Paperlegends

[einahpets]

So if any of you don't know, paperlegends had their announcement post today!  Yay! 
I've met the best people through this event, seriously. 

Anyway I was looking through the schedule and I noticed artists now have to submit drafts.
This is actually pretty cool, cause it makes artists more involved. 
But I think there's probably more that would make it a little more involved/better for the artists.

Question for my writer friends and artists too!! --
As it's done now, drafts aren't due until after artist/author matchups happen. 
Before matchups, the 15K word counts are taken in faith.  I can't tell you how many of my artist friends got burned because the author didn't have the suggested amount, and ended up dropping out or the artists were not able to make art to the fullest of their abilities since time is shorter for artists.
I was wondering if submitting a minimum 15K rough draft before match-ups is something you think would benefit your Big Bang experience?
As an artist, I see it as more of a guarantee that you're serious about finishing and I have more confidence going into the anon matchups.  ALSO!  I have so much more material to work with and create beautiful art from.  And please tell me of a writer who doesn't want to see beautiful art?

Question for my artist friends --
How would you feel to have betas required for artists too? 
There are so many talented artists in fandom who would be more than happy to take a look at your in-progress work.
In the past year I started sharing my IP work with fellow Merlin artists and it makes a world of difference. 
Be it for anatomy, composition, perspective issues, coloring, the atmosphere in the piece, how to do a certain technique, etc. 
Having an online critique makes such a difference, and it created such a supportive community. 
It's like an art class, but for free, and on your time!!
Would you guys be interested/supportive of this?

I've already talked to a few friends, but I wanted to see if there were similar/different thoughts from my flist/the Merlin community.

Feel free to pass this along!

Comments

[zephre.livejournal.com]

aaargh, my first comment got eaten by my browser, so I will try to reconstruct the main points:

Rough drafts - excellent idea, really like it, would make it much less stressful to be an artist, and possibly allow real work to begin sooner.

Betas for artists - I like this idea, would appreciate developing a community of Merlin-oriented folks willing to crit art. Perhaps could grow out of an artists' support comm?

I also really like itzcoatl's idea about giving artists a month after the writers turn in their final stories, to refine or elaborate on their work, and to recover from any "oops, what I drafted became a deleted scene" problems.
I think that time could really transform the sort of thing I, at least, produce, and would probably benefit all the artists.

Thanks for asking the great questions!

[itzcoatl.livejournal.com]

The other thing, as an artist, I find. Is that, if you're lucky, you may be able to see a basic plan for the whole story, and have a rough idea of what's going to go on in a scene before it's written.

But until it's actually written, you don't know what they're wearing, what time of day it is, what room/sort of scenery they're in, what emotion is really going on between them in that scene... (And often the author won't know this either, since they are conditional on other things which happen in the writing during the lead-up to that scene).

I think it would be lovely to have some time after the writing is completely finished to do some extra pictures, or just some tweaking to pictures you've already started...just to make it tie in really well with the written story.

I LOVE, (love, love), your idea of a support-com just for the artists. It would be nice to have a community just for the artists on something like this. So artists could go there and post the works in progress and get comments/con-crit, and a bit of positive feedback just to keep each other going and the enthusiasm up.

[reni-m.livejournal.com]

Details always are the tough one. Sometimes I'll have descriptions that are fabulous and then other times it's just hazy and I have to pick the writer's brain for more.

I think making a support com for artists is a fabulous idea.
But for PL I'm think it would be cool to set up a post just for artists in the paperpushers community.

[itzcoatl.livejournal.com]

I totally agree that one couldn't spring a major change like the time schedule one onto PL at this late stage. Maybe it's just something to think of for future events. (I didn't even think of these things until your post...and then I suddenly thought...well...in an ideal world....)

However an artists support group shouldn't impact or change anything. (So long as the artists agreed not to share any spoilers outside the group.) Then I would think it would be very easy to incorporate into this years BB.

[reni-m.livejournal.com]

Oh that's true, I forgot that unlike snippets from a story, you'd be able to see the whole piece of art. Even if it was a work in progress we don't want to tell the secret early.

[altocello.livejournal.com]

But until it's actually written, you don't know what they're wearing, what time of day it is, what room/sort of scenery they're in, what emotion is really going on between them in that scene... (And often the author won't know this either, since they are conditional on other things which happen in the writing during the lead-up to that scene).

THIS!!!! And I love your idea of letting the artist have a month after the fic is finished to illustrate the last half of it. :D

[itzcoatl.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's something that might be incorporated into future events. I can see how it's way too late in the day for this year. But it does make you wonder how it might be possible in future BBs...

[altocello.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's too late for this year, but it's a good idea for future events!

[yue_ix]

These are really good point. I think a lot of authors don't realise how tiny changes can add or nulify tons of work from their artists. Graphics and vids require days of searching for a fitting pre-existing source to edit, often outside of Merlin canon, and then incorporating it in the art coherently. An seemingly incongruous change in the final can mess with all that work. As far as I've been able to ask, it's rare that artists were able to read the whole of their designated story before it was posted. I've been informed that that is sorely the responsibility of the authors, but I think that formally encouraging all parties in a Big Bang to consider the other's deadline more (and saying why, like your comment) would go a long way.

If the artists could be guaranteed a couple of weeks or a month after their base was done, I do think we'd see more art done for the finale or overall of a story, and it'd give them more time to beta it. It'd also give them time to exchange with their author without fear of bothering them when they are rushing to their own deadline, and ore time to plan on how and where this collaborative effort would be posted.

For the support comm for artists, this is something friends and I have brainstormed about before, but I felt that it might accomplish more if art events were siply more held on the already existing support comm paperpushers. There's a lot of artists, authors, betas and cheerleaders issues that other people also working on the same big bang project don't know about. I don't think that a lot of authors even know that artists can have betas, so it's logical they wouldn't think of that when planning their schedule. If they could see that sort of post go up on the support comm though, they'd know for sure and be able to adjust their views. As an artist beta, I've needed time to review people's works, and as a cheerleader I had to be included in conversations from an earlier point than I would have imagined. Last year, I really enjoyed working with both the author and artist as a beta and cheer for both, but that required a lot of communication and gentle poking. It's not something I had even imagined before it came up in a conversation with the author, but it's something I think others might be interested in doing - sharing the same support group, if everyone is willing.

For us all, it could make us realise all sort of factors for other participants that we had never thought of because we've never been in that position.

[reni-m.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was definitely thinking about how time easily gets taken away if there isn't something to work off of. And honestly, every participant wants more time to make something wonderful.

I can't encourage betas for artists enough. I never heard of it until this past year but after working with others it's just a really good time (and you get work done too!)!

Thank you for coming by and answering them! Please send along anyone who you think would be interested!

[scribblemoose]

I think the paperpushers commm. is for artists as well as writers?

[reni-m.livejournal.com]

It is! But I think most artists feel it's writer orientated. Especially for the first half of the big bang.
However, I'm thinking of starting posts just for artists this year to make it a more rounded community.

[itzcoatl.livejournal.com]

Did many artists use paperpushers last year to post works in progress? I must admit, I never went there, I know technically it's for everyone, but I had a quick look around and assumed it was more for the writers and talking about word counts and writing progress and so-forth.

[scribblemoose]

I would argue it's up to artists to colonise it - I've never seen an artist treated with anything but respect there.

[reni-m.livejournal.com]

It can be very overwhelming to make an art post when the community is mostly formatted for writers, and that is no fault of the writers! It's just the nature of the beast. By the time artists are in the picture, writers have been using the community for almost 4 months and it can be very overwhelming for an artist to wade in.
Also, it wouldn't be very practical for artists to share in-progress pieces, at least pieces reaching the final stages. Unlike story snippets, the surprise of the art gets taken away since you're seeing the whole thing. Unfinished yes, but the whole piece is there.
From my experience, it wasn't until last year I had any communication with another Merlin fanartist and that was because of the paperpushers work chats. But I only found out about it because I was reading all the posts and saw how they welcomed all! Which was great! But for an artist who doesn't know other artists, it can feel daunting going in.

[scribblemoose]

I really relate to that - even though I'm a writer I'm very shy of joining in and I hate to share work early on because it's usually rubbish. But that's not something the challenge itself can change - it's up to us as participants to make sure we're as welcoming as we can be and to try and think about what it's like for other participants.

Like I said elsewhere here, perhaps a friending post for artists at an appropriate point in the timescale might be helpful?

[reni-m.livejournal.com]

Exactly! So hopefully now that we're aware we can do stuff to change it. :)

I would hate to have a friending post without all the PL participants. Cause then it makes it feel divided, you know? Though I think there should definitely be something social when new participants come in.

[reni-m.livejournal.com]

There wasn't much in terms of posting IP work on the community, but I met a good group of fanartists when the work mibbit chats started (actually we liked it so much some of us are still chatting).
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the mibbit chats will start again! And those work chats worked like this - 30 minutes of working 30 minutes of talking. And the best part was getting to know new people!

Anyway, I'm going to talk to a few other artists and see what would be the best way to go about making progress posts for artists in paperpushers.

[yue_ix]

It officially is, but only slowly actually gets there. The very banner text is authors-only: "Write, damn you, write". The round before last, every chat notice, every call for WIPs, every general cheerleading threads - they were all only oriented at authors. I've pointed this out to the mods and, like you said, was told this was something the volunteers there would have to do, which I agree it is. For that reason, I think it's very important that all members of that comm are aware that there's artists in their midst, and that if artists aren't very present right now it's partly because a great deal of them took one look at the comm and saw it wasn't calling to them.

This is a vicious circle, but one that already got a lot better last round because friends and I got up and posted and poked people more. It made me feel like an arrogant and annoying twat to always have to say in chats "and artists!" whenever people talked of posting participants and only meant writers. But I think it helped a bit. This year, it'd be very nice if more people remembered by themselves or if others artists stepped up. That's also why I'm not really for having a different comm for artists and for writers. For one we share a lot of elements, and secondly a big part of the problem is the separation everyone makes and being invisible. Doing our own things in another place would help with neither of those things.

[scribblemoose]

I wonder whether the problem is compounded by the fact that artists typically start work later than writers, by necessity, and by that stage the writers have their support networks established, making it that much harder for artists to join in?

I agree, it's not the comm itself, and it's not a mod/organiser problem, it's up to us participants- perhaps some of the artists like yourself could organise some friending posts or chats around the time of the matches? That would be a good reminder for us writers, too, that there's a whole vital section of the community that is in danger of being ignored!