.:Catalytic Productions:. Artists Wanted! Apply within!

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[daydreamer_girl]

Oh right. Scripts. I had forgot about those. I shall look at them then.

[Estela]

Did you guys get my comic test page? Haven't heard anything if you like it or not. Either is fine...Just want to let you guys know I won't be online for a few days.

[Catalytic Productions]

We got it ;3 Welcome to the studio, Estela!

[enchantedsleeper]

I just realised! We completely missed the studio's 4th anniversary four days ago! gonk Happy 4th birthday, CP!

[daydreamer_girl]

Well, got panel 1 done. Woohoo. But my darling little brother scribbled on the back of the page I was drawing on, which was upsetting and a relief at the same time. What if he drew over my drawing? I'd wring his little...I mean, I'd scold him. Guess I'll have to put all my drawings away after I stop drawing. He's a little bugger, he goes through everybody's rooms and digs through stuff XD. He's just too cute though.

And sickness strikes again, but to everyone else. I had to watch my baby sister all day yesterday. Our family, we tag-team. Those who are healing have to take care of the sicker guys XD.

And happy birthday CP!

[enchantedsleeper]

Awww, yeah thank goodness it was only on the back XD How old are your brother and sister?

[daydreamer_girl]

My sister is 1, my brother is 4.

[enchantedsleeper]

Awww, cuuuute ^^ I love small children. heart

[Emihaumut]

Why did this take me an hour half to do? @.@

Got bored of drawing so I decided to tackle inking. Starting with my favorite page drawn so far.

[enchantedsleeper]

Ah, awesome! But as for why it took so long, I've no idea. o.o

[daydreamer_girl]

Art is weird that way I think. Art time is totally measured different than any other time I think. But anyway, I was just finishing my scan of the new page, when my stepdad asked me to scan stuff for him, who is practically computer illiterate (not quite though). And then class. But it will be coming either this evening or tommorow.

I'm excited guys! I'm practically done the next page as well. Now that I'm happy with the character designs, and I also think I'm improving at drawing so I think the whole process is becoming easier. Your guys critiques help too. I always need those XD.

Maybe I'll comment on the process of my coming to this studio, since it has been quite an experience so far, and also I came in to take over an existing project, which proved to be quite a challenge to me this past year. Boy did I underestimate the work involved. When you jump into an existing project, you don't just "jump in". rolleyes

Like we've been going over for a while, I went through clothes designs, practicing drawing the characters (I'm getting pretty comfortable drawing Lindsay now XD) and drawing the comic itself was hard, since I wasn't familiar/comfortable with the story, as I am now. I went through three versions of the first page I drew, which was weird but at least it helped me firm up the page. Then school was another factor since I was getting behind on a bunch of papers.

And how long have I been on board? 5 months since about July? 1 page seems like nothing through this period of time, but in my point of view, significant.

If I had to make a suggestion to the studio for future people who might jump on-board mid-project, like an artist or whatnot, I think there should be like an "integration period". Here's my suggestion.

1.Get them to read the script and if they have questions, then ask. If they have suggestions maybe as well, from a visual perspective?

2. Get them to look at all the character designs, descriptions, previous pages drawn (if any). Also, to draw the characters in their own character reference sheet. Modify the costumes if needed. For myself this was a real biggie since every character was pre-made for me. Thankfully I'm happy with the designs for the characters that already have appeared. And I really appreciated it that I was able to modify Lindsay and Lila's costume since it made it easier for me to draw them, and to actually motivate me to draw them as well.

3. Make practice pages. I consider the application pages as practice, but maybe make a few practice scripts (which don't have to look that pretty) with some of the characters, just to get comfortable drawing them and interacting with the other characters. Maybe even just a seperate 4-paged story that can be made on the spot. It doesn't even have to be good. It's just to practice some technical skills involved.

4. Critiques and encouragement all the way through. Well I mean, you guys have already been doing this, but I'm mostly giving my feedback here, since I was nervous showing stuff worrying it my stuff wouldn't be good enough or whatnot. But every piece of feedback given made the next piece of thing I did just that much better.

I believe the integration period to be the most time-consuming part of on jumping on board since you have no idea what to expect when you apply (or maybe a sketchy one). This plan makes everything more concrete I think. I think because I was disorganised, and kinda doing this part willy-nilly on my own time, it took about 5 months. But I think it can be expected to take 2-3 months with this type of structure. And after that, the time taken to actually produce pages should take a lot less time. Actually I feel that this part happens anyway, whether we are aware of it or not, I think it just makes sense to incorporate it into the studio's structure.

Actually, something like this can probably be used for any new applicants (artists, or writers) once they are accepted, just have a set structure beforehand really to integrate them into the studio. Something like what I described above.

Also, this will help, I suspect, to keep future applicants engaged, since if I was more insensitive or whatnot, I could have quit this process at any moment and gave the excuse that this was "too hard" or something to that effect. I mean it was hard, but I sucked it up and kept going, and now I have a page! And one more coming.

Anyway, that is my two cents. I'd volunteer myself to take it on myself to develop something like this since I'm the one to suggest it.

[Emihaumut]

Mmm, as long as it was, it was actually a pretty useful read, lol. Integration period definitely sounds good. I kind of feel like the short comics that I keep pushing the writers to write (but never seems to get written) are here as sort of the integration for non mid project artists, lol. Because they are short and they can be rough and help get the artists used to working as part of a group. Though, it was originally intended just to give extra artists something to do cause we couldn't juggle that many projects at once, lol.

I definitely think you had it pretty hard since you jumped in mid project. 5 months is nothing compared to how long the studio's been up and kind of about, lol. I think the most important thing was that you stuck with us and didn't drop out.

In theory it seems like a good thing to develop, but in reality, I don't know if we'll get many pencillers for it to be useful.

Man, now that I'm thinking about it, whatever happened to gitaroo? I remember he was going to write some short scripts.

[daydreamer_girl]

Maybe I'll make one last suggestion since I'm on the topic of suggesting things, which is to develop the studio as a whole. You can probably tell I'm setting my aims high here, but I feel good about this studio, and maybe more attached to it as well. And what better time to do some modifications for the studio than in the new year as a resolution?

We have stories, we have a few pages, but I think the processes for the studio itself and things are still a bit sketchy. I think the guild can be re-used to start developing the studio. We can take on mini projects, on our own time, start up a project and just let others give feedback. And then the person who started the project can fine-tune it, and apply it.

Things I suggest to develop:
-Webpage. Lots of empty info. We can take advantage of this awesome resource and start adding more info of our projects, and what is going on about them. One of my previous posts makes more suggestions as well.
-Integration scheme for newcomers. I volunteer to do this since I suggested it.
-Guild reusage. I think we can start using the guild for projects like these. Actually, let's make it our focus to use the guild as our plan and development centre for the studio as a whole. I think this would be the best place to do something like this because of it's structure (like making new threads. We can make it inclusive of newbies as well, somehow...make smaller projects that they can take on, post it in the guild, and we all develop it together. As part of orientation, (or integration as I've been calling it, I like the word orientation better though, I just forgot the word until this exact moment) we can mention that we have projects to take on, and encourage them to suggest new projects, and take them on themselves.

Now when I say the word "projects" I don't necessarily mean "new story ideas" I mean, just fine-tuning the studio, so it works more seamlessly and maybe troubleshooting when things seem to go wrong. Like slum periods, we've had a few of those since I've been on.

Which brings me to another suggestion:
-What to do when we go through inactive periods. What happens when a member seems to disappear. We can make this into an official procedure when something happens.
-Training members who want a more administrator position. I mean, you two Emi and Sleeper have been doing a good job so far, it's a pretty big thing to manage a studio between two members. But I don't think it would hurt to give members some more ability to administer things. And I don't mean having to give the mule password out to more than just you guys, but you know, just things like what I'm doing so far, trying to develop somethings. And you never know, maybe one of you guys might not be able to log onto gaia for a year or something, this makes it easier to "hire" a new administrator to come on board, and if they already have been practicing a few things to do so, then I think it would be an easy integration to be more like a manager.

I know some people have been itching to do something for the studio, but they just don't know what, so I think these suggestions just provided ideas for things we can do together when we aren't working on a specific story. As you may know, there's more to a studio than just having stories, right? Lastly, I think this will make us stronger than other comic studios, since we will have a stronger structure and things. We'll have more resources of what to do when things just go wrong.

Phew, I think that is it so far. I shall shut up now, since I ran out of suggestions.

[Emihaumut]

Mmmm, this reminds me of when Chanted and three others took it upon themselves to restart the whole studio (which eventually led to a name change and what is now CP). I like a person with initiative. 3nodding Makes up for my own lack of, lol.

With the webpage, I don't mind adding more to it, it's just what can we add? I remember I tried to add a blog on there to talk about our projects, give updates, the like, but that failed pretty fast. At this point, I still feel like our projects are too young to really say much about it.

As for the guild, you're free to use it for such purposes. To me, it's just that this thread is so much easier to check and so I just post everything here, lol. I think for a while, I just double posted in both. But yeah, you can go ahead and start the threads and we can try to further develop them.

Inactive periods... Hrmmm... I don't think there's much that can be done during these, lol. Usually we just wait it out and once break starts, things tend to naturally pick up again.

More admins. I feel like Chanted and I are just kind of like nominal figureheads. I don't think we've ever really had much admin work to do. The main thing we do is approve/reject applicants. It made me think just now that perhaps we should make it more of a whole studio thing when looking at applicants, though we generally just accept anyone who shows initiative.

I'd post more, but I've to go to physics lab. BLEH. >.>

[daydreamer_girl]

Emihaumut

Mmm, as long as it was, it was actually a pretty useful read, lol. Integration period definitely sounds good. I kind of feel like the short comics that I keep pushing the writers to write (but never seems to get written) are here as sort of the integration for non mid project artists, lol. Because they are short and they can be rough and help get the artists used to working as part of a group. Though, it was originally intended just to give extra artists something to do cause we couldn't juggle that many projects at once, lol.

I definitely think you had it pretty hard since you jumped in mid project. 5 months is nothing compared to how long the studio's been up and kind of about, lol. I think the most important thing was that you stuck with us and didn't drop out.

In theory it seems like a good thing to develop, but in reality, I don't know if we'll get many pencillers for it to be useful.

Man, now that I'm thinking about it, whatever happened to gitaroo? I remember he was going to write some short scripts.

Well it doesn't just have to be for pencillers, I think there's a place we can add for writers, and whatever other position. To add to the orientation, we can say what we have been up to, as in what projects are running currently (and who's running them) and what we are trying to get up and running, (like the butterfly story, and other projects if there are anymore) and encourage them to try and pick them up. And then integrate them into the project XD We have been doing this stuff to a point, but we can make it more apparent and organised imo.

True true about the timespan. I just don't think it would be fair to you guys to drop out when you guys already made it so far with what you do have, but have been waiting and waiting to start getting done. If I didn't keep going I'd feel pretty bad about myself, because I wouldn't have the experience I am having now either.

Emihaumut

Mmmm, this reminds me of when Chanted and three others took it upon themselves to restart the whole studio (which eventually led to a name change and what is now CP). I like a person with initiative. 3nodding Makes up for my own lack of, lol.

With the webpage, I don't mind adding more to it, it's just what can we add? I remember I tried to add a blog on there to talk about our projects, give updates, the like, but that failed pretty fast. At this point, I still feel like our projects are too young to really say much about it.

As for the guild, you're free to use it for such purposes. To me, it's just that this thread is so much easier to check and so I just post everything here, lol. I think for a while, I just double posted in both. But yeah, you can go ahead and start the threads and we can try to further develop them.

Inactive periods... Hrmmm... I don't think there's much that can be done during these, lol. Usually we just wait it out and once break starts, things tend to naturally pick up again.

More admins. I feel like Chanted and I are just kind of like nominal figureheads. I don't think we've ever really had much admin work to do. The main thing we do is approve/reject applicants. It made me think just now that perhaps we should make it more of a whole studio thing when looking at applicants, though we generally just accept anyone who shows initiative.

I'd post more, but I've to go to physics lab. BLEH. >.>

Well that's the thing, for the webpage we can all develop it together so it's not overwhelming for just one person. We can just talk our way through it or something like through a thread in the guild. And I don't think it needs, much, maybe just a general intro of the plot, who is working on it, who has worked on it, and maybe some intros to the characters. That kind of stuff.

Me too I think it's pretty easy to just post in here, but we post in here just for general things really, that I think a guild thread would be better if we needed to focus just on one aspect.

Inactive periods...true, but we can also use this time to our advantage as well. Listen to me, I sound like I'm heading off to war XD But anyway, I guess you're right when everyone just gets busy irl, it just isn't possible to get anything done. I didn't get the chance to think this through though so yeah...

Admins, there's plenty of smaller jobs, if we start enforcing them, like a mini task force, like what I've been doing, just making jobs, and maybe just either taking on a small project or encouraging others that the certain task needs to be done. Because we can develop more jobs that include admin work other than accepting and rejecting applications. (for official-ty sake, we can write that description down for you guys just to get it out in writing, sometime in the future.)So far, you're right, there have only been those jobs for you two, but if we're willing to make more types of jobs, I think we'd need a bit of a bigger task-force. I'll add myself for planning I guess. I like organisation and planning.

I guess, when I have more time, I'll start with just one thing I've mentioned, which I'll prioritize as the orientation process for now. It can be a practice run for now, and if it works out well, take on other projects. I think I'll make a list of potential projects for people to take on if they feel the initiative to facilitate the process of the project. Later.

Oh oh! Incentives! That's another idea. We can make an incentive thing maybe, where if you do a certain amount of work or whatnot, like just say...10 pages of script, or 5 pages of comics, you can get a certain amount of points, and redeem it for a gaian item. Just like arcade places, save up points and redeem them from a preset set of items. I think I'm getting ahead of myself now though. Or just plain give the item, based on the worth and the amount of work. Since you guys have mentioned you'd like a use for studio gold.

Ok, so after class, I'll get started on it. Hee hee hee. Ok I better head off to class. I'm late.