The future of Art & Modelling is in your hands

[SPRKH]

anyone want to see some generic anime-ish fantasy art?

There are already some Gundam WIPs in here.

[smoth]

people PLAN to do things all the time, but whether or not they stick around, less likely than receiving a 2 dollar bill.

troll harder sprkh

[Argh]

I'd personally say random WIPs go in the random WIP thread.

Who gets to judge what's "random"?

That's the problem here. Nobody should get that call but the artists themselves, imo.

Sticky Random WIP, and voila, newbies will probably know where it's expected to post. If they don't post there, no problem.

[Guessmyname]

To be honest, Argh has a point. Random WIP needs the sticky.

Random WIPs are just that. Things like first models or those unconnected to a project should go in that thread. I just keep throwing things in there out of habit seeing as it's what I've always done...

[MidKnight]

In my opinion, Eyecracks for a specific project should go in the Games & mods forum. I tend to post pics of my completed models in the CA News thread. The PURE Thread does the same thing. Smoth's Gundam Eyecrack thread, on the other hand, is mostly completed and rendered models, whereas his (very fully documented) WIP is kept in his personal forum. This effectively validates it as not WIP and certainly not random.

So then what is our problem?

From what I can see, the problem is that the forums are becoming clogged with people posting a few or even just one model, then leaving. So our enemy is the low-content, high-quantity thread. so the solution would be to confine all the not-well-established artists to one thread until they prove themselves.

What are the problems with this suggestion?

A: lack of activity. see the mappers forum >_>
B: lack of recognition. I saw GMN as "that weird dude who draws random stuff" until I discovered sketchy rants/browsed the WIP thread, whereas my initial impressions of, say, Cremuss's or Mr. D's capabilities were pretty accurate. ofc, my initial impressions tend to suck :p . i once thought that Peet ran the XTA forum, smoth was a detractor of Gundam RTS, Det was the head CA dev, rattle was a troll, spikedhelmet was a SWIW dev, forb had ripped the evo rts logo, and Licho was a company that sponsored spring
C: lack of control. It's hard to keep track of all your models when they're in the random WIP thread.
..and m.any others.

So what do I propose?

I propose we add a new sticky entitled "beginner models," and let people post their models there, as people sometimes hae a purpose, but tend to get discouraged and leave fast. also, we could convince KDR to rename "random WIP" to something more intuitive, like "unaffiliated work," as the definitions of "random" and "WIP" tend to vary among people.

I also propose we work together and make one, complete, branching tutorial,explaining in great detail and with pictures, the entire process, from a thought in one's head to a fully working ingame unit, and include helpful tip, etc. this'll stop ~60% of people having to repeat stuff.

I also propose that a sticky be made laying out these rules and any others that are made, so that we can refer them back to the sticky and say "please, if you aren't sure you're 100% sticking around, don't do this to us!"


/wall of text

PS: once FODB gets working, all of this will be made much simpler READ: HELP US WITH OUR EVIL ERROR PL0X!!!1!1!one!

[smoth]

The eyecrack thread is not for OH LOOK at the finished model. Some people like eyecandy for backgrounds and the like. Feel free to pick on me but I started the thread because that was requested of me by someone who I forget. Starwars and S44 did that so that modeling things could be discussed without dominating the random wip thread.

[MidKnight]

...This effectively validates it...

I like your eyecrack thread! though I'd like it more if it were merged with a news thread...

[smoth]

the news thread is not the same thing. Mods post new threads each version of the mod. Eyecrack would only get lost in the thread.

It has a whole history of shit but since you want to bring just myself under scrutiny... The eyecrack thread was created because I do not think this forum is mature enough for me to post content. See post by SPRKH in this thread to see the kind of idiotic crap I got here. So I simply resigned and developed gundam elsewhere which is my site. I still develop there but that is a site that is fairly unknown and I have had to deal with people assuming gundam was dead due to long release cycles. So in order to say I am alive I post here in art and modeling the eyecrack thread. The pictures were requested by someone and this is where we post art related things.

Again, I was following a) a preset standard and b) a request.

attack just gundam, go ahead, it is an old custom on this forum, but the precedent was set before I made that thread. So I was following convention.

Again, the gundam news/discussion thread is not for posting new shots of what I am working on unless it is part of a discussion on the development of gundam. Here is it the opposite, shots are posted discussion is had.

[MidKnight]

I like your eyecrack thread!
stop trying to antagonize me!

I was going to say in my wall of text (but didnt find a place to) that I think your method of posting WIPs is very nice. It's easy to look at threads and see a comprehensive list of models you've worked on. I was also going to say that, unfortunately, not everyone has their own personal forum, and that FODB ( once it's done) should fix this.

Also, I agree with you that our community isn't exactly the most encouraging to artists, but I still <3 the spring community.

I was going to make a point, but I forgot, so here, have a different type of point:

[smoth]

well there really isn't any point to discussing this stuff. Noobs will post where and what they want to. Rules get ignored etc.

the only thing that really matters if someone wants to post in random wip or not. We can try and funnel people there. However what we are now seeing is that noobs want to be special and have their own thread. if they keep doing it they will and no one will do anything about it. Just the nature of the internet.

You cannot set any rules without consequences that are are enforceable. Random wip was never a thread about rules it was just something that is built on people willing to post content. The noobs can post their own thread, as I said earlier it will just get bumped down if they don't maintain it. believe me, I have watched thread after thread of stupid crap and neat crap get bumped down in mods/games Art and modeling will be fine, I think a bunch of people are over reacting.

It would suck to see thread after thread of *randomguy5212412*'s models only to click on each thread and see 1 model. That is why I hate these special threads for someone's one-off model that they may never make another model like it again. Truth be told there are some TERRIBLE models in random WIP also but there is a wide variety to be seen so I enjoyed reading it more.

[Pressure Line]

It would suck to see thread after thread of *randomguy5212412*'s models only to click on each thread and see 1 model. That is why I hate these special threads for someone's one-off model that they may never make another model like it again. Truth be told there are some TERRIBLE models in random WIP also but there is a wide variety to be seen so I enjoyed reading it more.

That being the point I was trying to make.

And tbh, posting in RWIP makes me feel more special, since my stuff gets jammed alongside the stuff of some of the best modelers and texturers in the community.

[SwiftSpear]

There's certainly nothing to feel bad about if you're a regular poster in rwip. Lets you know that at least you've got good work flow, and unless people are mostly telling you to GTFO, you know your models are tolerable to look at.

[VonGratz]

Reading all, I change my vote to random wips that will total 17*

[maackey]

Hrmm. I feel kinda awkward being one of the "noobs [that] want to be special and have their own thread." after reading this. However, that was not my intention at all of starting my own thread.

The Random WIP is full of extraordinary modelers and artists, and for someone whose only formal experience in art comes from an elementary school class, its pretty intimidating to post your first work(s) in such a large thread (mind you, this is from personal experience ). I really like the idea of a thread just for newbies, although that might be subject to ill effects too. (a skilled modeler posting lavish units posing as a newbie)

Secondly, I don't have a *lot* of free time to make models, so I figured if I had my own thread it would be out of the way and my own little workspace to add new stuff as I plod along, and see how I progress over time as I learn more and better techniques, which is not easily done with dozens of other people's work intermittent. Especially when updates are few and far between >.>

In retrospect, maybe making my own thread wasn't the best idea. I should perhaps post more often in the Random WIP thread and leave my own thread for the units I actually finish. But having an empty thread is very disheartening, especially when I'm still learning and the going is frustratingly slow

P.S. The Random WIP thread being 177 pages long means that NO ONE will actually read through all of it. Some regard it as the central hub of fine art in the Spring community, and while this very well may be true it is only half-built fragments of fine art interspersed with mediocrity and outright junk. Miscellaneous would probably be the proper title for it, or maybe "Black Hole of Art" since it sucks in pretty much anything not anchored in another thread, and with 177 pages has reached critical mass And since I've forgotten the point I was trying to make with that, its time for me to get some sleep.

[rattle]

Keep on clogging the A&M forum... fyi I've gone through longer WIP threads on polycount.

[SwiftSpear]

K, this drama is getting intolerable. Much more of it and I'm locking the WIP thread and we'll just have a normal forum.

The basic structure of a forum dictates that interesting things that are posted stay on the higher pages, and uninteresting things get filtered down. The WIP thread is cool, but it's the anomaly, not new threads.

We're not going to have rules about how good something has to look or how complete it has to be before it's ok to post a thread about it. If it's an artist requesting help with something, someone will respond to give help, and the topic will no longer be pertinent, and the thread will drop off the front page. If the model is bad, there's no reason to talk about it and the thread will drop off the front page. The forum doesn't get "clogged". Much smaller servers have run much more active forums than this one.

If it's a Random WIP, the artist can choose to post it in the Random WIP thread. If it's not a random WIP, then the artist can still choose to post it in the random WIP thread, I really don't care that much as long as it doesn't pull the thread off topic or stick out like a sore thumb (stuff that would require moderation to put the thread back on topic for ANY normal thread). If it's anything remotely related to art and modeling it can have it's own thread if the poster so chooses, if the thread sucks, people can not reply and it will disappear pretty quickly. If the thread doesn't suck, then the natural selection of all internet forums takes place and the thread sticks around.

Feel free to form your own standards of politeness and whatever, but stop expecting other people to care. The two sides of this argument are using the same rationals for their conclusions... ultimately, we're not making rules based on unnecessary and imaginary concepts of organization and good manners. This is a forum, it will not be run as an image board, it will not be run as a blog, it will not be run as a twitter, it will not be run as a shimmie board, it will be run as a forum.

I'm willing to entertain people running pet projects within the construct of the forum, but I'm not willing to entertain drama about it. Things like the WIP thread work because, why not? They're fun. If they make it not fun any more they have to go away.