Ok apparently the Pop Quiz is bombing so that will be discontinued. though I will announce the winner of K#2 later tonight or tomorrow , I would have done it sooner however I was unexpectedly away from home all day today helping a friend with something.
So with the pop quiz once more drifting off into obscurity I would like to turn to you all and ask what you want me to post on Wednesdays? Please do not ask for Open Critique as I do not feel qualified to critique other peoples art. I can go back to doing Anime Talk, or I can try and bring back another old topic if I think I can do it justice, or you can suggest something completely new! Just keep in mind what this site is about when making your suggestions.
How about “Tip of the Week”? If the Moderators of the forum see something that is really creative or has a cool effect, contact the ‘machiner and ask for a brief explanation or recipe to share with the whole community.
Another could be a quiz just using the basics. No masking, no gradients, just the straight program. It would be good for beginner participants and also be challenging for veterans not to use tricks they have learnt to give them a advantage. A level playing ground?
Movie talk – Hype a new movie coming out, discuss trailers?
I’ll try to think of some others….
Maybe Monday Mashups could be brought back as Wacky Wednesdays.
What was Monday Mash-ups?
@ams: I tried doing something like that Tip Of The Week idea. Problem is, it’s heavily reliant on other people’s schedules, if they have time to do it and if they even want to take part at all. You can probably guess how much success I’ve had on this front by the number of these tutorials that have appeared (i.e. none).
Maybe a column devoted to preferences? Examples:
1. “Take this face and modify it–this week happy/sad/ugly/deformed/pained etc. and explain why you made any choices you felt were unique.”
2. “Make your best custom eye and post it or give us the post # and thread name of your favorite custom eye.”
That way the community is supplying you with the info they want to talk about–you’d just be a topic leader.
I understand your frustration with the Pop Quiz. I wonder if it might not spur more involvement if it was handled like the ones traditionally presented in school. IE: no set day or duration. So there would be one Pop Quiz every week or two but the date is always going to be a surprise, and the duration could be anywhere from 24 hours to 7 days
I love anime, movie, comics… talk, BUT what I don’t like with it is that it gives you a lot of work for something that’s read quite quickly.
So I’d like to see these again, but not on a recurrent basis, where you have to stick to a schedule. When yu have the time and feel like it.
Maybe randomly rotate topics, keep it fresh and unexpected?
I like the public domain contest that Jeff did before. That might bring in a few designs.
I think the big problem with all of these is that a lot of the new members don’t share what they create (and that’s fine!) but more of the veterans and older machiners take breaks and what not. I thinks that’s just where we are at in this moment. I’m sure people will start popping back up eventually.