Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hello and welcome to the Gaian Art Mentors guild!

Before posting, please familiarize yourself with the following rules and guidelines. There's also lots of useful information pertaining to the guild.

Navigation

1. What is an Art Mentor?
   Current Crew
   How to Join.
   
2. General Rules
   Guidelines for n***s
   
3. Guidelines: Giving and Accepting Critiques
   
4. Where do I post...
   
5. What should I do if...
   

What is an Art Mentor?

This guild exists to promote artistic growth through peer interaction. We help hook up artists with other artists, so they can learn from each other. The artists in this guild participate in one of four ways: being a mentor, being a mentee, both, or neither.

Mentors:

- Keep up the commitment to their mentees
- Offes critiques about the mentee's artwork
- Look over sketches/lineart before coloring
- Discuss design concepts, technique, etc.
- share knowledge and experience

It shouldn't be thought that mentors are inherently better artists than their mentees. Rather, mentors are simply people willing to give advice about artwork, and mentees are people who are seeking advice about artwork. The mentor and mentee generally work together to improve the mentee's artwork, although the relationship can be anything they'd like it to be. The guild is here to help form those connections. whee

Everyone:

- Can keep a sketchbook
- Critique each other in the Sketchbook forum on a regular basis


Current Crew:

• Errol McGillivray Captain
  Mentor Forum
  Harassment
  Issues with crew or rules
  Any problems or suggestions you want to discuss in private
  
  
• T i r a e l Crew
  
  
• Folken_Schezar Crew
  
  
• syrella Events Coordinator
  ideas for events and contests
  

How Do I Join?

To join the guild and become a mentor/mentee, please do the following:


1. Request to join the guild using the "Request to Join" button at the top of the page. The mods will usually approve your application by the end of the day if not sooner. (You can go ahead and start posting in the main and Mentee forums - you don't need to wait until we accept you. Mentors must be guild members only.)
   
2. If you want to be a mentor, make a mentor thread in the appropriate subforum. Everyone is strongly encouraged to make a sketchbook thread. :3
   
3. If you haven't already, go ahead and introduce yourself!
   

Guidelines - Giving and Accepting a Critique

When giving a critique...

• Do not simply post lists of good or bad. Explain both the positive and the negative. Why is it good? Why is it not so good? By looking for both good and bad things, you develop a more critical eye, and the artist being critiqued will be more likely to listen to you.
  
  
• There is no room for empty praise here. It's nice to be praised, but it doesn't help us get better. You should look for at least one thing that can be improved in the work.
  
  
• Be objective. Try not to let personal bias influence critique. Your reasons for your feedback should be based on information and observation, not your personal likes and dislikes.
  
  
• Be specific. Saying "her leg looks off," is too vague to be much help. It's better to say, "Her leg looks like it's too wide, especially around the ankle."
  
  
• Offer solutions. This goes hand in hand with being specific, really. ("Thinning out her ankle would help her look more youthful and girlish," for example.) If you like, you can make marks on the picture to illustrate your points, which would really be a big help since many artists are visual learners.

When receiving a critique...

• Keep an open mind. By posting something here and asking for a critique, you're essentially asking people to tell you what's wrong with your art. Expecting to be showered with praise is simply not realistic.
  
  
• Remember that the person critiquing you is human too. Mistakes tend to stick out more than things that are done correctly, and often times people who are inexperienced at giving critiques will only comment on the very noticable areas of your picture - i.e. your mistakes. Some people also get a rise out of tearing down another person's work, so take what someone says to you with a grain of salt. Their advice only has as much weight as you're willing to give to it.
  
  
• Like art, giving critique is something you learn and get better at. If you get a bad critique, ask questions to help push the person to explain. We're here to get better with art, but we're also here to help each other get better at critique.

What should I do if...

...I see someone breaking the rules?
- Politely inform them. Sometimes people are too excited to get started that they forget to read the rules. They will usually remove it themselves. If they attempt to flame you in response or it's not their first time breaking the rules, stop contact and quietly PM the appropriate crew member.

Errol McGillivray
Mentor Forum
Harassment
Issues with crew or rules
MSN: elvenboyslut@hotmail.com (do not email this address)
Email: elvenboyslut@yahoo.com

T i r a e l
MSN: puddingphobia@gmail.com

Please put GAM in the subject line.

Please report porn/gore trolls to Errol immediately via email. He will get the email immediately from anywhere. We will remove it and report it to the gaia mods so appropriate action can be taken.

Please resolve personal disputes privately. If someone is harassing you over a guild matter, please let one of the crew know and stop contact until one of us has gotten back to you. We have a zero tolerance harassment policy here.

...I have a suggestion to improve the guild?
- Post it in the suggestion box. We'll try to get back to you as soon as possible, even if we choose not to implement your idea.

...I want to become a crew member?
- Just hang out around the community and help as best as you can as a regular member. We'll notice you. whee If we never see you helping your guildmates out around the mentee forum, don't bother entertaining the idea.

...I want to commission one or more of the guild members?
- Please do not solicit commissions in the guild. We're all about making art here, but this is not a directory of artists to bother at your choosing. Any threads created with the purpose of soliciting commissions will be deleted. Do not create shops here either. This is not your personal promotions forum.

arrow Clarification: Art contests may or may not fall into this category. Threads simply advertising a contest are be considered spam and will be deleted.

However, contests for concept designs or contests with drawing themes are acceptable. Good concept/theme: Design a monster of your choosing. Bad concept/theme: Design a sister for my character. (Threads like this will be deleted.)

If you want to host an art contest here in the guild, ask a crew member. When all's said and done, the most important factor in determining whether or not your thread will be deleted is the intention with which it was created. If it's to benefit the guild, it will stay. If it's to benefit you, it will go.

...if I want to make a donation to the guild?
As of now we would ask you to please not make any more donations to the guild fund via the guild home page! We've got all the gold we need in there, really. We can't withdraw anything that goes in there and the only way we can spend it is on subforums. However, if you'd like to make a donation to the guild mule so we can use your donation as part of an art contest or other guild-related activity, we'd be more than happy to accept your donation. Just send a trade to Art Mentors Guild and let one of the mods know that you've done so (we don't normally check the guild mule very often) and we'll accept your trade. We'll also put you down on the list of guild contributors unless you'd like to remain anonymous.


Contributors

Because people are so awesome and nice, they've decided to help out with the cost of the guild! Here's a list of contributors. Shower them with hugs! :3

- Marissael - 1,500 gold
- Look - 15,000 gold
- Eejbeej - 1,000 gold
- aliira - 10,000 gold (I put 7,500 of this into the guild fund)

Note: If you want to donate to the guild now, please do not send the trade to me! Use the donation form on the guild homepage. As of now we have more gold than we ever could possibly need to buy subforums with, so please don't donate any more unless you want your gold to rot away in the guild account. We cannot withdraw gold that's been put into the guild account. The only way we can spend it is by purchasing subforums.