Dashed Expectations

Alright, gents, I am getting a bit tired of my art being so non-existent.

So whenever I have this mood, I immediately think "We need to do a Daily Draw again!". It was certainly mentioned in regular conversation that it would be nice to see it happen again and I personally enjoy participating in it.

So with that in mind, I'm thinking of Daily Draw '13. Like usual, post if you're interested and I'll figure out a start date. It may not end up being a perfect month like one would hope, but I don't really care about that. That was always a convenient timeframe than anything else.

I need some thoughts, though.

This year could be more structured if need be, but I also want to keep the unstructured idea behind it. I also don't want a repeat of last year where I was unable to define the real reasons for it. (aka wishing to improve in your craft, wishing to get into better habits for art, that sort of thing) Finally, I was thinking a good amount of issues with the halfway point was due to a lack of idea.
So, I was thinking we could consider a sort of "Drawthread" mentality where we could post art, but also post requests or art suggestions that one or all of us would end up taking. Think it could work?

I was also thinking about "themed days", but I'm not entirely sure that would work, especially considering theme days would be very constraining, and this is supposed to be a freedom exercise.

And I still want to keep the whole 'reward being your newly-cultivated habit" idea going, but I also really want to figure out the best way to foster the habit for afterwards.

Finally, I'm thinking of ways to actually keep the art train going afterwards, too. Something to keep the juices going, so to speak. Idle hands or whatever. That's completely separate from the whole Daily Draw thing, but doesn't hurt to discuss that.

So, that's a lot to digest, I'm sure. Still, if you have any thoughts, post away.

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YEAH I'LL JOIN
and all those things you said sound cool
I have nothing to really add
I am 100% helpful
I'm also tired and should be RP posting aaaa

BUT I WILL JOIN, KNOW THAT.

I've got to say, I've gotten progressively more interested in drawing each DD, so something is being done right by someone.

Probably me.

So yeah, I'll join.

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pancake you know i'm gonna be all over that !#%$

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twitter: @UnsavoryDoM, @UnsavoryExpect

I mentioned this over Skype but I really think the theme this year should be character interaction, whether the character is interacting with another character or with their environment. I feel like a lot of us (myself being the worst offender) tend to draw just standing character references or characters in a white void doing nothing in particular. It could be single panel or multi-panel, still or animated, just as long as it has some character interaction going on.

Also, I like the idea of art requests and suggestions. I'd say it would have it's own board, but it's unlikely that we'll be posting anything other than our DD submissions during the DD.

I don't know about themed days. I liked how freeform the daily draws have been and I feel like adding that restraint would hinder our creativity or stick us in ruts we don't want. Maybe another time when we are a little more artistically developed and/or dedicated we can do that.

Alternatively, we could use the themes for a different event. You mention wanting to keep the momentum going and drawing throughout the year as a habit, and I think the only way we can manage that through a forum is through regular drawing events. There's plenty of ways to do it: art competitions, collaborations, challenges, assignments, etc. should probably be happening on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis. Daily Draw can be our big event every year and the other events can be managed the remaining months.

I personally think collaborations and challenges would work best for our board. Competitions don't usually work out too well unless you have a large group of dedicated artists willing to participate, and I'm not sure we are large or dedicated enough to manage it. Assignments seems to rigid for a forum, since we aren't an art school (though it would be kinda cool if we tried it with a rewards system).

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I think this is a really good idea, better than themed days, or a themed DD since that kind of defeats the purpose.

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As far as this is concerned, I'm not a fan, if only because there could be days when people wouldn't want to do that, but they would feel bad being the odd one out. It's an improvement exercise, to be sure, but some people may need to learn about other details before jumping into something like that.

I mean, by all means if you want to keep to a personal theme, go ahead. I think it would work better if people who enter this little shindig have a basic understanding of what they really want out of it beyond just fostering a habit. If someone wanted to work on simply faces or landscapes, that's their prerogative.


An art challenge/contest would be a pretty cool thing to do. I remember lurking a forum that did this and I believe their method was a bi-weekly contest based on the theme of the winner's choosing that they would judge. So if I won the very first contest, I could base the next theme on Metroid and I would pick the winner. Then they can pick a theme and be the only judge, and so on. We could run the risk of a few repeat winners, but considering how tight-knit our group tends to be, it wouldn't be too bad.

Of course, that's just one idea. As far as challenges...Just looking up weekly art challenges, I found this blog about it. They have a list of things from "Make art based on a memorable smell" to "make a character based around diamonds". It could also be more personal stuff like "Redraw something you drew a while ago...that you disliked". It could also revolve around other things, like color palettes and problem-solving and drawing someone enjoying food.

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Alright, I'm thinking we start this shindig on May 13th. So, tomorrow.

Any objections?

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i object because you can't draw, so i need to protect the people of the world from this monstrosity

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Fine with me. I'll need to see if I can find a place to set up my scanner and if I can't, I'll still draw, just post them at the end of the month or whenever.

Also wondering if the end date will be the same date next month.

And you should try and explain the idea behind this before, considering all the problems it felt like the last DD had. Even though it greatly helped me start to draw more.

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I'm ready to go captain!

By the way, some of my entries may be work-in-progress pieces and some of them might be the completed versions of those WIP pieces. I really want to have some more substantial drawings that I can count as fully polished and I'm not sure that'll be possible if I have to draw something brand new every single day.

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Emphasis before I start up the post: DD is about creating a habit for a warmup. As in, what you would do to loosen up, learn some things, and grow before actually attempting to draw something.

Example 1: You want to draw some faces for the day. You then draw faces. That's your Daily Draw, done and done.
Example 2: You want to draw Kirby doing something. You would use warmups to draw a bunch of Kirby sketches. Those sketches are warmups. Those would be your Daily Draw. You can then use that fresh knowledge to pick a sketch from that bunch and do more with it.
Example 3: You want to draw Meta-Knight doing something. You realize you don't even know how to draw Kirby, so how can you EVER draw Meta-Knight? You decide to draw some Kirby sketches. That's your Daily Draw. If you want to go forward and draw Meta-Knight, you got some "Kirby anatomy practice" in so you got a headstart.
Example 4: You want to draw a comic sometime, but you lack environment practice, anatomy practice, facial practice, color practice, etc. You then use every day to warm up your studying by drawing things in that category. The Daily Draw warmup is complete depending on whatever you want to draw for that warmup. Now you can spend the rest of the time utilizing those creative juices you created to make it easy to practice more stuff throughout the day.
A more directed example, but you may be getting a bit about what I'm planning for myself here.

It's never been about the finished product, but about creating a better habit. It eases your hand muscles and your mind into the mode of drawing. You create this habit, which only takes like 30 minutes tops to do, and it is a huge step towards improving your art on a whole. Sometimes, the hardest part is just getting the momentum going.

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