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201
Art and Elfquest / Re: 2010 Fan Calendar Guidelines
« on: November 19, 2009, 12:10:44 PM »
Yeah. 
Usually, I don't mind offering to color. But I've finally got an idea for a piece of my own (YAY!), and while I feel that I'll be able to get it done in time, I don't know that I'm going to have any time to spare.
Usually, I don't mind offering to color. But I've finally got an idea for a piece of my own (YAY!), and while I feel that I'll be able to get it done in time, I don't know that I'm going to have any time to spare.
202
Art and Elfquest / Re: 2010 Fan Calendar Guidelines
« on: October 16, 2009, 09:30:02 AM »What method do you usually use to pick a theme? I usually do the old "character(s) I have wanted to draw for a while, so how can I shoehorn them into this?" trick, except for the Favorite Moments calendar which didn't need that. There's also the "what forgotten detail of the stories can I give attention to" approach. I don't know how other people find their ideas, though. I suspect it's a very personal process.
Yeah, good point.
For me, the problem is that when I'm confronted with a theme that has many possible answers, my mind actually blanks out and cannot narrow it down to think of ANYthing. (Or, not that it can't think of anything at all, but nothing that is coalescing into a workable subject; it's all still too broad to be grasped.) Or, one interpretation will occur to me and my brain will get stuck on it, and be unable to branch out (which is especially frustrating when the one thing I'm stuck on isn't furnishing ideas that I like). Those are cases where what I can really use are others' suggestions just because they will be other ways of looking at the "answer" and will help jolt me out of the rut my thinking is stuck in.
Last year, I was actually greatly helped because I think there was at least one thread at SoC where a big list was made either of types of magic, or of magic-users, which helped me to organize all of the thoughts that wouldn't settle down. I think I ended up picking something that wasn't on the lists, but having the lists helped me organize my thoughts to see other ideas that hadn't been included, if that makes sense.
Sometimes yeah, I *do* approach a task like this from the angle of "what character do I want to draw?" (Notably, for the last two calendars, I've kind of known that I wanted to include Bearclaw ;-) Though for last year, that wasn't my *primary* motivating goal, it just turned out to be a good fit with the subject I ended up picking.)
Sometimes it's "what group do I want to do?" (wolfriders? Go-Backs? for me, it's usually wolfriders) or "what time period do I want to tackle?" (especially if I'm trying to get away from what I think more popular choices will be).
At the moment, I guess, I'm mostly experiencing the problem that the topic is so broad that I'm having a hard time focusing down to the level where actual, viable ideas can be found.
I may not need people to *give* me possible subjects as much as I need to hear how others are approaching the problem. Anything to help me focus...
203
Art and Elfquest / Re: 2010 Fan Calendar Guidelines
« on: October 15, 2009, 08:17:28 AM »
*raises hand* I am one of those who is still in the desperate "trying to get an idea for a subject" stage! I would love to hear any brainstorming help that anyone has!
204
Holts / Re: River Twine Holt
« on: September 13, 2009, 08:28:06 AM »
There, there. You will be, soon. 
205
Holts / Re: River Twine Holt
« on: September 12, 2009, 01:21:27 PM »
List of adoptables as of 9/12/09:
(see below)
(see below)
206
Art and Elfquest / Re: Art markers - Letraset vs Prismacolor vs Copics
« on: August 20, 2009, 08:32:14 AM »
Yeah, I don't know, unfortunately. The only art markers I've used are Copics.
207
Art and Elfquest / Re: News: away on vacation
« on: July 31, 2009, 04:43:48 PM »("Finland! Finland! Finland...the place where I want to be, hunting, fishing, or camping...or just watching tv." Points for anyone who can place that.).
Are you kidding? I still can't help but SING that anytime anyone says the word "Finland"! Or indeed anytime I even *think* the word "Finland"!
(Did they, in fact, put it in Spamalot? I guess that wouldn't surprise me. But no, it dates back to the tv show itself.)
208
Art and Elfquest / Re: Where do you play?
« on: July 28, 2009, 12:43:12 PM »
By the way, the "Get a Holt" area at Scroll of Colors also, to the best of my knowledge, only features active Holts at the moment.
We have a couple of options that we recommend to folks who may be interested in River Twine, but don't feel like they can connect with a male character (or, any of the present adoptables, regardless of gender):
-- we have a "Reader Member" option, that allows folks to comment on the website, and also full access to our messageboards (for voting, and to participate in discussions). The other main perk of this is that should a character become adoptable (through a member leaving, or by other means), Reader Members are given a 1-week first crack at them, before they are announced as publicly available. Recently, Foxtail became adoptable, and one of our RMs snapped her up. So it's a good option for folks who are "waiting for" other adoptable options.
-- of course, we'd like folks to have a genuine interest in whichever character they adopt! But we do allow character-switching (depending on availability, of course). So if someone winds up adopting a character, but just can't "click", that does become an option. (While we'd like to see people doing art or fic for their own character, River Twine also encourages people to write stories and do art for others' characters, too. So, the character you adopt doesn't restrict what you can do.) We had a couple of members switch to some recently-available child characters, and we knew it wasn't because they didn't love the characters they had, it was just that the child characters appealed to them even more. So that's certainly one way for people to bide time waiting for other characters to become available. (We'll have more children able to be adopted next summer.)
We have a couple of options that we recommend to folks who may be interested in River Twine, but don't feel like they can connect with a male character (or, any of the present adoptables, regardless of gender):
-- we have a "Reader Member" option, that allows folks to comment on the website, and also full access to our messageboards (for voting, and to participate in discussions). The other main perk of this is that should a character become adoptable (through a member leaving, or by other means), Reader Members are given a 1-week first crack at them, before they are announced as publicly available. Recently, Foxtail became adoptable, and one of our RMs snapped her up. So it's a good option for folks who are "waiting for" other adoptable options.
-- of course, we'd like folks to have a genuine interest in whichever character they adopt! But we do allow character-switching (depending on availability, of course). So if someone winds up adopting a character, but just can't "click", that does become an option. (While we'd like to see people doing art or fic for their own character, River Twine also encourages people to write stories and do art for others' characters, too. So, the character you adopt doesn't restrict what you can do.) We had a couple of members switch to some recently-available child characters, and we knew it wasn't because they didn't love the characters they had, it was just that the child characters appealed to them even more. So that's certainly one way for people to bide time waiting for other characters to become available. (We'll have more children able to be adopted next summer.)
209
Guides & Guidelines / Re: Tracing and Referencing (was: Gallery Rules)
« on: June 10, 2009, 09:03:48 AM »
Resurrecting this thread (I think I noticed it before, was interested, and had been waiting to see what others posted; also that was in my "still can't type" period)...
Some thoughts.
Tracing: I've certainly been an advocate for tracing as a learning exercise (when it's combined with other techniques), although I tend not to advocate that people post the results. But, if someone wants to post them, my feeling is that credit is always a must. (I'll touch on the idea of permission in a moment.) Not just credit, but saying that it's a tracing. On top of credit just being a good idea (you can never go wrong giving *too much* credit, only in giving too little), I just feel like it's important to let your audience know what they're looking at. I would guess that the reason for posting a tracing is that you want to show your audience what you did to customize it, or your coloring, or whatever -- that there's something you did to it that you want people to see. That's fine! I think it's just a very good idea to make sure that your audience doesn't think you did more than you did.
Referencing: I'm fine with people using referencing to help them figure out how to draw something. I do it all the time, too. I feel that referencing is the necessary stand-in for drawing-from-life (which is more the ideal, but impractical for most situations these days), and to be honest, I'd rather see folks look at some references to help them figure out how to get started with something they don't "know" yet (be it human/elf anatomy, or animals, or whatever), than to keep on producing things that make it obvious that they haven't ever looked at "the real thing" to see how it works, and thus, wind up perpetuating mistakes in their work.
I find referencing to be more of a grey area, in terms of when to give credit to others. For myself, it involves a lot more "rules of thumb", and I can totally understand why opinions and habits vary.
Part of it, for me, depends on the degree of copying/referencing. Am I just using a small piece of someone else's work to help me figure out how to do what I'm trying to do? (A hand; a leg; a face in profile.) Or am I looking at a large number of examples in order to create something that "fits in" with them, but isn't as easily said to be based on any one in particular? (For example: looking at a whole bunch of Wendy's "elves riding wolves" to figure out how to do the legs on the elves.) I tend not to feel it to be necessary to "footnote" a piece to that degree, although I think if it was something *particularly* tricky, I might indeed feel the need to alert my audience that the tricky bit of my piece owed something to this other artist figuring it out first (or, photographer documenting it). I've also certainly sometimes given blanket credit (such as indicating that I have used Monty Sloan's Wolf Photography site extensively for wolf refs).
Sometimes, I also feel that a level of referencing will be understood by a particular audience, and they will know anyway that I must have looked at references. In a way, I kind of put the entire "drawing ElfQuest elves" into that category. I *expect* my audience to know that I've looked at Wendy Pini's work, and am trying to do elves in her style! (I'm not trying to "fool" anyone into thinking that the way I draw elf ears is somehow original to me, you know?)
But, if I do a piece for which I rely on a large degree of copying of a referenced work (such as a full figure, or, like more than 50% of a figure), that's when I would start to feel it was necessary to point people to the original that I used as a reference. (An example of this in my gallery is "Starskimmer Reclining", in which 90% of the figure was based on a painting, so I point to that painting.) This is related to what I was saying above, about wanting my audience to know what they're looking at, and to appreciate the work I did (hey! check out how I was able to freehand that sucker!), while not getting fooled into thinking I did more than I actually did.
Permissions: as a fan artist, I recognize the fact that there's a difference between the way we interact (or, don't) with the pros, versus how we interact with other fans/amateurs. On the one hand, we have a lot more access to other fans. On the other hand, pro artists/photographers have good reasons to protect their copyrights. And on a third hand (...what?), we recognize that if fellow fans/amateurs aren't pros, then all we have in the fan community is our own reputation for our work; all we have is social capital, in other words, and it's important to respect that.
It is often impractical or impossible to obtain permission from a pro to use their art for tracing or for referencing. So, IMO, that can be why giving clear credit is important -- it's all you can do.
With fellow fans, especially ones within the same community you're posting in, you CAN ask permission beforehand to use their work in certain ways. By and large, people seem to know this -- at least, this community and the SoC seems to have the cultural habit of people asking permission before they color someone else's work, for example, and of course people are good about indicating who the artist was when they post the colored version. I would think this would pertain to tracing too. The question is how much it pertains, or should pertain, to referencing.
Me, I would still go by the practice I outlined above -- depends on the amount of referencing done. A hand? No. Figuring out how to do eyes or ears? Nah. A full or almost-entire figure or pose? Yeah, that's something where I'd at least give credit (and probably start off with a "I hope you don't mind if I use your piece as a ref" note), particularly if the referencing had helped me to figure out a "problem" that I was struggling with, because after all, if it was the other artist who'd solved the "problem", rather than me, it'd be good to indicate that.
Designs: while this wasn't mentioned, this is something I think about as well. Obviously, as EQ fan artists, we're all drawing on a known pool of original art (Wendy's and other EQ artists), which help to form the basis of our character designs. But each of us brings our own creativity to the table as well. I've starting trying to get into the habit of clearly indicating to people when I'm drawing someone else's character, whose design was done by someone else. (I was noticing that I was getting compliments from people for my costume designs, for example, and I wanted to be clear that actually, I'm NOT very creative about costume design, and some of the designs they were admiring were done by someone else.) So I think that can sometimes be a good idea as well.
Some thoughts.
Tracing: I've certainly been an advocate for tracing as a learning exercise (when it's combined with other techniques), although I tend not to advocate that people post the results. But, if someone wants to post them, my feeling is that credit is always a must. (I'll touch on the idea of permission in a moment.) Not just credit, but saying that it's a tracing. On top of credit just being a good idea (you can never go wrong giving *too much* credit, only in giving too little), I just feel like it's important to let your audience know what they're looking at. I would guess that the reason for posting a tracing is that you want to show your audience what you did to customize it, or your coloring, or whatever -- that there's something you did to it that you want people to see. That's fine! I think it's just a very good idea to make sure that your audience doesn't think you did more than you did.
Referencing: I'm fine with people using referencing to help them figure out how to draw something. I do it all the time, too. I feel that referencing is the necessary stand-in for drawing-from-life (which is more the ideal, but impractical for most situations these days), and to be honest, I'd rather see folks look at some references to help them figure out how to get started with something they don't "know" yet (be it human/elf anatomy, or animals, or whatever), than to keep on producing things that make it obvious that they haven't ever looked at "the real thing" to see how it works, and thus, wind up perpetuating mistakes in their work.
I find referencing to be more of a grey area, in terms of when to give credit to others. For myself, it involves a lot more "rules of thumb", and I can totally understand why opinions and habits vary.
Part of it, for me, depends on the degree of copying/referencing. Am I just using a small piece of someone else's work to help me figure out how to do what I'm trying to do? (A hand; a leg; a face in profile.) Or am I looking at a large number of examples in order to create something that "fits in" with them, but isn't as easily said to be based on any one in particular? (For example: looking at a whole bunch of Wendy's "elves riding wolves" to figure out how to do the legs on the elves.) I tend not to feel it to be necessary to "footnote" a piece to that degree, although I think if it was something *particularly* tricky, I might indeed feel the need to alert my audience that the tricky bit of my piece owed something to this other artist figuring it out first (or, photographer documenting it). I've also certainly sometimes given blanket credit (such as indicating that I have used Monty Sloan's Wolf Photography site extensively for wolf refs).
Sometimes, I also feel that a level of referencing will be understood by a particular audience, and they will know anyway that I must have looked at references. In a way, I kind of put the entire "drawing ElfQuest elves" into that category. I *expect* my audience to know that I've looked at Wendy Pini's work, and am trying to do elves in her style! (I'm not trying to "fool" anyone into thinking that the way I draw elf ears is somehow original to me, you know?)
But, if I do a piece for which I rely on a large degree of copying of a referenced work (such as a full figure, or, like more than 50% of a figure), that's when I would start to feel it was necessary to point people to the original that I used as a reference. (An example of this in my gallery is "Starskimmer Reclining", in which 90% of the figure was based on a painting, so I point to that painting.) This is related to what I was saying above, about wanting my audience to know what they're looking at, and to appreciate the work I did (hey! check out how I was able to freehand that sucker!), while not getting fooled into thinking I did more than I actually did.
Permissions: as a fan artist, I recognize the fact that there's a difference between the way we interact (or, don't) with the pros, versus how we interact with other fans/amateurs. On the one hand, we have a lot more access to other fans. On the other hand, pro artists/photographers have good reasons to protect their copyrights. And on a third hand (...what?), we recognize that if fellow fans/amateurs aren't pros, then all we have in the fan community is our own reputation for our work; all we have is social capital, in other words, and it's important to respect that.
It is often impractical or impossible to obtain permission from a pro to use their art for tracing or for referencing. So, IMO, that can be why giving clear credit is important -- it's all you can do.
With fellow fans, especially ones within the same community you're posting in, you CAN ask permission beforehand to use their work in certain ways. By and large, people seem to know this -- at least, this community and the SoC seems to have the cultural habit of people asking permission before they color someone else's work, for example, and of course people are good about indicating who the artist was when they post the colored version. I would think this would pertain to tracing too. The question is how much it pertains, or should pertain, to referencing.
Me, I would still go by the practice I outlined above -- depends on the amount of referencing done. A hand? No. Figuring out how to do eyes or ears? Nah. A full or almost-entire figure or pose? Yeah, that's something where I'd at least give credit (and probably start off with a "I hope you don't mind if I use your piece as a ref" note), particularly if the referencing had helped me to figure out a "problem" that I was struggling with, because after all, if it was the other artist who'd solved the "problem", rather than me, it'd be good to indicate that.
Designs: while this wasn't mentioned, this is something I think about as well. Obviously, as EQ fan artists, we're all drawing on a known pool of original art (Wendy's and other EQ artists), which help to form the basis of our character designs. But each of us brings our own creativity to the table as well. I've starting trying to get into the habit of clearly indicating to people when I'm drawing someone else's character, whose design was done by someone else. (I was noticing that I was getting compliments from people for my costume designs, for example, and I wanted to be clear that actually, I'm NOT very creative about costume design, and some of the designs they were admiring were done by someone else.) So I think that can sometimes be a good idea as well.
210
Art and Elfquest / Re: "Zero-sized reply" bug and how to get around it
« on: May 21, 2009, 10:39:31 AM »
Just as a note:
I just tried this, putting in a small placeholder, and then editing. It did post the pic, but when I edited to put in the rest of the description I'd meant to, it gave me the ZERO_SIZED error again. I re-edited and took out a couple of lines, and then it was fine.
Is there anything that actually specifies the current word or character limit on descriptions?
I just tried this, putting in a small placeholder, and then editing. It did post the pic, but when I edited to put in the rest of the description I'd meant to, it gave me the ZERO_SIZED error again. I re-edited and took out a couple of lines, and then it was fine.
Is there anything that actually specifies the current word or character limit on descriptions?
211
Art and Elfquest / Re: Member Characters
« on: May 21, 2009, 09:22:46 AM »
Okay, let me give this a try...
Name: Blacksnake
Birth-tribe: River Twine Holt (wolfriders)
Parents: Wolfmane & Dove (both deceased)
Age: 801
Appearance: Silver-grey hair and facefur, usually not longer than shaggy shoulder-length; brown eyes; squarish face, heavy eyebrows (left has a scar through it) make him look stern; trim, well-muscled figure.
Attire: Usually a Very Standard Wolfrider ensemble of tunic and close-fitting breeches tucked into calf-high boots, which often have fur trim around the top. Has had variations over the years, but current outfit is a very dark-brown/black tunic with dark green oak-leaf trim, boots of the same color, and dark green pants.
Role: Lifemate of the previous chief, father of the current chief; hunt leader.
Skills: Well-rounded in most things pertaining to hunting, particularly favors spear.
Personality: Snarky, dour, arrogant, critical. Very smart and clever, knows it, thinks a great deal of himself. Has a tendency to be a schemer/manipulator. More benignly, a good planner/strategist. (The RTH tribe is fairly close to its founding generation, and thus has elves who lean more towards one or the other side of their natures; Blacksnake has plenty of wolfblood elements to him, but in terms of brains, he leans more towards his elvish side -- thinks past the Now more than some.) Often respected, but less often *liked*, with few true friends.
Background: The younger son of a very wolfblooded father and a slightly more elfblooded mother, grandson (on his mother's side) of the tribe's last healer (who, in Blacksnake's youth, went insane and had to be killed, following which the tribe was without a healer for 750 years, until just recently). Has an older brother, One-Leg, and a younger half-brother, Suddendusk (both still alive). Always ambitious (and with a high opinion of his own worth), always wanted to be a leader in the tribe. Recognized the much-older chieftess, Easysinger, and lifemated with her; had three children with her. The first was Riskrunner, his favorite, a golden-child boy, died in his prime. The second was Windburn, more wolfblooded and introverted; the two have always rubbed each other the wrong way, and both have been too stubborn to try to fix what's wrong. The third was Chicory, a late-born girl with quirky interests. He went a bit crazy when his lifemate died, but survived it and recovered. Did not think that Windburn was a good choice as the new chief, but for various reasons, the tribe didn't agree, and Windburn has been chief fairly successfully for about 175 years as of the present.
Links to Fanfics:
http://www.elfquestfanart.com/index.php?topic=31.0 ("Undecided")
There are a lot of fics linked to his Character Information Sheet on the RTH site:
http://www.rivertwine.com/members/cisdisplay.php?id=32
Particular ones showing him "in action":
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=150 ("Doing Nothing")
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=183 ("Fight or Flight, p1")
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=184 ("Fight or Flight, p2")
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=187 ("Aftershocks")
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=242 ("Pieced Together")
Images:
Name: Blacksnake
Birth-tribe: River Twine Holt (wolfriders)
Parents: Wolfmane & Dove (both deceased)
Age: 801
Appearance: Silver-grey hair and facefur, usually not longer than shaggy shoulder-length; brown eyes; squarish face, heavy eyebrows (left has a scar through it) make him look stern; trim, well-muscled figure.
Attire: Usually a Very Standard Wolfrider ensemble of tunic and close-fitting breeches tucked into calf-high boots, which often have fur trim around the top. Has had variations over the years, but current outfit is a very dark-brown/black tunic with dark green oak-leaf trim, boots of the same color, and dark green pants.
Role: Lifemate of the previous chief, father of the current chief; hunt leader.
Skills: Well-rounded in most things pertaining to hunting, particularly favors spear.
Personality: Snarky, dour, arrogant, critical. Very smart and clever, knows it, thinks a great deal of himself. Has a tendency to be a schemer/manipulator. More benignly, a good planner/strategist. (The RTH tribe is fairly close to its founding generation, and thus has elves who lean more towards one or the other side of their natures; Blacksnake has plenty of wolfblood elements to him, but in terms of brains, he leans more towards his elvish side -- thinks past the Now more than some.) Often respected, but less often *liked*, with few true friends.
Background: The younger son of a very wolfblooded father and a slightly more elfblooded mother, grandson (on his mother's side) of the tribe's last healer (who, in Blacksnake's youth, went insane and had to be killed, following which the tribe was without a healer for 750 years, until just recently). Has an older brother, One-Leg, and a younger half-brother, Suddendusk (both still alive). Always ambitious (and with a high opinion of his own worth), always wanted to be a leader in the tribe. Recognized the much-older chieftess, Easysinger, and lifemated with her; had three children with her. The first was Riskrunner, his favorite, a golden-child boy, died in his prime. The second was Windburn, more wolfblooded and introverted; the two have always rubbed each other the wrong way, and both have been too stubborn to try to fix what's wrong. The third was Chicory, a late-born girl with quirky interests. He went a bit crazy when his lifemate died, but survived it and recovered. Did not think that Windburn was a good choice as the new chief, but for various reasons, the tribe didn't agree, and Windburn has been chief fairly successfully for about 175 years as of the present.
Links to Fanfics:
http://www.elfquestfanart.com/index.php?topic=31.0 ("Undecided")
There are a lot of fics linked to his Character Information Sheet on the RTH site:
http://www.rivertwine.com/members/cisdisplay.php?id=32
Particular ones showing him "in action":
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=150 ("Doing Nothing")
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=183 ("Fight or Flight, p1")
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=184 ("Fight or Flight, p2")
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=187 ("Aftershocks")
http://www.rivertwine.com/storypageview.php?id=242 ("Pieced Together")
Images:
212
Art and Elfquest / Re: C/C for mischievous_valkyrie
« on: April 29, 2009, 09:07:17 AM »The head ratio thing is well I like it on others art work but when I try to draw it myself I always think it doesn't look right lol but I think I'm going to have to get over it X3 ..maybe
The head-size thing is a real toughie! I sympathize with struggling with it; I don't think I always get it, either, even when I set out to try to be accurate. (I'm always impressed by Wendy's consistency in this; although, the 1/5 ratio for wolfriders/sun folk/go-backs is the model-sheet, of course, and I've never actually done a survey of her in-comic work to see if she ever strays from it. But my *impression*, at least, is that she's extremely consistent about it.) People struggle with it so much that we haven't tried to hold anyone to it in what they submit to RTH (the way we *do* hold people to other EQ details, like four-fingered hands).
And sometimes, I find it goes the other way! I've wound up drawing heads that were just too big, and then had to shrink them in the ink phase. In the other direction, though, I frequently find myself doing 1/5.5 ratios. (Fortunately, many of the RTH characters are in an in-between stage in the devolution from High One to Cutter-wolfrider height, so this can be almost "accurate".) Anyway, to double-check, I'll often get something into PS, then make a rough cut-out of the head, and paste it four times over, so I can line 'em up and see how they relate to the figure's height. That's where cutting out bits and scaling them in PS comes in handy, too; which is easiest done in the ink phase, obviously, but I've done it at the color stage too. (Note: I scan all my inks for clean-up, then laser-print a copy to color on.)
This is -- if others will forgive me -- a thing where I recommend a limited form of tracing, in order to help you get your head around the EQ proportions. That is, I'd recommend either taking some of the EQ "doll" outlines that Wendy created, or else creating them yourself out of some clear figure examples (such as the animation turn-around studies in the Gatherum), and using them to create a figure outline to fill in. If you're having trouble feeling as if it "looks right" in your own style, then that might help you produce some practice pieces that you can be sure *are* replicating the correct proportions, and might help make you more comfortable with the look. (I've done this when I've been having trouble with the concept; really doing 1/5 results in REALLY gigantic heads, and I find it a good way to convince my brain that the drawing *is* in the correct proportion -- it has to be, if the figure outline was accurately copied from something that I *know* was accurately laid out.)
From there, it's a matter of figuring out how to lay out your figures so that you can reproduce the proportions yourself. (Early on, I tended to draw a rough guide-grid for myself. I don't do that as much lately, after discovering the "scaling bits in PS" technique.)
213
Art and Elfquest / Re: Welcome to ElfQuest Discussion
« on: April 04, 2009, 08:43:42 PM »
It's really great to see folks finding their way back here! 
214
Holts / Re: River Twine Holt
« on: March 31, 2009, 11:47:08 AM »
FWIW, Foxeye -- one of the reasons RTH is structured the way it is, I think, is because it puts less pressure on folks for participation. Our minimums are designed to (hopefully) be manageable for folks who can't commit to the usual daily or weekly demands of an RP-type club.
(Our "one piece of art per quarter" thing counts pieces of any degree of complexity from a sketch to something fully finished.)
Naturally, the more involved someone is, the more prominent their character tends to be. But even a character just being owned, with a minimally-involved owner, can just result in more other members thinking to use the character, which is a nice feedback loop.
(Our "one piece of art per quarter" thing counts pieces of any degree of complexity from a sketch to something fully finished.)
Naturally, the more involved someone is, the more prominent their character tends to be. But even a character just being owned, with a minimally-involved owner, can just result in more other members thinking to use the character, which is a nice feedback loop.
215
Art and Elfquest / Re: Questions?
« on: March 31, 2009, 11:36:36 AM »
Foxeye -- I never saw an answer as to whether what I was asking below was possible or not. (I mean, if not, fine; I respect the limitations of programming! I just wanted to know.)
I have kind of a similar question: I noticed when logging in today that little "new" icons appear next to pieces of art that have been "updated" in some way, such as by receiving comments since you last viewed them. That's a very helpful feature!
What I'm wondering is whether it's possible to get the top-level User Galleries to have that "new" icon appear next to their title if new art has been added to them since the last time you logged in.
Especially in these early days, when folks are uploading a LOT, and therefore stuff gets pushed off the front "new" page pretty quickly, it'd be really helpful at the User Galleries level to know whether there's new art you haven't seen in some users' folders.
216
Art and Elfquest / Re: Questions?
« on: March 20, 2009, 06:49:25 AM »
Second question.
Would it be a good idea to create a section (like there is at the SoC) just for fan holts to create threads for advertising purposes? (Whit posted a RTH thread here under "General Discussion", but I can imagine going forward that it would be more efficient in a lot of ways for holt advertising threads to go in their own dedicated section?)
Would it be a good idea to create a section (like there is at the SoC) just for fan holts to create threads for advertising purposes? (Whit posted a RTH thread here under "General Discussion", but I can imagine going forward that it would be more efficient in a lot of ways for holt advertising threads to go in their own dedicated section?)
217
Art and Elfquest / Re: Questions?
« on: March 20, 2009, 06:47:39 AM »
I have kind of a similar question: I noticed when logging in today that little "new" icons appear next to pieces of art that have been "updated" in some way, such as by receiving comments since you last viewed them. That's a very helpful feature!
What I'm wondering is whether it's possible to get the top-level User Galleries to have that "new" icon appear next to their title if new art has been added to them since the last time you logged in.
Especially in these early days, when folks are uploading a LOT, and therefore stuff gets pushed off the front "new" page pretty quickly, it'd be really helpful at the User Galleries level to know whether there's new art you haven't seen in some users' folders.
What I'm wondering is whether it's possible to get the top-level User Galleries to have that "new" icon appear next to their title if new art has been added to them since the last time you logged in.
Especially in these early days, when folks are uploading a LOT, and therefore stuff gets pushed off the front "new" page pretty quickly, it'd be really helpful at the User Galleries level to know whether there's new art you haven't seen in some users' folders.
218
Art and Elfquest / Re: Project "Recover Fanart Calendar Submissions"
« on: March 20, 2009, 06:43:37 AM »
Hi! I'm here now. 
The two pieces in 2008 and 2009 credited to "Holly" ("Moment of Courage" and "Remembrance Unites...") can be listed as "posted by" me.
The two pieces in 2008 and 2009 credited to "Holly" ("Moment of Courage" and "Remembrance Unites...") can be listed as "posted by" me.