Merlin big bang challenge

[the_muppet]

As a follow-on from this poll I have now heard from the mod over at boxofmagic and sadly it will not now be running this year.

I am in the process of trying to set something up - either taking over boxofmagic (awaiting mod permission) or setting up a different Big Bang comm - so if anyone is still interested please let me know! I don't have the time right now to cross-post this information and I want to get things running ASAP so feel free to spread the word and link to this post for now if anyone has any input they'd like to share.

Also feel free to leave any ideas & suggestions here, including a new community name in case we need to start from scratch; thank you ♥


EDIT: You new Merlin Big Bang challenge is being set up right now and will hopefully be launched on Friday; thank you ♥

Comments

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

I think it might make more sense to either match the artist to each story directly or, in order to give artists some more of a choice, to presort only into different categories of art.

It doesn't make sense to have an artist who can only vid end up not being able to chose any of the authors who were specifically asking for vids. (What happened to me last time was having about 5 stories left to chose from and 2 of them said specifically they didn't want a vid and one asked for drawn art. And all the authors who asked for vids ended up with art that wasn't a vid). So yeah, presort by what kind of art and artist offers and match the authors to who would prefer that type of art.

Since the art is supposed to motivate the authors to participate as well as be something for the readers to enjoy it just makes sense to make sure that the authors are getting the kind of art they would really like methinks. And as an artist, I much more prefer doing art for an author who likes that type of art.

[hermette.livejournal.com]

ah, ok. See, I didn't know that writers were able to request a specific type of art. You're right, it does make sense for an artist to be matched to a writer who actually requests that kind of art. That's good info, thank you!

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a real type of request but the authors were asked about what art they would prefer and could even specify which scene they would love to see art of.

Which is a great idea because I can see that some authors might like all kinds of art but I know quite a few people who for example don't like manips or songvids or icons so some kind of matching always makes sense IMO. :)

[hermette.livejournal.com]

from the time an artist has their story in hand, how long do you feel like is needed for them to have to actually create the art to go with it?

(sorry, I know I'm fifty billion questions.)

[mamoru22.livejournal.com]

I would be comfortable with having about 4 weeks to get it done (though I am quite sure that depends a lot on what you want to do).

But I would think about 4 weeks should be enough time for most type of arts and most artists...

[the-muppet.livejournal.com]

That would match the sort of artist sign-up times hermette and I have talked about already, which is good.

[yue_ix]

I'd love to second this; it'd be nice to ask writers (when submitting their snippet to describe their story, maybe?) if they have a preference for a scene/character/medium so artists could try to align themselves with this if they want.

However, I'm not sure how this could be done for artists who might be interested in a story even though their medium isn't the one the writer would prefer most. Could artist perhaps hand in their top 3 choices of stories and be matched up? That way that first-come-first-serve situation some spoke against in the previous post could be avoided too. It could also be useful for back-ups, in the sense that if artist A has to step down unexpectedly but artist B has already finished and had artist's A's story put as first choice, they could be asked if they'd love to do something for it.

Yet maybe it should also be noted that last round, while 127 writers signed-up, 23 stories were finished; yet, 68 artists signed-up and 72 piece of arts were finished. Participation will likely be very different this time, but the artist/writer ratio will probably be high enough that everyone should be able to get their first or second choices easily and replacements wouldn't be terribly needed (but keeping back-ups is always a great idea, if you could make some post for them towards the deadline; I loved being a back-up last year).

[the-muppet.livejournal.com]

This is wonderfully detailed; thank you.

We'll be opening up a sort of consultation for all artists to see just how they want their part of the BB to run, so hopefully we'll be able to please (at least) most people in the end!

[yue_ix]

I'll be looking forward to that consultation, then, and will pimp it on drawmelot if it's okay with you.

An idea I'd like to throw out now: the format of ladiesbigbang is new but appealing, in that writers and artists (and other types) are all equal, yet can still get complementary works done for them. It's a very interesting concept, like mixing the traditionnal Big Bangs (what box of Magic was last year) with Reverse Big bangs (like trekreversebang, were art comes first and fics are written for it). It seems like a pleasant solution for all and would allow some writers to sign up later if they aren't ready now, if it's something you could see.

[the-muppet.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting idea and we'll have to check it out in more detail when we've got all the initial stuff up and running.

Look forward to your input in the consultation and thanks for your ideas and suggestions so far =)

[yue_ix]

Hey,
sorry to bother you again, but I had a quick question and wasn't sure where to post it at the comm: about the artist consultation, did you have a date in mind for when you were planning on holding it? For personal curiosity and so I might update the pimping post at Drawmelot.

Thank you!

[the-muppet.livejournal.com]

We aren't entirely settled on when and how long yet, but will most likely be shortly after writer-sign-ups close =)