Drawabox.com | Announcement | The Winter Promptathon is Coming
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It's coming!

As many of you know, we try to run a "promptathon" event with the turning of each season. The community had a blast with the Spring and Summer promptathons, but unfortunately we were too swamped to do one when Autumn came along. While we're still extremely busy, we weren't going to let Winter go by without a celebration.

For those of you who don't know what a promptathon is, it's a week long event where instead of working on your Drawabox homework, all that is set aside, and instead as a community we work on new drawing prompts! Each day, a new prompt is released. These prompts are designed to be detailed but open-ended, allowing participants to explore a wide variety of subject matter. While we encourage students to push the boundaries of their comfort zones, we ensure that each prompt can be interpreted in a lot of different ways.

Many students who've participated in the past have found that these events were the key to knocking down that barrier in their mind that made the 50% rule impenetrable for them - especially when they participate with the community on our discord server, where we open a channel for people to discuss the prompts, and post their works-in-progress.

So, even if - and especially if - the 50% rule has given you trouble in the past, join us. You won't regret it.

Giving our TAs a vacation

While we've found these promptathons to be incredibly successful with the community, the reason we introduced them was to give our TAs a break. They generally work year-round to critique students' work, and while we pay them well, everyone needs a vacation. The promptathon is meant to give students (specifically our official critique track students) something else to do instead of their Drawabox homework, so that when their vacation is over, they don't come back to a mountain of work.

So, while no one's being forced to participate, we do ask that even if you choose not to join us, please take a break from your work. All credits set to expire during and within a few days after the promptathon will receive a full 10 day extension, so you needn't worry about losing them as a result.

Prizes!

You can't have an event without prizes! Just like the first two, by participating in the promptathon you can earn:

  • Unique avatars (that can't be earned at any other time)

  • Promptathon-specific achievements

  • and for those on the official critique tracks, you can even earn double credits next month!

For the unique avatars, each prompt has its own avatar. If you submit work for a given prompt within 24 hours of the prompt being released, you'll be given that prompt's avatar. If the prompt for that day doesn't interest you, you can still participate by submitting for any of the other prompts. You won't get its unique avatar, but you will get a random non-unique avatar (which are usually earned by critiquing peoples' homework).

For the achievements, there are three versions. For completing more than half of the prompts on the day they were released (so at least 4 out of 7), you'll earn a bronze achievement. For completing 6 out of 7, you'll get a silver. And if you complete prompt within 24 hours of its release, you'll earn gold! Don't worry - there's no specific requirement for how "complete" your work needs to be. All we ask is that you participate, and that you submit what you've got in time.

As for the credits, as long as you earn any of the achievements, you'll receive double credits in January. While this is by definition something only those who are actively signed up for official critique in the month of January, it does mean that those who aren't, but who do earn the achievements, can choose to sign up early in January to get double credits. The additional credits are given out in the middle of the month (at a random date between January 8th and January 21st - we're spreading them out so we don't get hammered with homework submissions). So, if you end up getting the achievements, you can still sign up for official critiques before January 8th and receive additional credits. You don't need to decide ahead of time.

More info

That covers the basics - our previous promptathon announcements go into more detail in how it all works, so if you're curious you can get more information here.

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Staedtler Pigment Liners

Staedtler Pigment Liners

These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.

Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).

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