I started this thread to discuss the issue in general.
I'll get the ball running by laying out my thoughts on the topic of the Lead Artist, or Art Director (cool names, huh)
So it came up, again, in the In Game Portraits discussion
Did you just volunteer?
Yes and no.
Yes as in, yes I see that the spot needs to be filled at one point, there is close to zero organization in the Art dept. right now. Wasn't a last "real" Lead Artist Lamoot, who's been gone for some time now and actually said he's not into the Leading part ? That was a long time ago.
But then again, there is very little activity in general, at least if we compare it to a month ago and way back. But that was the late summer period. Now there's the school for many of us.
And - no as in I don't really think I'm up to the task.
Firstly, my field of expertise in the art dept. is narrowed down to 2D. With 3D I could just comment on the render screenshots like any other person
Secondly, I pretty much come and go like the wind. I try to stay up to date with the proceedings and contribute as much as I can, but my schedule is pretty tight in general and when I'm approaching the end of a semester I could be gone for weeks at a time. That's close to unimportant, but in the summer I'll be offline for months at a time.
Why I'm saying all this is because I believe a spot like the Lead Artist holds responsibility, but that is a difficult concept, because
un-reliability and responsibility don't really go hand-in-hand.
Then I get to the point of the
kind of project this is and worrying about all this makes me feel a little silly. So a little input from barra, the leader of this mötley pack of producers, wouldn't hurt. Like, is this anything that we should worry about ? Or go about it like zenbitz called it: "'Yay' and 'nay' anything that has got to do with styles and tasks"
Though, in the end I'd still like to proceed with the whole project thing in as close to a professional and organized manner as possible. Sadly
my sole experience in anything 'professional' and 'organized' is narrowed down to the few months that I've been posting here on theses forums.
As barra said, you don't really get appointed to a job like the Lead Artist, you may ascend to that holy spot by being active and contributing etc.
But I'd like to propose- that we might want to come up with concrete tasks for anyone taking up that role and wikify it. So that whoever ends up being the Lead Artist in the future knows what kind of shoes they have to fill.
- Also, though this probably goes to the Art section (and could be a pie in the sky with a project like this) - we should think of setting a kind of overall mood and art direction (what we want this game to look like) if not in stone then just wikify some key points like we have the Key Design Elements, same thing but with an Art Dept. direction. Then write some guidelines on what to keep in mind when designing anything and working on anything.
So I wouldn't talk about Leading anything, but I'd be willing to try and organize these two tasks (which, in my eyes, are a priority in the Project Management sense) and tackle some of the older ones, like organizing the wiki some more.
I seem to remember that there might have been other things and more specifics, but I've got to run right now. Later, guys !
