Sharing your Creativity: An Introduction to the Arts & Culture Room
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Art by tiki.
Introduction
Welcome to the Arts & Culture room (A&C for short), a place to share your art, talk about the latest trends, and maybe even learn something interesting about another culture! A&C is a room that promotes a welcoming and positive environment with many different ways to get involved!
I know what you might be thinking: "I don't know the first thing about art!" Don't worry about that at all! If you're truly interested in getting involved in the art side of the room, there are plenty of opportunities to get feedback on your works in progress or even provide some feedback for a fellow artist. There are even several tutorials on the Arts & Culture website, which you can find here. However, if art just isn't for you, the room also offers a space to talk about what's popular today or even discuss some of the cultural differences and similarities we all have.
Events
The Arts & Culture Room is especially known for hosting multiple events for anyone, with the goal of everyone learning something and having fun along the way! Events can be split into two separate categories: art and culture. The events related to art are the photo and art contests, while the cultural events are usually referring to 'Guess the X', cultural tours, and lectures.
Sharing Art
To share your art in the room, all you have to do is get a direct image link to your art and use "/requestshow [insert link here]" to broadcast it to the room. The staff are adopting a queue cap where we will wait 7-10 minutes in-between image requests for the purpose of every user getting a time in the spotlight, making it fair for all. Another quick thing you should consider before posting is that you might receive some critiques; users are there to provide helpful feedback and will try to help you improve every step of the way!
Rules for Sharing Art
All artwork should be of your own creation. Art theft is a serious violation of the artist's code, and staff will take action if this rule is broken. Always make sure to provide the source of the posted artwork / material if it isn't your own work but you want to broadcast it anyway. Traced art is also acceptable, but you must provide the source or reference likewise. Do not PM artists and beg them to make free art for you. They put a lot of effort into their drawings and may not draw whatever you want for free. That's up to the artist's discretion, though. And lastly, a big rule of sharing art is that it must follow global rules (PG13)—any sensitive content must be spoiler tagged. This includes but is not limited to: insects, blood, gore, and horror. Even light amounts must be censored. Mild blood is acceptable, but heavy gore is not allowed. In addition to using the spoiler feature, you must give a warning as to what the link contains. For example: "Sensitive content spoiler: <imagelink>." If you have any questions about whether an image is appropriate or how to spoiler an image, you may PM a staff member.
Critiques & Basic Etiquette
General rules for critiques in the room are important to keep the friendly environment going. When giving critiques, try to limit yourself to up to two suggestions at a time. Suggesting several edits at once is overwhelming and comes off as hypercritical and generally unfriendly. Gauging skill level is also very important. If the artist is a beginner, keep your suggestions simple. Don't suggest unreasonably difficult or complicated edits. Know the difference between criticism and preaching your interests. Drawing in a particular style is not a fault. This includes but is not limited to: hate speech about character pairings, furries, anthros, anime, and other styles. Be wary when telling an artist that is not aiming for realism to reference photographs and realism. If improperly worded, it may seem a little harsh and hurtful. Another rule of thumb is to never call an artwork bad and not explain why. It's not helpful to the artist when you can't give them a specific aspect of their art to fix. There may be times when you yourself are not able to clearly identify the issue, and that's absolutely fine! Give a general idea of what you think is wrong and something you really like about the piece. Of course, this is by no means a necessity, but adding a compliment can greatly boost the artist's confidence and increase the likelihood that they will accept your critique.
Art & Photo Contests
Art contests occur somewhat regularly in the room, so if that is something you're interested in, be sure to keep and eye out to find out how to participate. The last art contest that was hosted was the Spring Art Contest, where users were encouraged to illustrate what spring meant to them through their artwork. If you want to check out the art to get a feel for what has been submitted in the past, feel free to do so here. In the past, the room has offered prizes such as a Custom Avatar and being shown off both in the roomintro and in a repeating message from the room bot!
Not to be confused, the photo contest isn't the same as the art contest, since you submit photos you have taken for one and art you have made for the other. For photo contests, there's usually a theme set at a certain time of the year, whether it be spring or autumn; the staff then put up a Google Form for you to submit a picture you have taken that resembles the theme specifically.
Culture
Fashion
In the Arts & Culture room, one of our main topics is fashion, which blends both art and culture! Discussion on existing trends and events, such as fashion shows, is more than welcome, as is sharing your own designs! This process is the same as sharing art, using the /requestshow [insert link here] format. We have constant daily fashion references, viewable through /daily fashion, illustrating both famous pieces in the realm of fashion and current trends. Additionally, we have events centered around the topic, such as watching and commenting on huge fashion events such as the Met Gala. If you're looking to explore more about fashion, come check out what we have to offer!
Monthly Cultural Spotlight (MCS)
You might have noticed that I didn't mention the Monthly Cultural Spotlight (MCS) previously when talking about the cultural events the room offers. The main reason is because the MCS is hosted by the room auth and consists of a bunch of different events all focused around one country. For example, the first MCS was focused around India and included a Guess the Wildlife, Cultural Hangman, and Cultural Trivia. The best part about MCS is the fact that the community gets to select the country each month! In order to vote, be on the lookout for a poll towards either the end or beginning of each month. If you're looking to get involved in the MCS, feel free to message a member of the room staff and they will be happy to tell you what you can do.
Guess The X
Typically, Guess the X is a game where participants have to name an object, person, or place after the host posts a picture of it. This is one of the more popular events in the room, with many participants usually. It is typically composed of 15-20 different images, but you can do many more, since it's all up to the host's discretion. It's incredibly easy to host and understand, as well as being pretty easy to play. To start hosting this event, you need to come up with a theme for your game to revolve around. The theme can be pretty much anything you want, within reason. Some themes we had in the past were Countries, Sports Team Logos, and Celebrities. When hosting, the staff will recommend you to upload all your photos to vgy.me or imgur.com, as other sites can give away the answer in the link. If you ever feel in over your head, the Art & Culture staff are here for you and can co-host with you. There are many things a co-host can help you with, like scorekeeping, announcing winners, and more. You can also co-host with a friend if you wish. If you're unable to host a game in a proper and orderly manner, you may be assigned a co-host the next time you want to host.
Cultural Tours
Cultural tours are a great way to give everyone a virtual trip around the country. Through this experience, you get to learn about new locations (towns, cities, landmarks, etc.) and what they are known for! This is the tour you have been waiting for, behind the screen and completely free!
The steps of hosting this event are quite easy. Firstly, you pinpoint the locations that you want to hit in your tour so that you can discuss all of the topics listed below. Plan an efficient route that hits every location, and mark this route on a map of the region. Plan out what you will discuss for each stop. Why is the stop important? What does it show about the region as a whole? Be as creative as you want to be! This is your time to show off your area, and you know it best. There's no specific format, so do it however you want. Schedule your tour, then let a staff member know what date and time you plan on hosting this tour. Usual topics the tour mentions are Historical Landmarks, Natural Landmarks, Cultural Aspects, and Food, but there can be many more.
Lectures
In A&C, users are allowed to hold lectures of all sorts of topics relating to art, world culture, countries, and species. Quite a simple and easy one to enjoy and plan for. As a room regular, you must PM a staff member a rough draft of the lecture to have us approve it and allow you to expand on it live in the room. Join us for one of these lectures and learn a thing or two!
Conclusion
There's only so much you can say about the room, so why don't you stop by and experience the friendly environment with us? Whether you want to share your art, look at other people's masterpieces, or just be here to learn some things about other people's culture, as well as telling us about your own, then stop by! Thanks for reading!
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