Director of Artist Relations


Hello!

The purpose of Artist Relations is to strengthen the community spirit as well as network with fellow artists so that we may bring outside opportunities to you, and help you to hone your skills. The Gallery Directors are the first people you should go to regarding your galleries. They are the people you need to make gallery suggestions to, and ask questions about your specific genre, or seek knowledge from. They also act as your lifeline to the administration. They are here to support and listen, and I can tell you we've got incredibly talented, devoted and passionate people on this team, so get to know them!


I have added subcategories to the traditional art -> mixed media gallery to match the digital art -> mixed media gallery, please move your deviations to the most appropriate sections.

I have also added dry needle and monotype to the tradtional art -> printing gallery.


My main focus at this time is to round out the volunteer team. Your patience is required as it is not happening as quickly as I originally planned, unfortunately the death of my grandmother delayed this project. I thank you all for the caring and compassion extended to me and assure you that I am now back and will be refocusing on this particular project.

I have noticed and increase in people sending notes to myself or my gallery directors to report policy and copyright violations. Please file help desk tickets for this. My team does not deal directly with violations of this type and it's absolutely necessary to keep running records of instances that occur, so we will direct you back to the help desk to ensure proper protocol. Thank you.


Important and entertaining links you should go to

Live Your Creative Passion Scholarship Contest

Against the Light Contest

A new chatroom for Stock Thumb sharing has been created at #stockthumbnailshare



Community Driven Contests, Projects and Clubs I've heard about

*TribeOfCelts - a club devoted to everything celtic

~proems - a literature/poetry club looking for an avatar

*da-mentors - matching deviants with mentors in every art category.



For something new.. some thumbs of favorites I've added recently:










Miss an edition of the newsletter? Check out my journal

Looking for contests? Find a list of all AR sponsored contests in the module in my journal


The Key System
As you can see at the very bottom there is a Key System. The way this will work is simple. If you have a specific inquiry or suggestion for a specific department, begin your comment with the appropriate Key Code, that way we can search the page and compile them and address them.

Artisan Crafts

Hello! In this update I call on those who are serious about Artisan Crafts (and those who would like to become more serious) to volunteer for the AC News Team (tm). If you are interested in writing a monthly (or bimonthly, or whatever time period suits you more) for Artisan Crafts, featuring artwork and working with the artists in the gallery, please note me. I have a few people who have already volunteered. The purpose is to get more art out to people who are unfamiliar with AC. I await your notes!

The Month of Jewelry was more or less a success. If you'd like to see all the Daily Deviations from the month of March, click here: [link]

I would like to remind you once again that I am not a Traditional Art Gallery Director. Please forward your Trad Art DD suggestions to ^zeruch.

I have scheduled an Artisan Crafts Community Meeting for anyone who wishes to attend for May 5, 2007 at 12 PM Pacific Time.

Please remember to read all the gallery descriptions before posting in Artisan Crafts. Please read here as to new changes to what happens to Costume and Cosplay miscats: [link]

Cartoons & Comics

Hi guys! Nothing too big goin on in Comics and Cartoons this time around so this is likely to be a smaller update. I would like to babble on a bit about projects. I'm a chapter artist for The World of Baeg Tobar and the man behind it all, *JerMohler is working on a few ideas to bring Baeg Tobar to dA in hopes of drawing (haha, pun totally intended... that's right, I have NO shame!) more people to the site. It's an amazing project made up of several different stories and artists. :devyouthculter: is putting together a super secret project. More on that later though! If you or a friend are cooking up comics/cartoons-related projects please let me know about them! I'd be more than happy to plug them in newsletters and journals and help out in any other way I can. Don't hesitate to let me know what you're up to!

I also want to talk a little about the Anthro category. I've noticed a sudden increase in miscategorizations in the category and I'd like to remind everyone that the Anthro category is strictly saved for anthropomorphic characters (beings or objects that are NOT human given human traits, characteristics or abilities) and is not to be used as a dumping ground for random webcam images, video game fanart or photos of your friends at school. Everything has a place here, be that in your main gallery or scraps. So please be sure you are reading the gallery descriptions provided upon submission (you have to click the link). If there is any confusion there's plenty of us that you can talk to. We're all here to help!

Also, don't forget about noting me links to your all-time favorite C&C submissions! They will be featured along with thumbs of recently submitted deviations in my articles. Keep your DD suggestions for comics/cartoons and anthro comin!


CUSTOMIZATION


Skins & Themes

There's been a lull in activity at S&T of late, but we've still had a couple of things kicking up dust. Firstly, Vista Visual Styles are going to be introduced shortly, once we start getting a steady stream of such submissions. Next, talks are on about a category for deviant-created applications, since we've got so many good ones in the gallery. Last, but not least, *mrrste has created a fine video tutorial on how to skin Windowblinds - a massive 475mb effort! Please take a look at it, since its one of the best things to have happened to skinning in a long time. We salute him for his contribution to the community. Cheers!


Wallpaper & Icons
and

^zilla774 & ^livius

Together at Last!

No, we are not announcing our pending engagement (those who know me will already realise that another marriage is far from my mind...) but we are unleashing on the world our Combined Custom Customization Customising Contest!

The competition is now open, and the full contest information can be found here: [link]

But in a nutshell, here is the deal:

The Icons Gallery and the Wallpaper Gallery have joined forces to bring you a great new contest.

The contest is open to both Iconist and Wallpaper Artists and strongly encourages collaboration from both parts.

The idea is to make custom desktop packs which offer themed icons and wallpaper sets. These can be either:

Icons matching an existing Wallpaper

Wallpaper that matches an exisiting Icon set

Icons AND matching wallpaper

These can be achieved either as a collaboration, or individually, and there is no limit to the theme you can choose, so just let your imagination run riot!



^zilla774 ^livius



Photomanipulation

A more personal update from me this time: I will be on vacation from April 23rd to May 24th. During that time will not be able to maintain the gallery the way you're used to as I do not know when or even if I will be able to get internet access and even if I do, I probably won't be able to do more than check e-mails.

So from April 23rd to May 23rd, my admin duties will fall on someone else. For DDs you can send your notes to $chix0r and @darklylit as well as ^nighty. ^nighty will also be looking after the manips gallery in all other matters.

That does not change the DD guidelines, though! Especially not the one demanding to see sources *winks*. None of us will feature anything that has no sources listed to make a statement. That statement being that it is not "just courtesy" that demands sources to be listed, but official dA policy as well as more often than not the condition under which you are allowed to use stock in the first place ("Credit when used" is something you will often see in stockers' rules).

For more info see the following faq entries:

• FAQ #65: Can I use stock images?
• FAQ #65: Can I use stock images?

News Series Until I depart to shores unknown (aka Canada), I'm planning on releasing a few more news articles, especially from the "Photomanips by Genre" Series. Here's what we have so far:

• Photomanips by Genre: Fantasy
• Photomanips by Genre: Conceptual

as well as

• Best of Photomanips: March

and one more article in the "Mixed Media Artists" interview series:

• Mixed Media Artists: #10 CrisVector

And last but not least Here's a little something for all the manip artists out there:


Don't let anyone ever tell you that what you do cannot be art because all you do is manipulate photos

Designs & Interface

Hey Guys,

It's been awhile since you got an update from my neck of the woods so I guess you can expect a lot for me to say.

Firstly, my apology in the lack of updates but in all honesty there was nothing to report until recently.

Designs and Interfaces have gone through some major changes in terms of gallery structure.

Gallery Structure Changes
Fashions Category is now divided into to different category, i.e, Fashion Designs and T-Shirt graphics. Please read category descriptions to see what's allowed and what's not.

I had noticed that Vehicular Graphics category had contents that different from it's description so I made some edits to the description that clearly states what should and shouldn't be in this category.

Mascots category was recently created for mascot designs which my friends is different from logo designs so please don't place logo designs within this category.

Literature layouts category was renamed to Editorial Designs which made more sense. Within the design industry, you don't hear of literature layouts but instead, editorial designs.

That's it as far as Gallery Structure goes. There might be a few more changes as we go on but for now, I hope that makes you all happy.

Submissions
Something I'd like to make mention to all designers on dA is your method on your submissions. Now, quite often I see now nicely designed work but when I check the description to see the 'story' behind these designs there's usually none or something very vague. As a good designer, presentation of your work is as important as doing it because you must be able to explain your thought process behind your design. Whenever you go on an interview for a design job good presentation is what can make the difference between you getting the job or losing it to the other designer waiting in the hall. As GD, I often rely on a break-down of the work in the 'comments' area because it might be really well designed but I'm not getting the point of it or I might disagree with your approach. Your descriptive comment of your process could make me want to feature it or simply say it's an 'eye-candy'. So basically what I'm asking you to do is to give a breakdown of your work. The following is an example:

Title: Project 1
Client: Personal
Applications: Photoshop, illustrator
Comment: Here's where you give the break down.

Now you don't have to do all of that. You can just do the comments with the breakdown of your process because that's what is truly important. You probably don't even have to do that but if you ever want me to consider your work for DD you should take it into consideration because I'm taking the DD feature seriously and not just handing out to eye-candy designs.

Well I believe that all I have for now. I usually have it all in my head but when it's time to type I go blank. Anyways, thanks for reading.


Literature

National Poetry Writing Month

We're well into the national poetry writing month now, and various people have been writing a poem every day for April to celebrate. Others have been participating in the April Agon being held weekly in the lit forums. The current one is the Parody competition. Go take a look!

The two winners so far are *futilitarian and *lovetodeviate, who both win 3 month subs and lit-themed mugs.

In other news: The first issue of Soundzine has come out. It's well worth a look (and listen), so check out the news article.

Make Every Word Count. *WordCount is a new group that could use some recognition here-- I really like the concept, and I highly encourage you spread the word around. Leave the article some love.


Interview - IfrozenspiritI An interview with Miss Rachel, the winner of the last fotoFRIDAY contest. I love `bananaprincess's articles-- go take a peek.


fotoFRIDAY Update The latest *fotoFRIDAY update, including the last five weeks and also a little tip of the hat to over thirty weeks of running the project. I can't get excited enough about that either.


Visual Lit I am a big fan of inter-gallery relations, especially within the lit community, and this is one project I'd like to see more of. I highly encourage writers around dA to take a peek and look into participating.

Generic Prose Contests Because seriously folks, we need to pimp some prose. Hosted by the good =smoking-mirrors, no less! Go write something!


FavShare This is an awesome idea for a project, encouraging the relations between visual artists and us lit folks. Take a look!


Tell Me A Lie A writing contest run by those fancy folks at LitFFS.

*EldritchCabal EC is a community project in on-going fiction in which each person contributes there own portion of a much larger story. Awesome concept, and definitely worth a peek for you fantasy writers.



Manga/Anime

Greetings from the now Solo ^guruubii. `aeterne got swallowed by a whale, and there is no internet in the deep sea so she cant get around to do her directing now. She Still goes online but as a ` Thanks to near the surface WiFi. _{She’s alive and well outside the digestive system of a marine mammal).} So ^guruubii can handle things for now. It’s all good. So far, I am making some changes to how our monthly newsletters are put together. Not big changes, but some. Most prominently is the “featured artist” thing will be a thing of the past. It will be replaced with “Spotlight Deviants”. My reason for this is, featuring good art all the time is good yup, but there are artists behind that art that are doing exceptional things! We must expose them for the loving kind people they are! So Check out my journal for more information on that. I will be posting a guideline there, then you can submit your nominations to me. $lolly Had that watch madness a while back, and so I decided to do it myself! check out this journal. I have ulterior motives! I post a lot of DA updates and projects in my journal, so the more people watching me, the more community reach I have. I’m still lacking DD suggestions! Check my guidelines and suggest people to me! Suggesting your friends is fine, but do it because you love their art, not because they asked you to okay? I need Anthro and Anime suggestions. I know there are a lot of violations in the gallery. I have been sifting through every chance I get. My new job limits my admin-ing time to the morning and DA seems to like read-only mode then. Woe is me. Watch out for the Manga/Anime newsletter again at the end of the month and watch the news for the contests! Bi weekly! WOOT!


Photography

This has been a shocking week of violence and loss. It is one thing for us to see wars raging around the world, with soldiers being wounded and killed on all sides. But when scores of young and innocent lives fall victim to random acts of violence, as happened in an American university this week, it is difficult to feel unaffected. As artists, we can weigh in on issues like this. We can speak with our images. My challenge to the dA photography community is to use the camera to speak out on the issue of violence. Do you think things have gotten out of control? Do you think it's just human nature to take the lives of others? Do you feel pain? Sorrow? Joy? Take a photo that represents how you feel about violence, and post it on dA. This is not a contest. It's just a general photographic challenge and a call to action. After you've taken the photo, feel free to link it to a comment on this article, and discuss the issue here.


RESOURCES

Stock Photography

Special Thanks to =demonicintuition who has been most helpful in giving me material

If you need pimpage .. Or know of those that do (and it’s about us . Stock Community)

Please send me notes ( and mark them AR Newsletter – which will remind me why anyone would really want to note me so I’m not afraid to open it up )

* I’m afraid of notes .. Just me .. I’ll deal with it

Lick the Stock Stamp .. Lick it good and make it stick








Pimp your self with Stamps . I know I do

and my co – stock director







AND you’re extra AR Newsletter Bonus Entry

devHanratty-Stock: and =LawrenceDeDark want your pimpage

– see the story here ( -: [link] :- ) And a public announcement


.........stock grindhouse baby . Grind house . More for you money

Hey says ~gladly reminds me by saying / and i quote "I just read your latest AR article and you mentioned chats. I made one, #StockCentral, if you need more chatrooms. I'm surprised there's not more interest with all the stockers here. That's great about the contests by the way. / Best regards, / C."

........
I’ve actually been there and it’s a good chat .. just saying . show up and join fellow stock artist


Visualizations

It's funny how every years the rules of avs manifest themselves. It was quite quiet since the last release wave around christmas, but new deviations are increasing just in time for the first teasers of warm summer days.

AVSociety VI: Renaissance
The first pack from the ~avsociety in 5 years, giving a first look at the new generation of members. This pack gives a good overview what the current mood in the top of the AVS scene is like. It will be exciting to see what more is going to come!

CO-OP Session #12
It's been a while, since the last pack in ~visbot's CO-OP Series, and this pack makes a stunning comeback.

The AVS pot is about to heat up, watch out for a lot of more exciting releases throughout spring and summer!
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To direct your comments towards the right gallery director, optionally prefix your comments with the following acronyms:

PREFIX LEGEND

AR: for Artist Relations
CON: for Contests
AC: for Artisan Crafts
COM: for Comics and Cartooons
CUS: For Cutsomizations
ICN: for Icons
ST: for Skins & Themes
VP: for Visualization Presets
WP: for Wallpaper
DI: for Designs & Interfaces
DR: For DeviantArt Related
DA: for Digital Art
3D: for Digital Art > 3 Dimensional Art
DF: for Digital Art > Digital Fantasy
PM: for Digital Art > Photomanipulation
PA: for Digital Art > Pixel Art
VE: for Digital Art > Vector
FR: for Fractal Art
FL: for Flash
LIT: for Literature
POE: for Poetry
PRS: for Prose
ANI: for Manga/Anime
AA: Anthro
PH: for Photography
AN: for Photography > Artistic Nudes
FP: for Photography > Fetish
PJ: For Photography > Photojournalism
RES: for Resources
SP: for Stock Photos
TA: for Traditional Art