THEME MONTHS 2013 suggestions (MAYBE)

[Suicide]

So I have this thought going through my head. The contributions to theme months has been lacking (on my part included. I think I did maybe 2 all year >_<). So I figure instead of letting those lackluster months go unnoticed and maybe give myself a chance to complete and post some things in those old Theme Months I was thinking of a few ideas. Also I'd like to throw out some ideas to get more contributions for new themes if we decide to have new 2013 themes.

IDEA 1: 2013 RETRO POSTING
Putting any NEW Theme ideas on hiatus and not having any new themes for 2013. In place of that we open up ALL the old theme months on the board. All year anyone can post NEW ART for those themes at the artist's own pace (much like Gambit has been doing recently). Retro-Posting on the old themes with new art might allow people to finish or make ideas that they had but couldn't complete during that time. It's less of a challenge and less focused but it makes for an easier time posting and may invigorate new things that people wanted to do but didn't because the theme month was over.

IDEA 2: 2 MONTH LONG THEMES
Instead of 1 month we give two months for people to contribute. I know I've had many times where I had an idea but my work schedule was too busy or personal life got in the way (Scott Pilgrim and She-Ra come to mind most recently). So this would reduce the number of themes to 6 in a year, BUT increase the chance that people would be able to post.

IDEA 3: 2 THEMES for 2 MONTHS
This is another twist on IDEA 2. The time limit for posting a theme would be 2 months, but in those two months we lay out 2 themes to choose from. A Rocky and Bullwinkle titling joke really. Like for instance one segment would be:

January - February:
Superheroines in Peril -OR- Snooping Reporters!

In this two month time period people can post a picture pertaining to one topic or the other OR EVEN BOTH. It gives us the longer period of time to post but doesn't reduce the amount of new theme month idea's for a month.

IDEA 4: "BEST OF" YEAR
We open 12 slots of the year of 2013 with the "Best of" Themes that we have already done. Any of them can come back and be placed in as month theme to award new pics on a classic idea. From "Control Freak Out" from the last board to "Avatar Month" from this year.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

So those are my ideas. Let me know what you think about them or even offer up some ideas of your own.
DO NOT POST IDEAS FOR 2013 THEME MONTHS. That's not was this is about. If I see suggestions for that in the reply here I will DELETE it, BAN your IP, find out where you live and hit you in the nuts with a Louisville Slugger. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Have a nice day! ^_^

[Suichiro]

I'd much rather have something involving a collaboration within the board. I think the issue at hand is that it's not exciting to post things every month, with little to no results from it. Instead, if we all worked together on something, that'd be much more interesting to me, as an artist. I wouldn't be posting things just to try and illicit some sort of response. I'd be actively participating in an ongoing creative process.

[Suicide]

Sounds interesting. What sort of thing would we all work on?

[Karyu]

Could have a fake secret wars style comic cover with all the artists (or their online representation)/mascots/OC etc all together or some other type of massiv board wide collaberation.


Or maybe some seperate pieces of OC's together, this board has a note feature so artists could get together and come up with ideas.

EG - Artist A talks to artist B about having character C (his own OC) & D (artist B's OC) in one pic, artist B then draws characters C & D themselves

[Suichiro]

I'm really unsure and my own preferences likely aren't other peoples. But perhaps some simple things like a board mascot or OCs, design sessions where we polish up people's characters that they're unhappy with. Uh... maybe an ongoing project like a simple game of sorts, seeing as how we have people here with basic skills to make use of.

Really anything would work so long as there was back and forth feedback going on. Feeling like you're making a difference to a few people is far more pleasing than making no difference to a large group. I definitely don't want to turn this into a closed artist circle jerk, but I do think we need to start somewhere to get some momentum.

If things keep up as is, we'll have Bill post something new and then endless DA links for the rest of the year.

Edit: Some sort of round robin thing might be interesting as well. Where one person does the layout, one does the sketch, another inks, another colors, etc. Divide up a complex piece into much smaller segments so that nobody has to do a ton of work themselves.

[carlos1976]

sounds very interesting,i seconde the motion in those ideas,i would like to participate some times by posting pics

[darkforce2005]

Maybe it time to move away form the Theme Months we have been doing over at this board for years but maybe there could be new way to do this. What could work is just don't do Theme Month but have them down as Thame artworks posts where folks can post there art that fit that fit in that post anytime for of the year

[Suichiro]

If you don't have any sort of structure though, nobody will do anything.

[cresent34]

If you don't have any sort of structure though, nobody will do anything.

From what I've seen this last few months, hardly anyone's doing anything right now.

But isn't that what this thread is about..? Trying to inject more activity than there has been?

[Suichiro]

People not posting because they're bored with the current setup, or because it doesn't interest them, is not the same as people not posting because there's no sort of structure at all to the system. With one, failure is a possibility; with the other, it's a guarantee. If you just have a random list of themes for the entire year and don't enforce any sort of timing, then you'll never get any momentum for them and interest will be non-existent. If you have between now and next year to post something, what's going to motivate you to post anything at all? Procrastination is already a hard thing to deal with, without encouraging it along.

That's why I suggested some sort of ongoing process where things are happening at a specific pace. That sort of activity will draw interest and that will suck people up into the mechanism. The trick is to find *what* specifically motivates people, not to give them more excuses to abstain.

[carlos1976]

IDEA 1: 2013 RETRO POSTING
Putting any NEW Theme ideas on hiatus and not having any new themes for 2013. In place of that we open up ALL the old theme months on the board. All year anyone can post NEW ART for those themes at the artist's own pace (much like Gambit has been doing recently). Retro-Posting on the old themes with new art might allow people to finish or make ideas that they had but couldn't complete during that time. It's less of a challenge and less focused but it makes for an easier time posting and may invigorate new things that people wanted to do but didn't because the theme month was over.

that suggestion sounds interesting and very good, since my point of view,usually ,when some artist likes a lot a character,always have a lot of ideas for that character,in this case,a damsel in distress,and the classic AVGDIDs are a best inspiration for new arts.(in my case,my favorite girls as DIDs are Misato Katsuragi,or Mai Shiranui,and usually i have new ideas for them and i never get tired of draw them bound and gagged).

my vote ,if i understand in the right way this idea,is for this suggestion.