Official Off-Topic Thread

[PixelPiledriver]

But I think it would be more beneficial to discuss ways to increase activity on the forums rather than being bummed out about it.

A community game project could be interesting. Something "simple" and doable with low production value. And actually put it together not just mockup.

The game could be very loose. No need to put your million dollar ideas and art into it.

We could ignore style matching so that more people would get involved. I've always thought that WarioWare looked nice despite having lots of different styles and mediums of art mixed together. although each game feels coherent within itself compared to all the other games there is a large variety.

Another way to go would be set a very simple style. but that might not appeal to everyone.

Personally I'm not so strict with matching drawing types. Cute things can exist among violent things or vice versa. Just using pallets and number of lighting passes ties things together well enough.

The SMB1 topic seemed to generate a lot of conversation. But the game was Arne's alone. And sometimes its better to do a game by yourself or with a very small team. But It'd be interesting to lump together a game with lots of people. If every post in that topic said "hey this is what I made for the game" and attached something a lot of work would have been generated.

The challenges I foresee in random order:
1. Common Interest - not everyone has the same taste in games and art
2. Huge list of features - everyone will want to provide their own ideas. not a bad thing but good code takes time like anything else
3. Ownership - If I move to Kenya and sell for millions how will you find and sue me? or anyone else?
4. PipeLining - This is always a challenge. organization and communication.
5. Documentation - Google.docs is great for summarizing a game and listing tasks but who will have rights to edit? everyone? one guy? select few?
6. Foresight - like most things game projects need positive mentality. if that is lost the project is prone to die.

I can volunteer some game programming. Currently I have quite a bit of studying to do. Development would go a little slow. Making a "simple" game is still quite a bit of work.

It's just an idea. I'd hate to rob people of time. I'm extremely busy myself. And I understand why most people don't want to hand out free art. Its very time consuming and mentally expensive to produce. I understand if people have more important things to do like make money and eat food.

[Helm]

It feels like a ghost town to me because I'm not active and when I browse the forums I see all these names I don't recognize.

Exactly.

I don't think there's any sense at artificially trying to amp up the community. As long as art is posted and art is critiqued, Pixelation's fine. If someone comes up with a good idea for an activity, it'll be considered on its own merit and not on how popular it would be.

[Argyle]

Maybe post activity is down, but I lurk while at my day job, and by night I'm working on pixeling and animating for hobby projects and pleasure because of the things I have learned from this board.  Basically I am a less active poster now because of the activity I have partaken in and witnessed in the past.

I still click my Pixelation bookmark more often than my gmail bookmark though.

*edit: not to mention I'm anticipating new activities.  The shatterhand challenge and the Commercial Critiques are things I've learned from, but are not so much of a blast as the hexquisite corpses.*

[Tenshi]

I've been something of a sparse poster but I'm going to try and correct that.

I think I have all of my information updated here and am getting back into things.

[Dusty]

I seem to have very low patience with paper and pencil, which I find odd considering that I enjoy pixel art. With pixel art I can spend hours on a piece... however when I try to draw on paper I seem to want to get it over with as fast as possible. I rush through, I don't spend enough time cleaning up as I should, and I just don't seem to want to put the effort into it. It doesn't seem subconscious, but it seems like while I'm drawing I don't seem to want to put the effort into things like accurate lines, and I get bored fast.

[B0mberman]

I seem to have very low patience with paper and pencil, which I find odd considering that I enjoy pixel art. With pixel art I can spend hours on a piece... however when I try to draw on paper I seem to want to get it over with as fast as possible. I rush through, I don't spend enough time cleaning up as I should, and I just don't seem to want to put the effort into it. It doesn't seem subconscious, but it seems like while I'm drawing I don't seem to want to put the effort into things like accurate lines, and I get bored fast.

All you need my friend is time.
You get bored on the way, play a game with pixels to boost ..errr I dunno the brain?

[9_6]

I find that playing games and trying to draw something afterwards makes me go into exactly that state of "low patience".
Perhaps getting rid of everything that distracts you will help?
Do you hear music while drawing? I've read in a book that you shouldn't even do that, go figure.

[SwapBrain]

I seem to have very low patience with paper and pencil, which I find odd considering that I enjoy pixel art. With pixel art I can spend hours on a piece... however when I try to draw on paper I seem to want to get it over with as fast as possible. I rush through, I don't spend enough time cleaning up as I should, and I just don't seem to want to put the effort into it. It doesn't seem subconscious, but it seems like while I'm drawing I don't seem to want to put the effort into things like accurate lines, and I get bored fast.

IMO artists do three things that allow them to do what they do - the see things differently, they make decisions about what they will represent and how, and they translate those decisions through a medium.

Try switching up your 1)work-flow 2) your subject matter, or your 3)media for example:

1) Go find a good book on drawing, and re-start from the basics, if you sketch with line-art, try starting with mass or volume or value studies, and proceeding from there. You will likely make new connections or find it was your work-flow that was broken.

2) Grab a big sketch pad and head out, draw things you normally pass over, like one of R Crumb's things that he paid attention to was the power poles and electrical lines in his city images. It might just be that you are bored with your subject matter. Talk to/read about other artists and find out how they see the world.  There is a fantastic book about new drawing practice called 'Vitamin D - New Perspectives in Drawing" put out by Phaidon which is likely in your local bookstore - have a look. Also there are probably cheap, or depending on where you live free, open model drawing sessions - try attending one of those.

3) Switch to conte crayon, charcoal, graphite stick, or india ink, and wrestle with the medium a bit. It may be that your technique is too, well, technical. You may find, as I did, the you just seem to click with one (for me it was crow quill and india ink.)

Finally, a lesson from pixel art, use all of these things to start imposing restrictions on a drawing piece before hand - you may find that the structure of having certain decisions out of your hands re-invigorates your love of the process.

Also I tend to agree with 9_6 that while I do 'inspired'-feeling by seeing work that I like, it does tend to jam me up creatively.

[Kren]

Wierd we got like 300 guest viewing JunkBoy's art lol.

[Dusty]

Wierd we got like 300 guest viewing JunkBoy's art lol.

Notch linked it from his blog, announcing the new pixel artist for Minecraft.