[MikeCorriero]

Hi guys,
I wanted to find out from the active community here how many people might be interested in a weekly creature activity. Dubbed the Creature Creation Activity (CCA).

The poll is set up to get a quick idea of where people stand as far as their interest in this kind of weekly, but I'd also like to get some general feedback and suggestions.

The Creature Creation Activity will be a new Weekly on CGHUB focusing on Conceptual Design, Functionality of Design, Originality, Action Poses, Dynamics, Anatomy, Multiple Interpretation, Multiple Angles, Interaction and General Appeal.
This will be for beginners, intermediates and professionals alike. Anyone who is interested in participating is free to do so. While this will be treated as an open admission Weekly, with no obligations, it will also be treated in some respects as a class or a learning tool. Topics presented will be geared toward benefiting participants in areas of design and subject matter that will hopefully help them grow in their knowledge of Creature Creation. To Start in 2010.

The way I would like to run the activity would be to try and allow for as much open interpretation as possible concerning the topics; though I would like to extend a few topics that could lend themselves to try and help push people in areas they may not otherwise work on. This way, the activity could be fun but also work as a learning tool.

Topics could be broken up into certain categories that would be rotated on a random basis:

1. General specific topics left for open interpretation.
2. General open ended topics.
3. Producing your design from two angles.
4. Creating a dynamic pose in action.
5. Explaining functionality: Perhaps through a skeletal diagram, Walk cycles or something similar.

The topics would last 7 days, generally put up on late Sunday Evening (EST) USA time, unless I'm not around, in which case the new topic would be put up at my earliest convenience. Allowing people more time to work on their pieces until the thread is closed.
A poll would be created with each contributing member's name following the closing of the topic thread. Ideally I'd like to open a new thread with the poll + finals so people can critique, discuss and compliment on the final art. I'd like to create a post(s) where all finals from the members contributing would be attached to CGHUB's attachment manager so there are no dead links when the poll is put up.

As of right now there would be nothing awarded to the winner as far as an icon, star or prize of any sort - that will be left up to CGHUB if they decide to implement any such unique icons for winners + multiple winners. It would be nice to have something small as incentive to push the quality of the work submitted but we'll see. The one thing I could think of is to set the winner's image as the thumbnail/avatar for the thread, presented in the first post.

Details concerning what qualifies as a finished image, what qualifies as a "creature" and not a "character" will be ironed out once the activity is ready to begin. This obviously won't be geared only toward professionals so determining what will be considered a finished image will have some leeway.

The same details concerning mediums will be ironed out and if you'd like to voice your opinions here, by all means go ahead. As of now, I think it might be strictly 2D IE; Digital, Traditional, Mixed Media etc. 3D designs would most likely take too long, and would probably be the oddball out among a majority of 2D art so it might differ too much from the mass of entries. To top it off, 3D may eventually have its own similar activities depending on what the team at CGHUB has in mind. Thoughts?

With that said, please take a moment to vote on the poll, voice your opinions, thoughts, suggestions, interest etc. Edit* It seems the polls aren't working at the moment.

Mike C -

[MikeCorriero]

I'm wondering if the Poll option has every been tested before, seeing as how it's not showing up here. Hmmm..
edit* Just checked another thread that has a poll and it also doesn't seem to show the poll. At any rate, just voice your opinion whether you have an interest in this or not.

[SCWatson]

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing - I wasn't able to set one up in the Story Teller's thread. Shot you a pm, btw.

~S

[Ludwin]

mike, i would certainly be interested.

[admin]

Just checked another thread that has a poll and it also doesn't seem to show the poll.

A bug report has been submitted to the dev team, this should be fixed in the next day or two. Thanks for your patience!

[koshime]

I would like to see a weekly painting free for all activity. although a more specific creature/environment sub group could also be a good idea.

The pro aspect of a weekly/bi weekly group activity means a whole variety of artists can participate and expand their borders.

And whilst a specific sub group activity is good, allowing folks to branch off into their own sub genres, it tends to sometimes exclude a portion of the community.

[toby]

Sounds awesome! I'm up for this!

[naetronic]

Creature Design! one of my favorite things. And to get critique from a pro like you Mike would definitely be worth my time.

[Colrouphobia]

I would be interested, but as mentioned in the storytellers topic, it would depend on workload. January is my heaviest workload month so far...

[Vinicam]

Yeah, I like the ideia and would love to participate.

[admin]

Polls bug has been fixed! It's up and working, vote now!

[hadyn]

I'm not certain that it's actually fixed; For me it just says "Voters: 1. You may not vote on this poll".

Either way, I'd love to use this as an excuse to draw more creatively! Definitely interested.

[toby]

Woohoo it's fixed! I love this idea, let's do it!

[admin]

I'm not certain that it's actually fixed; For me it just says "Voters: 1. You may not vote on this poll".

Thank you hadyn it *should* be fixed now - if you still have trouble let us know! We have also enabled polls for all users and not just moderators.

[Noukah]

I'm definitely in for this one.
How exciting