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fanart_recs2010-10-06 11:26 pm
ratcreature) wrote in fanart_recs2010-10-06 11:26 pm
Entry tags:
Questions & Answers
A few people have asked further questions in the sign-up post's comments, and I thought it might be a good idea to have a post collecting these for reference without making the basic intro & rules post overly long and detailed.
1. Can I sign up for a rec theme/topic that is not a fandom?
No. The sign-up for reccing and the categorization of the recs is organized by fandom, with each reccer being in charge of the recs for the fandom they picked during the month they signed up for, and that simple model wouldn't really work anymore if a single reccer wanted some other criterion to pick their recs, and recced say AU art or a mix of Big Bang art or some other topic across fandoms. So you have to pick a fandom for a month.
However unlike Crack Van for example, this rec community is not explicitly dedicated to introduce people to new fandoms, so the fanart you rec doesn't necessarily have to be a balanced/representative selection of art across your fandom. So if a genre or style is a particular favorite of yours, you could just rec that kind of fanart in your single-fandom recs.
2. Can I rec crossover art?
Yes, as long as one of the fandoms is the one you signed up for, you can rec crossover fanart like any other genre. In this particular case the rec should be tagged with both (or all) fandoms though, not just the one you are reccing.
3. What exactly counts as a single "fandom" to sign up for?
Fandoms are not pre-defined for sign-up in this comm. In the case of more complicated canon sources you can sign up for wider or narrower sections of your fandom, though later tagging of the recs may be adjusted if future reccers get more specific or more general. For example somebody could sign up for DC Comics in general, and rec across all comic title families, and later another reccer might sign up just for Batverse recs, then some of the earlier DC Comics recs may get an additional Batverse tag later on if the more specific tag applies.
However as a rule of thumbfanart_recs follows conventions within the fandoms, on whether they consider themselves a separate fandom. For example Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis are widely considered two fandoms among their fans, even though both belong to the Stargate franchise. Fandom distinctions as made in popular archives such as fanfiction.net or AO3 can be a good indicator of these conventions when trying to decide under which fandom label to sign up for recs.
4. How exactly do you draw the lines for what counts as "fanart" for this comm?
I tried to cover this in the "What can I rec?" question of the rules, but as always there are tricky grey areas, and standards between fandoms of what is considered as "fanart" might vary as well. So if in doubt you can assume that this comm does not intend to be overly dogmatic about what constitutes "fanart".
First, what you cannot rec is fanfic, fanpoetry, vids, fanfilms, icons, picture macros, costume designs, or fannish music/audio productions (filks, fan mixes, podfic, or audiofic sound collages).
You can rec drawn and painted fanart (whether traditional or digital media), and photomanips, as well three dimensional art such as sculptures, fannish dioramas, and objects like customized action figures (if the customization is a significant change), and fiber art provided that is not costuming (see above) but fiber projects like for example knitted character dolls.
Multimedia works that have a fanart component that would fall under one of the things listed above are also okay to rec, e.g. story illustrations or fancomics with a significant fanart component. So fancomics are okay to rec if they have drawn or manipped art (i.e. if you could rec the art here without the narrative part), but not if a fan arranged screencaps with funny dialog without making the screencaps into digital art.
4.1 And what about photo fancomics?
Fancomics created by creatively posing toys and taking photos are okay to rec in principle too. Though the a rec should not be mostly for the narrative they tell only incidentally in photos, but because they are visually appealing, i.e. the rec should be for the visual art part if it is photo art.
4.2 What about animated fanart?
The "no vids" rule is meant for vids made by cutting the source material to music, not for fanart slideshows or fanart animation. Similarly to how fancomics are not allowed when they are a narrative told with rearranged screencaps but are allowed if they are drawn or manipped.
4.3 What about art created by professionals? Are there any pro vs amateur rules?
The art recced here should not be officially affiliated with the source. So web posted pro art that is done as part of the artist's job rather than as hobby shouldn't be recced. And in general I'd also count it as "work" if it is a paid commission that shows characters they work on officially, even if it isn't official art (such as a comic page). However if someone is a professional artist as their job, but also draws fanart for things they are not associated with as hobby in their free time that would be okay to rec, so there is no strict "amateurs only" rule.
Especially with comics there are plenty of grey areas, and of course people could do official work just briefly then draw the same characters for fun at some later or earlier point in time because they are fans, or other configurations, and there aren't going to be any background checks on the work history of linked artists or the nature of the linked art. Basically if what you rec is what you think of as "fanart" it's fine.
5. Are there any special requirements for the content of my recs? Do I need to talk about technical aspects of the art?
No. You don't need to be technical at all. And the rec doesn't need to be a long indepth review. The "Why this piece is awesome" field in the template is just so you can say why you like that piece of fanart, and why others ought to click and look at it. Whether because it is pretty, or evoked some emotion, or suggested a story or narrative you could glimpse, or because it was funny etc. When people rec fanfic they usually don't talk about technical writing detail either. This is the same principle.
The "medium" field in the template is not intended to be very technical either, but it is mostly because for example some people dislike photomanips or are squicked by them in live action fandoms when they are explicit, so they only want to look at NC-17 art if its drawn, whereas other people don't care for drawn art because they prefer graphics etc. If the artist doesn't say what the medium was and you can't tell (e.g. it's some mix of photomanip and other digital techniques and you don't know what to call it, or you can't tell whether it is digital painting or scanned traditional art or something) you could just skip it or go with a more general term (e.g. "digital art" in the first case, "painting" in the second).
6. Can I rec locked fanart?
Whenever possible you should use public links (not locked, does not require registration on a service to see).
You can rec locked fanart on sites or archives with open membership, i.e. works that require an account on a service to see such as mature works on deviantArt, Tumblr posts that are only visible to logged in Tumblr users, works locked on the AO3 archive or similar situations. To prevent potential frustration, when people click, you should make note in your rec that the link requires being logged into a service.
You should not rec fanart that is privacy locked to be seen only by a specific group of people the artist or a moderator has to approve, such as f-locked journal posts, communities/archives with restricted membership, Tumblr posts that are only visible for followers of the specific Tumblr or similar situations.
ETA (January 2022, collecting some more questions):
7. Can I sign-up for more than one fandom in the same month?
You can't rec two fandoms in the same month, but you can sign up for several months with different fandoms at the same time.
8. Can I sign up for several consecutive months for the same fandom?
You can't reserve the same fandom for consecutive months in advance, but you can express interest to rec longer, and then the sign-up for the second month is only confirmed when the call for reccers for that month is posted, to allow different reccers to snag a slot in popular fandom.
Or you can just sign-up for the second month when you see there's nobody else reccing it the upcoming month in the call for reccers I post roughly a week before the month starts. So it is possible to rec the same fandom several months in a row, but only if nobody else also wants to rec the same fandom.
9. How many recs can I post? Is there a maximum number?
There is a minimum of four recs you have to post as official rule, and a (non-binding) guideline that a reccer should sign up for a second month if they want to post more than eight recs.
1. Can I sign up for a rec theme/topic that is not a fandom?
No. The sign-up for reccing and the categorization of the recs is organized by fandom, with each reccer being in charge of the recs for the fandom they picked during the month they signed up for, and that simple model wouldn't really work anymore if a single reccer wanted some other criterion to pick their recs, and recced say AU art or a mix of Big Bang art or some other topic across fandoms. So you have to pick a fandom for a month.
However unlike Crack Van for example, this rec community is not explicitly dedicated to introduce people to new fandoms, so the fanart you rec doesn't necessarily have to be a balanced/representative selection of art across your fandom. So if a genre or style is a particular favorite of yours, you could just rec that kind of fanart in your single-fandom recs.
2. Can I rec crossover art?
Yes, as long as one of the fandoms is the one you signed up for, you can rec crossover fanart like any other genre. In this particular case the rec should be tagged with both (or all) fandoms though, not just the one you are reccing.
3. What exactly counts as a single "fandom" to sign up for?
Fandoms are not pre-defined for sign-up in this comm. In the case of more complicated canon sources you can sign up for wider or narrower sections of your fandom, though later tagging of the recs may be adjusted if future reccers get more specific or more general. For example somebody could sign up for DC Comics in general, and rec across all comic title families, and later another reccer might sign up just for Batverse recs, then some of the earlier DC Comics recs may get an additional Batverse tag later on if the more specific tag applies.
However as a rule of thumb
fanart_recs follows conventions within the fandoms, on whether they consider themselves a separate fandom. For example Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis are widely considered two fandoms among their fans, even though both belong to the Stargate franchise. Fandom distinctions as made in popular archives such as fanfiction.net or AO3 can be a good indicator of these conventions when trying to decide under which fandom label to sign up for recs.4. How exactly do you draw the lines for what counts as "fanart" for this comm?
I tried to cover this in the "What can I rec?" question of the rules, but as always there are tricky grey areas, and standards between fandoms of what is considered as "fanart" might vary as well. So if in doubt you can assume that this comm does not intend to be overly dogmatic about what constitutes "fanart".
First, what you cannot rec is fanfic, fanpoetry, vids, fanfilms, icons, picture macros, costume designs, or fannish music/audio productions (filks, fan mixes, podfic, or audiofic sound collages).
You can rec drawn and painted fanart (whether traditional or digital media), and photomanips, as well three dimensional art such as sculptures, fannish dioramas, and objects like customized action figures (if the customization is a significant change), and fiber art provided that is not costuming (see above) but fiber projects like for example knitted character dolls.
Multimedia works that have a fanart component that would fall under one of the things listed above are also okay to rec, e.g. story illustrations or fancomics with a significant fanart component. So fancomics are okay to rec if they have drawn or manipped art (i.e. if you could rec the art here without the narrative part), but not if a fan arranged screencaps with funny dialog without making the screencaps into digital art.
4.1 And what about photo fancomics?
Fancomics created by creatively posing toys and taking photos are okay to rec in principle too. Though the a rec should not be mostly for the narrative they tell only incidentally in photos, but because they are visually appealing, i.e. the rec should be for the visual art part if it is photo art.
4.2 What about animated fanart?
The "no vids" rule is meant for vids made by cutting the source material to music, not for fanart slideshows or fanart animation. Similarly to how fancomics are not allowed when they are a narrative told with rearranged screencaps but are allowed if they are drawn or manipped.
4.3 What about art created by professionals? Are there any pro vs amateur rules?
The art recced here should not be officially affiliated with the source. So web posted pro art that is done as part of the artist's job rather than as hobby shouldn't be recced. And in general I'd also count it as "work" if it is a paid commission that shows characters they work on officially, even if it isn't official art (such as a comic page). However if someone is a professional artist as their job, but also draws fanart for things they are not associated with as hobby in their free time that would be okay to rec, so there is no strict "amateurs only" rule.
Especially with comics there are plenty of grey areas, and of course people could do official work just briefly then draw the same characters for fun at some later or earlier point in time because they are fans, or other configurations, and there aren't going to be any background checks on the work history of linked artists or the nature of the linked art. Basically if what you rec is what you think of as "fanart" it's fine.
5. Are there any special requirements for the content of my recs? Do I need to talk about technical aspects of the art?
No. You don't need to be technical at all. And the rec doesn't need to be a long indepth review. The "Why this piece is awesome" field in the template is just so you can say why you like that piece of fanart, and why others ought to click and look at it. Whether because it is pretty, or evoked some emotion, or suggested a story or narrative you could glimpse, or because it was funny etc. When people rec fanfic they usually don't talk about technical writing detail either. This is the same principle.
The "medium" field in the template is not intended to be very technical either, but it is mostly because for example some people dislike photomanips or are squicked by them in live action fandoms when they are explicit, so they only want to look at NC-17 art if its drawn, whereas other people don't care for drawn art because they prefer graphics etc. If the artist doesn't say what the medium was and you can't tell (e.g. it's some mix of photomanip and other digital techniques and you don't know what to call it, or you can't tell whether it is digital painting or scanned traditional art or something) you could just skip it or go with a more general term (e.g. "digital art" in the first case, "painting" in the second).
6. Can I rec locked fanart?
Whenever possible you should use public links (not locked, does not require registration on a service to see).
You can rec locked fanart on sites or archives with open membership, i.e. works that require an account on a service to see such as mature works on deviantArt, Tumblr posts that are only visible to logged in Tumblr users, works locked on the AO3 archive or similar situations. To prevent potential frustration, when people click, you should make note in your rec that the link requires being logged into a service.
You should not rec fanart that is privacy locked to be seen only by a specific group of people the artist or a moderator has to approve, such as f-locked journal posts, communities/archives with restricted membership, Tumblr posts that are only visible for followers of the specific Tumblr or similar situations.
ETA (January 2022, collecting some more questions):
7. Can I sign-up for more than one fandom in the same month?
You can't rec two fandoms in the same month, but you can sign up for several months with different fandoms at the same time.
8. Can I sign up for several consecutive months for the same fandom?
You can't reserve the same fandom for consecutive months in advance, but you can express interest to rec longer, and then the sign-up for the second month is only confirmed when the call for reccers for that month is posted, to allow different reccers to snag a slot in popular fandom.
Or you can just sign-up for the second month when you see there's nobody else reccing it the upcoming month in the call for reccers I post roughly a week before the month starts. So it is possible to rec the same fandom several months in a row, but only if nobody else also wants to rec the same fandom.
9. How many recs can I post? Is there a maximum number?
There is a minimum of four recs you have to post as official rule, and a (non-binding) guideline that a reccer should sign up for a second month if they want to post more than eight recs.
no subject
Anyway: when you were taking signups before I did wonder at you putting everyone in November without pushing anyone forward into December. Maybe you need to make the max number of reccers per month a bit lower? After the initial surge you're probably not going to get lots of new people every month, and not everyone will have lots of different fandoms to rec for. I'd be happy to shift mine forward into December if that's helpful.
no subject
I realize that seven or eight reccers each month is not sustainable if the numbers of this comm remain so low in the 40 member/80 subscriber level, but I'm hoping it will grow a bit yet, and than members who like it here attract new ones.
The other is that so far there is no organizational scheme that I'd push people in months, I just listed them for the month they desired. The reccer who signed up for January I put there. I think December is a poor test, because it is holiday season busy with a ton of fannish exchanges, whereas January will just have a lot of exchange artwork posted that can be recced.
Also, there is no reason to expect recs in lots of different fandoms from the same reccer if there is no competition for rec spots in that fandom, i.e. if your fandom has enough art you want to rec for three months in a row, and nobody else wants a go at it, you can rec the same fandom for three months. That is no problem at all.
If you want to switch I'd do that, but right now I'm still hoping the "more traffic and growth" model will pay off, and am not yet *that* worried about December and the months further down the line.
no subject
Fair enough. I'm sure you have more experience with this sort of thing than me.
I better go finish writing my recs then :D
no subject
There'll probably be a post collecting ideas for that soonish.