The URPG Art Forum

(PE2K Thread found here)

This is the part where I'm supposed to announce a new ref/judge/grader/ranger. This is also the part where people notice that I don't have the legal authority to do any of those things. But if that's true, then it must mean...

Yeah. It's that time of year again. For some of us, the snow falls, the end of school, and that sentence with some horrible parallelism issues are about all that's happening right now with the advent of the holidays. And for others, it's still hot. But wherever we are, it's time for a wonderful segue into...

The Art Capture Challenge!... Event... Section... Thingy.

Yeah. So some of you might remember the First and Second Art Capture Challenges, and how we were expressing plans of continuing on in a similar vein. (Links to Submission Threads for Challenges 1 and 2, and links to Judging for Challenges 1 and 2 are listed here). If not, feel free to browse around and get the general idea of what we're trying to plan.

So, yes. It's only been a few months... or a year or so, but we're back again! Huzzah. Pidge, TsukiKaiki64, and I are serving as the organizers for URPG's first Art Capture Forum, although I'm going to be doing the brunt of the organization. You can still ask them about our Art Capture Forum, though, if you feel so inclined. And yes. It's a working title. And yes, I said forum. We've noticed lately that URPG has sections for most of the common branches in Pokemon-- that is, battling/contests, fanfiction, and roleplaying-- but we seem to be missing Oekaki branch, or the semi-weeaboo term for what most people know as fan art. In an ideal world, we'd generate enough attention to have a full-blown forum for the Art Capture Challenge, along with snazzier title, and we would allow for the capture of Pokemon, like other sections.

Naturally, this isn't going to be a simple task, and we've got a few kinks to work out to our basic emblem-based system. Thus far, we've decided on some basic formatting for the section, but we understand that you, as the participants, are obviously going to want some feedback into how things work, right? Yeah. Let's go with that.

So. There is much work to be done. Our plan so far is slightly different from the other sections in terms of obtaining Pokemon. Instead of revolving around the actions of an individual, we've found that the objective nature of art is much more inclined to having a sort of group-based challenge. So, with that in mind, the Art forum would host Competitions at regular, and hopefully frequent, intervals (perhaps once every one or two weeks), where users would be invited to showcase their work. Each competition would have a new theme, both for originality's sake and to prevent the re-submission of a singluar art piece, and each competition would then be judged by a panel of Art Curators out of a possible of 100 points. The winner would then receive x emblems as their prize, but any participants who received a certain score would receive (x-1) emblems, activity depending. That way, the Art Forum can't be dominated by a single good artist, and people who display enough effort can still be rewarded for their work. The amount of emblems rewarded might vary based on activity, but right now,we're looking at two emblems for the winner and one for people who displayed enough effort. If we get more activity, those numbers might increase some. People who score below a certain score (say, 25/100), will receive no emblems at all to prevent abuse of the system from trolls 'r something. Don't worry. The cutoff point for not receiving any reward will be low enough that anyone who actually tries will probably get some form of reward.

That's very nice, Kai, you might be saying, but whatever is an emblem? We've attempted to introduce the concept in a couple of places before-- some of you might remember the Library, for instance-- but we find that it works out nicely here. Basically, emblems are their own sort of currency within the URPG, and can be exchanged for Pokemon. People can earn these emblems through the aforementioned Art Contests, and can then get their emblems exchanged for Pokemon on a system largely based on story tiers. Obviously, the exact numbers are still really flexible, seeing as a lot of this will hinge upon participation-- we don't want to make it too easy or difficult, compared to other sections, to reap the rewards of the Art Forum. So far, our exchange system is looking somewhat like this:

1 Emblems > Easiest
2 Emblems > Simple
4 Emblems > Medium
7 Emblems > Hard
10 Emblems > Complex
14 Emblems > Demanding
17 Emblems > Merciless
20 Emblems > Stupefying​

Again, we're still in prelim stages for that, because I'm not sure how difficult/easily abused those exchanges are looking.You'll notice, then, that a lot of the success for the Art Forums depends on activity. Even in the earlier stages, we want to get as much member input as possible to make the Art Forum as comprehensive and inviting as we can. Odds are I've forgotten some sort of overarching concept in this, or I've made a few too many assumptions that some people might not appreciate. Or perhaps I've just made no sense at all. Either way, a lot of the future of the Art Forums won't be in my hands, in a sense: it'll be in yours. That sounded a lot more cheesey than I had intended, and it also made me sound lazy. Bother.

However, we do have a lot of options for member feedback, especially at this stage. There are large-scale problems to address, such as the overarching structure of the Forums (what with the contests and whatnot), or the smaller scale things such as the criteria for grading things as objective as art or the incorporation of photoshop/computer-generated works with traditional mediums. And there are probably some other things that I haven't covered thus far in my explanation.

So. I'm going to stop rambling now, because this paragraph is looking like a load of wall-text. So far, there's very little in this set in stone (other than the establishment itself, which has been approved by Harry, before people ask. XD), and we're always open to input from all of our members. You don't even have to be able to draw. I sure can't.

If you guys have any further questions and you don't feel inclined to posting in here, feel free to PM/VM me on either forum (although I'm much more active on BMG) or IM me. I'll be happy to try to sort things out.

Thanks for reading, everyone! ^.^

 

Hmm, I painted several tasteful nudes of Nitro a few months ago while he posed on cam. Will I be able to submit these?

 

ALLOW ANIMATIONS IN

 

SO MANY MASTERPIECES, WHICH ONE TO POST? ALL OF THEM? hdear:

 

Um I'd just like to clarify, would the drawings be limited to those about Pokemon? Also is there any current stance on whether graphic art such as banners, sprites, etc. would be allowed? Or are you looking for more hand drawn things/large-scale pieces?

 

OH. HEY. LIFE.

Whelp. Yes, in the same sense that the Stories and Park follow Pokemon-- it serves as a general theme, but there have been many deviations-- the Art Forum would be similarly Pogeymanz-oriented. We're somewhat leaning against integrating those computer generate art things, although frankly I can go either way at this stage. The main problem with using both hand-drawn and computer mediums is that the grading criteria is entirely different, and it becomes rather difficult to judge two different mediums side by side. BUT... if we can find a way to make them work out together, than I'm totally open for using both.

 

I think I mentioned this in the Staff stuff, but I'd be happy to be a judge for the computer-generated stuff. I've got a lot of experience in that field, and I'd be happy to work with the other arty-farty people to figure out some way they can either be judged alongside or separately. And I'm not going to have any problem throwing out anything which clearly has no effort or appears to be stolen.

 

I think both mediums of art should be present but judged separately, just like how there's different styles of contest/battles. Erm. Well. The contest example was better. I accidentally got stuck in Intro To Art so I know art things as far as physical mediums go. I'll help.

 

So, since no-one has posted here at all in two weeks and Kai wanted me to post something... here's some graphic art. Very graphic. My graphics card infact.

 

POSTIN FOR TED AGAIN.

Teddy Bear 7:04 pm
I ENJOY DRAWN ART

 

All types of art should be had to fit different types of artists. We probably don't have many artists in URPG as it is, so accepting different kinds lends itself to more interest in the program. Odds are I'll contribute, but not very often.

 

Or for a Pokemon-ey slant...

 

Ok cause no one has posted, I'm just gonna unload a ton of bad banners I've made in the past...












And this was a depiction of some painfully slow Legend Defender fight from sometime ago...

 

SOUNDS CONFUSING. I like it.

Pretty sure there are a lot of people who like to draw and make art and such, but won't come out and show direct interest.

/delayed ramblings from the peanut gallery 2 months later. Don't mind me...

 

OMG it's Emma! Lurking around as usual

 

Yeah, I got a hip replacement and somehow managed to waddle my way to these forums...

NOW GET OUTTA HERE, CHRIS. YOU DON'T DRAW.

I on the other hand, can make even Van Gogh weep.

CHRIS MIGHT REMEMBER THIS BEAUTIFUL MASTERPIECE:

 

Haha Emma I can draw you just haven't seen me draw yet! I'll suprise you one day

That is good that you have fixed your hip now come back already!

 

Oh my god, is that from The Underdog Alliance? :O

 

Whaaaaaaat.



Why haven't you ever shown me?!


But see, more reason for them to make an Art Capture thread/forum!


And I actually don't know where that is from, SLC. XD But I'm pretty sure it wasn't from TUA, because I don't think Chris ever joined that. He was too cool for the Underdogs.

 

AHAHAHAA. AHAHAAHA. PEEEEEOPPPPPPLEEE... *twitches*

But really. Thanks, guys. ACTIVITY IS COOL. AND SO IS THAT LITTLE YELLOW GUY. SERIOUSLY.