Drawabox.com | Announcement | The Spring Promptathon is Coming
This is where the message goes!

7 days, 7 new prompts

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.

Those who do submit their homework for official critique during the promptathon will be required to explain why they're submitting (as the implication is that they'd have worked on it during the event).

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 the following month. While this is by definition something only those who are actively signed up for official critique next month, it does mean that those who aren't but who do earn the achievements can choose to sign up early next month to get double credits. The additional credits are given out in the middle of the month (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 the 8th of the next month 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.

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 I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Ellipse Master Template

Ellipse Master Template

This recommendation is really just for those of you who've reached lesson 6 and onwards.

I haven't found the actual brand you buy to matter much, so you may want to shop around. This one is a "master" template, which will give you a broad range of ellipse degrees and sizes (this one ranges between 0.25 inches and 1.5 inches), and is a good place to start. You may end up finding that this range limits the kinds of ellipses you draw, forcing you to work within those bounds, but it may still be worth it as full sets of ellipse guides can run you quite a bit more, simply due to the sizes and degrees that need to be covered.

No matter which brand of ellipse guide you decide to pick up, make sure they have little markings for the minor axes.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.