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

[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!