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 Creative Convention (CC) is a forum devoted to displaying, discussing, and critiquing all things creative, be it drawing, painting, writing, photography, graphic design, sculpture, sewing, theater, stenciling, CG, crab-themed interpretive dance, etc. You definitely don't need to be a professional, full-time art school graduate industry superstar to post here. In fact, one of the main purposes of this forum is to help you improve your work and make it look/read the best it possibly can! Regular forum rules apply, as well as the following Creative Convention-specific rules and guidelines. Creative Convention subforums (The Dorkroom and DIY & Hobbies) follow Creative Convention rules, as well as their own. If you have any questions at all about Creative Conventions rules or policy, please feel free to contact the forum moderators (mods):  sebmojoCreative Convention Private Message Sitting HereCreative Convention Private Message SoundMonkeyThe Dorkroom Private Message soundmonkey@somethingawful.com Other issues may be addressed via the forum Support page. Somebody fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Feb 10, 2021 |
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Aug 5, 2009 17:37
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  Creative Convention is all about improving your work through constructive criticism. The tone of this forum can basically be boiled down to this: While it's okay to be an rear end, don't be a dick. Being harsh with your critiques is much different from useless trolling. Don't do it. If you are looking for a meaningless echo chamber hugparty to make you feel better about yourself, there are plenty of other sites out there that can help you out. If your work is terrible, you'll get told as much. If it's good, you'll be told the same. The people around here aren't the type to hold back, and that’s exactly how we want it.  These two things are integral to keeping the forum running. It's also a two-way street: if you expect to get feedback on your work, you should be giving it as well. Your ratio of work posting to commenting isn’t tracked or anything crazy like that. Keep in mind, however, that if you’re known as an active, contributing poster you are far more likely to receive focused, effort-driven replies.  While most forms of creative expression are inherently subjective, there are objective qualities to the work. Helping you to improve your craft will help your growth as an artist, and let you focus on the content and message. Similarly, the message of the piece isn’t off-limits, either. At their core, critiques serve to help improve a piece of work. This doesn't necessary mean that the critiques have to be nice (this is, after all, Something Awful). What they do have to be is constructive. A quality critique will contain information on how you, the poster could improve the piece in some way. Simply posting something with zero content (“this sucks lol”) won't cut it, and will result in a warning, Probation, or Ban (severity of, and mod’s mood depending). And don't get mad at a valid negative critique. You'll look like a childish idiot. Also, don’t feel like you can’t compliment a work if you legitimately enjoyed it! Finally, don't forget to follow up! Acknowledge posters and the process, either post-by-post dialogue to evolve the piece, or a simple blanket statement to multiple posters before undertaking revisions. Be sure to post refined versions of the work and keep the original, to see the evolution of the piece. It's rude, counterproductive, and a waste of the critique giver's time to ask for opinions and then just abandon ship. Spectacularly bad cases of these kinds of “pump and dump” ego gratification posting will be punished.  If you don’t see a thread covering a topic you have an interest in, feel free to start a new thread! If you’re unsure if the subject matter is appropriate, ask a mod.  With the large variety of work getting posted here, selecting a thread tag appropriate to your intended content helps to keep everything nicely organized. Choosing the Stupid, poo poo Post (  ,  ) tag, etc. is not the pinnacle of self-deprecating humor and will earn you a gassed thread and/or a Probation.If you accidentally screw it up, either edit a note into your original post or PM a mod, and they’ll be more than happy to update it.  Closing your thread if things aren't going your way will result in a mod re-opening the thread so we can all make fun of your infantile behavior. A punishment like a Probation, Ban, or embarrassing title might also be handed out as well. Also, don’t close the thread if you think you’re done with a piece. Just because a thread gets slow, doesn't mean it should be closed – some people might want to come back after a break to add to or update their input. Exemptions: If you feel you have a legitimate reason to close a thread (i.e. removing a story because of publisher demands), contact a mod. Daily participation threads are also exempt from this rule and are closed as the month expires or a new theme is selected.  UPDATE  AS OF 2013, LINKS TO SPEC WORK IN SA-MART ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED IN THE WORK-FOR-HIRE THREAD. LINKS TO SPEC JOBS WILL BE REMOVED.Artists and designers deserve to get paid for their time, not just for the finished product. "Draw me a logo and if I like it, you get paid" is bullshit. If you have no self-respect and would like to work hard for the chance of getting paid enough for a Meat-Lover's Pizza, go directly to SA-Mart. This forum is about discussing and sharing creative work, not soliciting business. Requests for creative work go in the Work for Hire/Freelance & Non SA Contests thread, and may be conducted either offsite or via a crosslink to a SA Mart thread. Threads posted in Creative Convention soliciting work outside of the Work for Hire thread will be gassed on sight and their poster Probated. In fact, using the Work for Hire thread probably will get you a better chance of exposure, as the people interested in selling their services are the ones probably checking it most often. All posts placed in the Work for Hire thread are subject to its specific rules and guidelines, and solicitations posted in the SA Mart are also subject to SA Mart rules. Problems with payment/services rendered are not Something Awful LLC's problem. The Work for Hire thread serves only as a contact facilitator. Nonprofits requesting creative services still count as spec. Tattoo art requests still count as spec. If you have questions as to what constitutes a contest/spec work, please don't hesitate to contact a mod. For creatives who make a living practicing their craft, or for those who would like to, the Business of Art thread is an excellent resource. For pipes!'s and neonnoodle's totally biased opinion regarding spec work, please consult this site or watch this video.  Please post any solicitations for your crowd-sourced project in the Project Solicitation Station/Kickstarter HQ thread. Like with the Spec work thread, doing so probably actually increases your chances of exposure to those interested in this sort of thing. Also, while not a rule, put a little effort into your post and make it stand out! Pictures and descriptive writeups definitely help more than they hurt. Furthermore, like with any other thread in CC, the content of your post is up for criticism: if your project is terrible and/or hilariously unfeasible people reserve the right to tell you so.  Creative Convention is a public-facing forum. Something Awful is a pretty popular website. Don’t post anything you’re not comfortable with the entire internet seeing. This is especially relevant to people wishing to get published (aspiring authors, in particular), dealt with in more detail in the Publishing and Extended Critiques section below.  Please credit others’ work when appropriate, to the best of your ability. Don’t share other’s material unless you have their approval, either explicitly or through their website’s copyright/attribution notice. Copying another person's work without their consent and passing it off as your own will result in an immediate Ban. Derivative work and pieces created from working with open/mashup-friendly (e.g. Creative Commons) material aren’t plagiarism.  Nudes are fine, as long as it's not straight-up pornography. Just be sure to give a Not Work Safe (NWS) warning in the thread title if you think the subject matter needs it, for those posters who view the forums from work. Nudes posted in a thread without a NWS text tag in the title (i.e. a daily thread), may be linked to by a link with an identifying  emoticon tag or a thumbnail with the naughty bits obscured.If you are offended by the potential of seeing naked people on an art forum, or if you don't know the difference between nudes and porn, then you probably shouldn't be posting.  Materials that intentionally inflict harm other people’s computers, as well as links to cracked versions of paid software, fonts, stock, etc. will result in an immediate Ban. Somebody fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jan 10, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2012 02:01
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 Daily threads are a big part of Creative Convention – it’s a great way to hone your craft and get quality, consistent feedback. Don't be intimidated by posting in a daily thread because you're not a “thread regular,” your contributions are just as valid as anyone else’s. The main Daily threads are:  January Daily Drawing thread: Post Drawings of the Post Apocalypse Fiction Farm 2012: Critique and the Prolific Posting of Prose (<=500 Words) Daily Poetry 2012: Crit first, questions laterDaily threads are also an excellent place to post single, one-off pieces. You may be excited about that cool new thing you just doodled in the corner of your notebook, but please think about whether or not it’s worth posting. By this, we mean what’s your next step? A single drawing probably doesn't need its own thread, unless it's something spectacular or you need very specific, focused help with it. That being said, just because Daily Threads exist, it doesn't mean that everything has to go in them. Projects that are complex, have a large number of images, many significant details, or need very in-depth, focused attention all qualify for their own threads. Examples would be: a website, a set of sculptures, a larger written work, a demo reel, etc. Hopefully this should communicate what is and what isn’t post-worthy, but if you’re still wondering, definitely don’t hesitate to ask a mod. pipes! fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jan 2, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2012 02:04
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 The core of this section of the rules boils down to respect. People here invest a good amount of time and effort helping you improve your work; presenting it in a serious, considered way demonstrates that you understand their commitment. Similarly, it’s something that’s paid forward: if and when the roles are reversed, you’d hopefully expect the same treatment. Punishment here is only really doled out with systematic and obvious abuse of this philosophy. Specifics intrinsic to the major two kinds of content posted in CC are discussed in more detail below:  Image Quality Scanners are pretty cheap. Any halfway-decent camera is capable of capturing a photo of a decent-enough quality for display on the web, including most smartphone cameras. If you're shooting/scanning your own work, remember to light the room as well as possible, stabilize the camera, anchor the work as best you can, and crop and clean up noise/color as best as possible. A noise-laden, blurry-edged, cell phone snapshot full of compression artifacts taken in a dark room really doesn't cut it. Really, the easy thing to do here is just look at the image you’re about to post. Does it look like crap? Spend a minute or two and get it not looking like crap. If image-editing software’s price is a concern, consider it an investment in your hobby/profession. There are also plenty of free editors out there, some even work through a web browser. Image and File Size Keep images less than 1024 pixels large at its longest dimension. You can use linked thumbnails to link to larger images off-forum. This is a somewhat flexible rule, as certain kinds of threads (i.e. website design critiques) may, by their nature, go a little over the maximum size, and will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. When creating an image, please take file size into consideration. Although modem connections are in the minority, nobody wants to wait for a page to load five hundred or so 5MB PNGs. If you have questions about what kind of filetype is appropriate for what kind of image, forum goon r1ch has a rather handy guide. File Hosting Images that are hosted on services that affect the running of the forums or have thumbnails that link to sketchy, spyware-laden hosting services will be removed. Images that are directly linked to a webspace that you do not own or have permission to link photos from will be removed. Warnings, Probations and Bans will be handed out, depending on the severity.  Placement
Don’t just do a blind copy/paste dump from your source document. Please use spaces between line breaks, chapter separations (when necessary), and, you know, check your document for spelling/obvious grammatical errors. If it's difficult to read, people won't read it. If it's aggravating, you'll get Probated. A good trick for proofing your own work is to read it out loud to yourself. While you might have read your own words a hundred times over, saying them out loud gives you a fresh perspective. Posting
Please don’t edit out your old post and replace it with a new version. Writing critiques are incredibly time consuming, and showing progress is considered very good form. Somebody fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Jan 11, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2012 02:08
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 This section speaks mostly to the writing crowd, but there’s nothing really said below that makes it exclusive.  Creative Convention churns out real, published work on a pretty consistent basis. This is great. Unfortunately, the publishing industry is very old-fashioned and set in its ways, and many publishers consider the forum-critique process to be releasing material under something that isn’t under their domain. This is idiotic, but if you want to see your name on a dust jacket, you’ve got to play the game. As touched on in the Privacy section above, be cautious about what you post and consider your ultimate intentions. Threads posted whose authors want to attempt getting their work published can have their thread moved off of the live, public-facing forums. However, this means that the critique process is effectively halted permanently, as the thread will be closed and moved. Be 100% sure you’re set before you undertake this process. To move a thread away from the public-facing portion of the site, please contact a mod. The mods may delay this process until they feel all feedback has been addressed, etc. Please don’t attempt to be clever and abuse the system as a way of scrubbing a thread that isn’t going your way, we’ll see right through it.  Sometimes, and especially with longer written work, it may be desirable to utilize a format other than a forums post. There are certain things vBulletin just doesn't do well, and one of those things is versioning and inline, dialogue-based commenting. If a poster wishes, after posting a sample of his writing as a quality barometer/interest check, they may invite thread participants to comment offsite using Google Drive, either as an open invite, or by requesting critiquers to post email addresses to invite. Why Google Drive? As of now, Google Drive is the only real thing out there that satisfies this criteria:
A link to the document is posted in the the thread. From there on in, it is no longer the concern of Creative Convention. Any issues from either the poster or the critiquers is considered an off-site issue/drama and must be settled privately. Any reports or appeals will be ignored, and anything brought back to the thread or site is considered importing drama, regardless of who is in the right. This is done as a kindness to allow writers to have more comfort in working in a longer format, and also to retain privacy when desired. The sample posted in the thread is still open to critique, like any other content posted in CC. pipes! fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Nov 2, 2012 |
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Oct 29, 2012 02:10
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 Certain text treatments can be applied with keyboard shortcuts while composing/editing a post. Simply select a section of text and use the following key combinations to format it: Ctrl/⌘+b for bold Ctrl/⌘+i for italic Ctrl/⌘+u for underline Ctrl/⌘+s for Links and images will automatically be formatted to be clickable/displayed when pasted. pipes! fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Nov 2, 2012 |
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Oct 29, 2012 02:12
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If you have an issue with any of the rules listed above and would like to debate changing/updating them, please contact the mods. This thread will be closed to keep pedantic, passive-aggressive shitposts from looking totally laughable and pathetic 4+ months down the line.
pipes! fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Oct 29, 2012 |
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Oct 29, 2012 02:14
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EDIT: There was a post here but now there isn't, it's magic.
SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jan 9, 2013 |
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Jan 4, 2013 00:41
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See below:
neonnoodle fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Jan 10, 2013 05:25
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Hey everyone, I'm taking over for Neonnoodle here in Creative Convention and DIY&Hobbies. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact me by PM or by my email which has been added to the OP 
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Mar 14, 2014 02:24
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Hi all, I'm now a mod for Creative Convention, feel free to contact me if you have any queries or want anything done. PMs for now, I'll post my SA email when I get one.
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Feb 20, 2017 00:38
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Welcome to your newest mod Sitting Here! Please address all queries about sitting/standing/crouching to her.
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Feb 10, 2021 21:04
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