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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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The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something we've used ourselves, or know to be of impeccable quality. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

This is a remarkable little pen. I'm especially fond of this one for sketching and playing around with, and it's what I used for the notorious "Mr. Monkey Business" video from Lesson 0. It's incredibly difficult to draw with (especially at first) due to how much your stroke varies based on how much pressure you apply, and how you use it - but at the same time despite this frustration, it's also incredibly fun.

Moreover, due to the challenge of its use, it teaches you a lot about the nuances of one's stroke. These are the kinds of skills that one can carry over to standard felt tip pens, as well as to digital media. Really great for doodling and just enjoying yourself.

I would not recommend this for Drawabox - we use brush pens for filling in shadow shapes, and you do not need a pen this fancy for that. If you do purchase it, save it for drawing outside of the course.

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