Lessons from an art community
Instead of the usual “I don’t know what you like†gift vouchers last Christmas I really wanted to learn to draw and asked for some carefully chosen books and equipment. Specifically I organised Ben Caldwell’s Action! Cartooning and Fantasy! Cartooning.
These, along with some inevitable supplies and a surprisingly supportive forum around the books (check out Action Cartooning with Ben Caldwell), have focused my creative juices onto paper and I’m having a lot of fun learning to draw.
Cartoon drawing fits neatly with my game development passion allowing me to express my fantasies and ideas. I’m not pouring my own artwork into my games just yet, but that’s definitely a possibility and currently I use my still-infant skills to draw an overlay of what I intend to make.
Something the cartooning forum does which I think is an important feature for leaders in other communities to use, is they have regular competitions where members must submit artwork based on a theme. The Game.Dev community already does this with their bi-monthly game development competitions and I think it keeps everyone in practice, participating and prevents stagnation of the community and its members.
I’m not quite sure how a general .NET community like SA Developer .NET can benefit from this type of activity; we have monthly meetings but it’s not something you can do in the comfort of your own home. Still; I’m going to let the idea simmer in the back of my brain, and we’ll see where there’s an opportunity.
Disclaimer: The pictures in this post are my submissions to some of the competitions on the cartooning forum. These are very early works so be gentle in your comments.
