturnaliss]: This is a very cool idea, M. I'll be watching :3

2008-11-15 [NOOOPE]: I didn't think of this, I'm just helping, heh.

2008-11-15 [Nocturnaliss]: ... my bad XD; I think the invite coming from you got me confused. Sorry 'bout that XD;

2008-11-18 [jaraden]: regardless i'm in... would love to help!

2008-11-24 [Lothuriel]: Finally made it here.

2008-11-25 [jaraden]: i know, took me ages to get here too.. but i have terrible sence of direction and i got lost... ended up at old man Wilson's house two miles that a way....

puffs

2009-04-21 [Alexi Ice]: I've got a question! What if you are looking to employ an artist to make a peice of cover art (for free...)? Is there a wiki for this or...any of you looking for a job? Preferably for not a lot of money...>>

2009-04-21 [NOOOPE]: I'd make something up for like... 5, 10 or 15 bucks depending on how complicated you wanted it.

2009-04-21 [Alexi Ice]: Hm. The legality of this may come into question, so it might be a bad idea. I might just have to wait.

2009-04-21 [NOOOPE]: Legality? 'S called a commission. There's no iffy legal stuff about it. Go to devart, nearly every artist has their "commission status" up in their journal, along with their prices.

And I think asking for free art is like asking for... free plumbing or a free haircut. It's unfair. Art is work and work should be rewarded. Just for future reference. Asking an artist to work for hours for nothing is just sorta... insulting.

2009-04-21 [Yuriona]: Not to mention ignorant. Nothing is free in the world. >_>

2009-04-21 [Linderel]: People do take requests, though. Usually from friends and family, but still. :P

2009-04-22 [Alexi Ice]: Yep, that's what I was refering too. Since I need cover art for a book I intend to have published though it might be a little differnt then just something I want to have drawn for the heck of it ^^

2009-04-22 [Yuriona]: Good luck with that. :P

2009-04-22 [NOOOPE]: If it's gonna be put on something yer gonna be making money off of, you really aughta give the artist something.

2009-04-22 [Linderel]: Agreed. Unless the artist is a friend, but if you're asking here, I'll have to take it that you don't have any friends willing to take on the task.

2009-04-22 [Chimes]: Royalties!

2009-04-22 [Alexi Ice]: I don't have any friends talented enough. I love my friends, I do but I don't think anyone could handle thing. And [NOOOPE] that is what I was refering to when it came to legality...I might need like a contract or something. Maybe I will wait until I finish. Just 10 chapters to go, after all. ^^

2009-04-22 [NOOOPE]: You woudn't need a contract, silly. You just need to credit the artist and pay them. It only becomes illegal when you steal art.

2009-04-22 [NOOOPE]: The only legal thing I found concerned who owns the image. What they said was, if the artist doesn't give the publisher the rights to the image they cant' use it for anything but the cover. See:

"This means that as a practical matter, you probably own no real rights to use the artwork except on the cover or inside of the book but not for any other use whatsoever—not for use on the Internet, not for use in merchandising, not for use in marketing. You probably have no meaningful rights to translate your book containing that art into other languages nor any rights to make reprint deals in the English language anywhere in the world on that book. You probably have no exclusive right to use that artwork in book club editions nor other editions of the work. You probably cannot do a soft back book if your original edition was hard back."

The solution is simply the artist just writing on something "I give so and so complete rights to this image". Hell, you can even video tape them saying it. It's quite simple. You can pull up a contract, or the artist can just... note that somewhere. There just has to be some proof.

But I really doubt anyone here would freak out and sue you if you used the image they drew for your book as advertisement on the internet. This seems to have been invented to prevent crazy people from doing shit.

2009-04-22 [NOOOPE]: And... royalties may be complicated... how much money for each copy sold, but you don't know those specifics until you publish it. I think this is lax enough a transaction that a single payment, a handing over of usage rights and a tip of the hat would be more than sufficient.

2009-05-05 [Alexi Ice]: Sorry it took so long to respond to this...
Yeah, I wouldn't screw them over but I probably wouldn't give 50% of my earnings just to the person who draws my cover art. The only other problem is that I don't even know what I want the cover to look like, although the publisher will probably decide that for me anyway

2009-05-05 [NOOOPE]: You should probably get the publisher's advice on how it's officially done before you do anything.

2009-05-05 [Alexi Ice]: Thats what I was just thinking ^^ Thanks for the legal advice though!!

2014-08-10 [Stephen]: o_o
This should get more attention. ):

2014-08-10 [windowframe]: ^ Applicable to everything on this site.

2014-08-10 [Stephen]: True!
Silvie, you needa be here more. :'D

2014-08-11 [windowframe]: Nuu, I don't. :P

2014-08-11 [Stephen]: Yuss, you do. :P