Art It's Quiet Here... [Suggestions?]

[eleanor]

[QUOTE=Boo][size=1]There is no discussion possible without a subject. So if everyone refuses to make threads because of the possibility to have no replies, there won't ever be any discussion going on and this forum will remain dead. You're not going to the vet whining about your pet dying if you didn't even bother feeding it, now are you?

Please - everybody here - don't complaint about this forum being dead if you go to other forums/deviantArt to show off your art (and won't post it here). Don't be afraid of a little amount of replies. Besides, I've always learned that if you do good to others, they do good right back at you. In other words: Post in peoples threads, they feel as if they need to do the same very often.[/size][/QUOTE]

[color=dimgray] I'm definitely at fault for not replying to many of the individual art threads that have come up, but you really can't expect people to post a lot of art if they're not going to get replies. It's an ego thing. People here aren't passionate enough about art to consistently contribute stuff or reply to other art.

What's going on now is great- the Graphic Worm and the 50 Themes project involve everyone in every medium. The post by James was all spot on, but I'm just recalling what I remember of the Art Forum when I first joined OB. There just seemed to more participation in drawing contests and replies to art, but there were more drawers than graphic artists as well.

But mostly, I just think members on OB aren't likely to be as passionate about art when compared to people on DeviantART or an art forum. Which is fine, generally. :)[/color]

[Hittokiri Zero]

What you could do to really spice things up is to hold two signature-of-the-week type competitions a month and then have the winners of those two competitions participate in a signature battle against one another to determine who the "best" signature maker of the month was...

*I suggest making signatures rather than any other sort of medium since they're fairly easy to make so lots of people can compete, and because this would be a long term thing and signatures rarely tend to get boring / tedious to make since...

Anyway the biggest problem with the "Art Studio" has always been the fact that people will post their own work but not take the time to comment on others' work.

As a general rule when I view a thread with someone's artwork in it I try to make some contribution to the thread, I mean if I clicked the thread I took the time to view their artwork so spending a few extra minutes writing what I think of it isn't going to hurt me...

[Boo]

[size=4]If you don't mind, I'll just bring this thread up again to use it as the Art Studio suggestions thread.

I was just browsing through my OtakuBoards art collection and came across some images that were loads of fun to make, made for a thread that was a lot of fun. The thread I'm talking about is [url="http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=49199"][b]Image Challenge![/b][/url].

It was a fun thread, so I wonder if people would be interested in a new version of it. If so, would it need any updates from it's original rules or something? The last one died in time, probably because the ideas became repetitive.

So as a suggestion... instead of the Handicap Battles, we could continue on with Handicap ideas, except you make up your own handicap for the next person each time you post. To keep the Art Studio people sharp and all, but without competing really.

^ New subject of discussion, yay.[/size] Edited March 25, 2012 by Boo

[Delta]

[COLOR=#35425e][FONT="Palatino Linotype"]What?!? No competition? No laughing behind the loser's back? No chance of a devastating loss that will trigger a sudden drop in self-esteem?

The idea sounds lovely, Boo! [b]Vote +1[/b][/FONT][/COLOR]

[boothten]

[size=1]I think bringing back the Image Challenge would really help to increase activity here in the Art Studio.

I also think that Hittokiri's suggestion for a Signature Of The Week contest would be fantastic. I know that on all of the other Graphics-related forum boards that have a SOTW contest always get a lot of activity and participation from members on the board. While we aren't a community that focuses solely on the graphic arts, I think that we do have a lot of very talented artists that would contribute to make the SOTW contests a success.

There's my 2 cents.
;D[/size]

[Boo]

[quote name='Sirius'][COLOR=#35425e][FONT="Palatino Linotype"]What?!? No competition? No laughing behind the loser's back? No chance of a devastating loss that will trigger a sudden drop in self-esteem?[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE][size=1]It'll be a loss to the community, but just think of what we could gain! I had a dream! A dream in which the Art Studio we live in was once again a major centre of creativity in many forms. A community wealthy and busy, a place to go when you can't go anywhere else! A community where PSers and PSPers can live together without conflict! A community where pre-made brushes are accepted as much as social or creative handicaps would be accepted!

Besides, it would be a nice way to train people for the actual next best Handicap [strike]torment[/strike] tournament.

But well, as I see, it's a fine enough plan, so I guess I'll try to get this show on the road. Unless someone else wants to take the plan off my hands, because otherwise I might have to keep you all waiting for almost a week. [i]Boo[/i]hoo.[/size]

[eleanor]

[font="trebuchet ms"] Since the Handicap Battles aren't happening, your idea sounds great! And has a better chance of surviving longer. lol[/font]

[Boo]

[size=1]Okay, the thread's as good as up. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make it better, please yell. :)[/size]

[Domon]

[COLOR="Blue"]Well, after having skimmed through some of my old posts/threads I came across the old OB Graphics Club thread. I really liked that thread because everyone could join and submit their own art at a pace and get pretty darn good feedback. I would really like to see something like that or that very thread brought back to the light!! It was fun and you could always get plenty of help.

Also I was thinking of maybe a Photoshop tutorial-esque thread. Kind of like a Q&A thread like something along the lines of "I really would like to do a background like this" and maybe post an example of someone's art. Or even have the person who made something that they feel would be really benifical to someone else's photoshop portfolio submit their art and how they did it step-by-step.

Really that's all I can think of at the moment.[/COLOR]

[Konata]

The Art Studio here is a lot different than a lot of art sections in other forums. It's good that it's unique, but it's bad that it's highly inactive.

One thing I noticed is that there is an extreme lack of people submitting individual pieces of art. I think that if that was encouraged, then maybe there would be an increase in activity. I mean, I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I feel reluctant making a topic and posting my artwork, which is why I haven't posted anything but the Nekoman thread (Which.... only one other person has posted in.).

Also, as mentioned before, challenges and contests seem to work great. So I'd also suggest that too.

[Boo]

[size=1]The difference between OtakuBoards and other forums is that here the standards to replying lie a lot higher. You can't say "nice banner, 7/10 crap colors tho", but instead you have to be constructive and descriptive. It's really good for the artist and the quality of the forum, but not so much for the postcount. :(

[b]Edit:[/b] Mind linking me through to a good example of one of those forums? Then I can analyze what they do right and we do wrong. :P[/size]

[Konata]

[quote name='Boo'][size=1]The difference between OtakuBoards and other forums is that here the standards to replying lie a lot higher. You can't say "nice banner, 7/10 crap colors tho", but instead you have to be constructive and descriptive. It's really good for the artist and the quality of the forum, but not so much for the postcount. :([/size][/QUOTE]

Actually, the forums I was comparing it to have both more participation and more constructive criticism. I know a lot of forums do tend to just have those posters who write maybe one sentence of "very good awesome/10!!!11", but I also note there are some forums where most of the users break down and analyze your picture from head-to-toe, giving paragraphs to pages of heavy constructive criticism that really proves useful. And they're active as well.