"Artist Challenge" Thread on Fan Creations Subforum.
 

This was an idea I recently had.

We have a fair number of really good artists here on Anime Suki. The current approach is that each artist gets one thread to put his or her work in.

I can see value in artists not splitting up their work through numerous threads, as it could make it hard for people to navigate the subforum.

However, I do have an idea here that I think might allow for some new and interesting possibilities.

Why not create a stickied "Artist Challenge" thread for the Fan Creations Subforum? Anybody could post an "Artist Challenge" into this thread, and artists could decide whether or not to give it a go.


The artistic challenge could be something like "Can you draw characters from Anime ABC cosplaying as characters from Anime XYZ?" or "Can you draw a romantic picture between Anime Characters D and G?" or even "Can you draw these anime characters in a cross-over situation with these characters from other media?"

Anybody could make these artistic challenges, including artists themselves.


Personally, I think this could be a lot of fun! I myself have a few ideas for "Artist Challenges" that I'd love to put out there (gradually over time).

So, what do people here think? :)

I really don't see why this wouldn't be doable. There's already a thread for avatar requests and one for signature requests, so one for art commissions in general shouldn't be too farfetched a suggestion.

Plus there's the fact I always feel weird about taking time out of people's days to ask for things like this, so it'd benefit me in particular because the only people who would really be looking are artists who are looking for something to do anyway. :heh:

There used to be Artist of the Month threads. Those died, simply because there just weren't enough artists for it to be viable (the last few months had <4/5 entries, all the same people, all of whom are no longer active here).

Unlike graphics (sigs and the like) original artwork generally takes longer, more dedication, and an actual investment (tablet/proper pens etc.) All of which adds up to a higher barrier for entry, which is why you are unlikely to find many artists outside of somewhere actually dedicated to art. I'm not saying it would be impossible, just don't.. expect spetacular results.

That said I do love the idea. I'm just rather pessimistic about the support.

Currently, we do not have a thread were people could request things such as wallpapers or drawings and I wouldn't be so against the idea of having something like that.

At the same time however, what Seitsuki mentions is true. Many of the artists that used to post in FC are no longer active and many request/challanges could easily go unnoticed because of this.

I still think it's probably for the best on principle. Since artwork can't be churned out like sigs, having a whole bunch of threads that are updated maybe once a month seems like a waste, and likely discourages quite a few from posting at all. Grouping them up seems like the most viable solution.

Maybe a general "Drawings/Wallpapers" stickied thread would be nice, if you think the term "Artist Challenge" is a bit too dramatic. :heh:

This "Drawings/Wallpapers" thread would work much like the Avatar and Sigs thread do - People would make requests, and then wait/hope for them to be completed by someone. In this case, of course, people would have to be very patient, lol.

But I definitely think it could be fun. Worth a try at least. :)

How about AnimeSuki Drawfriends Thread? :heh: (There have been 400+ threads of these in /a/ which compose of people requesting other people to draw a particular anime character.)

Most people can draw with pencil and paper... but not all has a "pen", photoshop and a scanner....

Eh, no need to dishearten those who have little resources for participating.
Hell, I have a graphics tablet, Photoshop and a scanner, but I don't trust my drawing skills. :eyespin:

That said, the sheer number of participants would be the challenge for this proposal. We all know what happened in the Signature of the Month contest.

I like Triple_R idea. I know several people on another forum that start idea like Triple_R. Now they have build a doujin circle and one of them even get a job illustrating for a mobile game company in Japan.

This artist idea is nice, but hey, how about that banner competition as well? :9

I would love some banner/signature competitions being brought back in.

I agree for the signature competitions, since everyone can have its own.
However, I would keep the banner-working in the hands of AnimeSuki Staff, since the banners are shown to everyone, plus, in my opinion, I think the Staff is already doing really good job and there is quite a lot of banners shown/displayed as well.

We're due for another, aren't we? I do see we have nice pink ones now though. :heh:

Yup, fits nice by bringing back last Spring's banners-nice touch. We do definitely need some new ones though. :p

Yeah, we're still planning to do the 10th anniversary contest. We got bogged down in some details, and recently I've been devoting time to some other projects, but hopefully we'll come back to it shortly.

We also need to do a summer contest at some point too to complete the season set.

Increase the cash prize....:heh:

Once upon a time we had a Signature of the Month contest too. I really enjoyed that, but it kind of died due to inactivity on all counts.
I think since we have more new and budding artists now though, it would be fun to try again.

I also like the idea of a drawings/wallpapers thread.

I think it is time to continue the banner contest that was postponed before, since the missing one is the summer season banner do we?

Just post a sticky like thread to advertise to every sub-forum so that many people will be informed including the artists and designers who are currently hibernating and lurking.

Just wanted to add that we currently do have threads in which you may request Avatars and Signatures.
Creating a thread in which you could request various wallpapers seems like a nice "combo" of the three.