CreativeNewbies Discussion Thread

[BnBGobo99]

IMPORTANT EDIT
This thread is for the discussion of launching a new website called "CreativeNewbies" as a way to maintain the BlenderNewbies atmosphere but encourage more participation in various creative fields.  Most of us have grown beyond just Blender, or were never "just Blender".  There is currently no website that exists that has the friendly atmosphere of BlenderNewbies/BlenderWorld and caters just to new and amateur artists who dabble in more than one creative medium.  CGSociety is the closest thing that exists to the proposed CreativeNewbies, however the environment is toxic and hostile to new artists.

Read the Proposal Here: Link to .pdf file


Original Post
Hi all,

BlenderNewbies.com is available for auction on the GoDaddy website.  It's currently bidding for $12.  I would buy it, but I don't have any time to run it.

[BnBGobo99]

If it were CreativeNewbies.com I would buy it because I've been wondering if we should rebrand BlenderWorld for all creative types. I think we've all grown beyond just Blender, which is why I don't have time to run BlenderNewbies but I would have time to run a more wide-focused creative forum and website.

What are your thoughts? Would you join a CreativeNewbies website, or are your time constraints such that you wouldn't be able to participate in that forum much either?

[Yodaman921]

I'd be all down for the CreativeNewbies route. Considering most of us do other stuff such as 2D, needlework, etc. Also, if we do go the route of a new site (whether creativenewbies or reviving blendernewbies), I can help out if need be. I may not post much, but I do check everyday with BlenderWorld. And it'd be nice to have a site too, where we could write/feature articles/artists/etc.

[BnBGobo99]

Sounds good! I'm up for paying for advertising on BN, Twitter, etc and the hosting fees and such through BlueHost (I'm an anti-GoDaddy guy because of their advertising). We'll have to research how forums work and such... and we'll need a logo!
...and content!
...and tutorials!

[Yodaman921]

Just let me know what you need and I can see what I can pull together (content, tutorials, etc). Cause if we also do a site, we need a template, potentially custom made.

[BnBGobo99]

Let me get the wife's blessing (she's the one that keeps the budget, lol)--but I think we can have something if it's newbie friendly, clean, and accessible. I'll pull together a project plan and we'll see how much effort it will take.

Ha! The first time the chatbox would actually be useful and we're using the main forum threads.

[Yodaman921]

Right ... a plan... haha. Typical me wanting to just dive right in. (and I'm in the chatbox currently)

[Dobi]

Hmmm, interesting enough. I'm down for a community of non-elitist developers and artists!

What we really need for a beginning, is a general structure of our community. Then, we can think about portal site, forums, etc.

[Xraygunner]

Non-elitists!?  Count me out... wait, what?  

All in here!  I've been messing with a little bit of pretty much everything these days!  Blender, Houdini, Sculptris, pretty much the entire Adobe creative suite and little known programs here there and yon!  No wonder I don't get anything done!

Most I can do is donate a little cash and perhaps a moment or two posting and cheering on!  

**Had to add UE4 as well!**

[BnBGobo99]

Hey guys, just posted the link to the proposal in the first post.  Let me know what y'all think.  This isn't a project plan, just a proposal to lay the foundation to build the project plan.  Please--please--please discuss areas which you disagree, want changed, modified, added to, stricken, what you like, etc.  This will help us launch the website we've always wanted.  Also, if we do launch a website and in the unlikely event it does have some kind of cash flow (positive or negative) we'll need to formalize some things to protect ourselves and each other.

[Yodaman921]

Just read through it and... wow... well done in both content and presentation.

Anywho, here's my general thoughts/comments:
~ Not sure if you meant to use the term 'genera' in the mission statement, or meant genre.
~ In Ownership/Legal Entity you spelled 'been' as 'bene'. (that's the last spelling/grammar issue )
~ So I like how you did the Newbie/Craftsmen/Master Artist. Brings to mind a process that is being worked on here at college. So the process is called digital badging, like at the 3d lab where I work we have a 3D Modeling and Animation badge with ranks of Novice, Beginner, Adept, etc. And to get a badge you'd have to apply for it and show that you have skills associated with that level. Such as the application for beginner would be creating a scene with 4 objects and a lamp, and then animate a ball going across with screen. The higher the rank, the harder the task. It'd be nice to implement something similar for CreativeNewbies, to foster the idea that they are growing and improving, I'd just hate for people to feel bad if they can't pass an application or if people start pulling rank on other members. Just a thought though and maybe it could be refined. http://www.mblem.umich.edu/v/program <- not sure if that link will work...
~ In addition to tutorials, in some cases time-lapses may be nice to have.
~ One area that will need some consideration is covering areas where there is no experience. We all have 3D/2D experience to some degree or another. Then we each have other skills areas such as yarn, photography, painting, etc. But what about the areas where we aren't experienced and there are no experts joining; potentially sewing, pottery, carving a bear out of a log with a chainsaw. We want to have this sense of coverage across all mediums, and I understand that we would be able to collect tutorials and the like, but we should try to have people who are decently skilled for those areas. Maybe have a rank called 'Experimentor' or something where they go around trying new things? Ask people who are skilled to join? I don't know. Just something I'd bring up.

Those are all my initial thoughts at the moment. Might share more after thinking about it some more.

[BnBGobo99]

Thanks for taking a look, Scott! I corrected the typos and added a line in the marketing section to address the lack of experience in certain sub-forums.

The rank idea comes from the trades, like plumbers. They follow Apprentice, Journeyman and Master--with qualification exams to move up the ladder. In the Air Force, we have skill levels (3, 5, 7 and 9) that go by Apprentice, Journeyman, Craftsman and Superintendent. Since many craftsmen are tradesmen in their day jobs, I thought they will be able to relate to the progression ladder. I'm keen on a nomination process to upgrade, but that could cause favoritism if we aren't careful, so we should certainly discuss this portion more!

[BnBGobo99]

Guys,

I made Pinterest, Twitter and Google accounts (although Google thinks I'm a person, not a website--so it's linked to my name for now) just to claim the names. If somebody could make a Facebook business account, please. I don't use Facebook and apparently you can't make a business account without having a personal account first.

[BnBGobo99]

The name to register it under is CreativeNewbies, please.

[Yodaman921]

The name to register it under is CreativeNewbies, please.

Sure thing, but it wants a 155 character description before I can create it and it wants a valid url for a website. That's if I make a company facebook page. (there's local business, company, brand/product, public figure, entertainment, or cause/community)

[Yodaman921]

Nevermind, I was able to skip it so we can add it in later.

https://www.facebook.com/CreativeNewbies

^although if the link doesn't work, I unpublished the page for the time being.

[Xraygunner]

Looks good Bunny! Now for the tricky part... adding to the discussion without coming across as a !

So, here goes... (not sure how nit-picky we should be with this)

Ownership/Legal Entity
Overall ownership can be a partnership or
a sole proprietorship. Such decision
should be made as a group with all
(Such a decision(s) ?)

In this sense, members include administrators, moderators as well.
(and?)

Video tutorials should include a transcript if there is any dialog. The video player should have the ability to slow by 50% and increase speed up to 200%.
(Possibly add “jump to” points. I.e., book/section/chapter marks)

Because this site is aimed at new artists, ….
(Since?)

effectively turning in posted works into mini- or full-tutorials.
(leave out “in” or change “into” to “as”? Hyphens to commas?)

Administrators will have the ability to “reshape” their forums, edit and post tutorials and articles, and award trustworthy Master Artists after they have been trained.
(Suggestion that these awards should emanate from the “grassroots” of the forums and be decided by council weather they make the cut or not. I would add that it might be a good idea to do that with Ranks in general.)

Cost values have not bene constructed,...
(Still there! )

Ok, hope this helps for now.

[Xraygunner]

One more thought!

Just as a "wish list" item... would it be possible (or too difficult) to embed something like Skype or Oovoo into the system? I've been using Oovoo for screen sharing with my partner in crime. It would be pretty cool if a Ranker could take a quick call from someone in need on the fly.

[Yodaman921]

Administrators will have the ability to “reshape” their forums, edit and post tutorials and articles, and award trustworthy Master Artists after they have been trained.
(Suggestion that these awards should emanate from the “grassroots” of the forums and be decided by council weather they make the cut or not.  I would add that it might be a good idea to do that with Ranks in general.)

So people get awards if it's nice and sunny, but demoted if it's thunder-storming?

[Xraygunner]

Lol! Nice. Sorry 'bout that... but I'm hoping the idea was clear enough.

[BnBGobo99]

(Possibly add “jump to” points.  I.e., book/section/chapter marks)

Agree!

(Suggestion that these awards should emanate from the “grassroots” of the forums and be decided by council weather they make the cut or not.  I would add that it might be a good idea to do that with Ranks in general.)

I meant for it to be read that way--reworded to make it clearer.

Just as a "wish list" item... would it be possible (or too difficult) to embed something like Skype or Oovoo into the system?

Instead of having that as a built-in function, how do you feel about just having a mentoring tag next to the artist who is available to mentor?  This way mentors can link up with folks needing one-on-one help outside the site boundaries on a voluntary basis.  I have certain concerns about hosting video conferences in-house--but we should certainly discuss further.

Okay--for the rest, I think you guys are not seeing the forest for the pine needles. Nobody's going to see this document except us and our lawyers when we sue each other for $2B after CreativeNewbies becomes the next MicroPinTwitterBook.

What are your thoughts with the overall idea and the scope of services?  It seems we're on-board with the rank system.  I think at first content will be light, but by asking artists who have already published work on their blogs if we can re-host them on our site and credit them as contributors, I think we can get some good content from a variety of art fields without any financial payment (maybe compensation in the form of auto-rank to Craftsman or Master Artist, give them more exposure through free advertising, etc).

Populating the forums might be a bit of work at first too, since we might have to be the ones to initially comment on posts that we have no experience in (like "your wood sculpture looks really neat--what was your inspiration... or tell me how you did the arm...", etc).

I'm confident with advertising on other sites and using the social media account we set up we can bring in an initial user base, the trick will be to have them stay long enough to reach the "critical mass" that the content they generate for each other is what brings them back.

[edited out all the copyright/trademark stuff. I's a bit early for that.]

>> So, without doing the project plan I can already estimate the first six months will be a major time sink for all involved.  Show of hands if we should continue to develop a project plan?  If we continue and build the project plan, we'll then have a workable roadmap that will have a timeline and milestones to follow and we can take another vote to continue, if that's alright.

(I know the initial idea was just to create another forum that had a broader scope--but I say if you do something you might as well do it all the way!  We can still start small and build larger, rather than starting large.  I don't want to become like BlenderArtists though, which has massively outgrown it's original small formula but hasn't adjusted to match and just feels like a crowded subway in Tokyo.  Let me know your thoughts.)

[Yodaman921]

I think, if done correctly, this has the potential to be something special.

The way I look at it, we are aiming to make a community full of artists that want to help each other and build each other up. Ranging from pottery to 3d graphics to so much more. As far as I can tell, there is no community that does that. In terms of forums you have photography forums or blender forums, etc; but they tend to be elitist and specialize in 1 art form. For all around art, you have sites such as DeviantArt, but there it's hard to get help or comments since your post is flushed away by the 50+ posts per minute in the what's new area or the popular artists are always the feature in the popular section.

If we go forward with this idea, I think it's vital that we focus on the sense of community and encourage the community to take interest in all of the various art forms. Since I feel like even though a lot of people may not think it, there's probably a lot of potential for crossing and combining various forms of art. And it'd be neat to encourage collaboration between members. I feel like this has the potential to turn into something big.

I say we go forward with this idea. It'll take a lot of planning on our end, I agree. Especially if we want to implement certain features (I'd love to see each account have a gallery feature attached to their member page). To me though, I think it's worth it and at the very least it'll prove to be a good experiment.

[Xraygunner]

I'm in agreement here! This does look like the dawn of something... interesting to say the least.

Has anyone heard Nickelback's "What Are You Waiting For?" ? I was introduced to it a few days ago when my wife was giving me a pep-talk about getting going with a different vocation than I am currently in. It's a long difficult road ahead, but full of interesting twists and turns that will be sure to fun and... interesting!

Have a listen! Get psyched, and then go out and do it!

[BnBGobo99]

What line of work are you considering, if you don't mind me asking?  Will you stick in the medical world, or do something completely different?

Xray, you have CS6 correct?  I also have the Creative Suite (CC) and the Microsoft office package, so I think a lot of our coding overhead can be handled between our two systems. Scott, while you are a student you should try out CC--I think it's $20 a month for full access, worth a try for a month or two if you have the time to spare. Studica.com and Journeyed.com have a lot of student discounts too, while you have access to them.

I agree though, that we should get smart on HTML5, CSS, php, and JavaScript.  Google has a free captcha module that we can incorporate, and Dreamweaver/Muse does a lot of the background tasks for menus, forms, etc.

I'll start building a project plan that will give us a breakdown of actions that need to happen and timelines, dependencies, etc.  From there we can officially kickoff.

[BnBGobo99]

Hey guys,

Click here to view the Project Plan.

How to read:

• ID = task number.  When referring to a task, we should cite this number.  It is organized from past to future.  New tasks will be added below though, so task #37 will always be task #37.
  
• Task name = self explanatory.
  
• Duration = estimated time it will take to complete the task.
  
• Start = estimated task start date
  
• Finish = estimated task completion date
  
• % Complete = measures how much has been done on a specific task.  This is hard to define, so we can use the scale of (Playing around with it: 10%, already started: 25%, midway 50%, mostly done 75%, just a few touches 90%, done 100%).
  
• Predecessor =  shows the task number that must be completed before this task can begin.
  
• Calendar bars = visual timeline to help show progress.  As you can see, it has three natural stages: administrative planning, initial construction, and final construction.
  

Please take a look at the task that are:

• Active as of today: 1-22
  
• Starting on Monday: 23-28
  
• Due on Tuesday: 3-5
  

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