Team Chow :: Feedback/Discussion Thread

[MikeOB]

i wanted to join in but i couldn't really get involved as i have exams coming up that i need to focus on and i couldn't deal with both at the same time. it seemed like a really cool idea though, working in a team like this will give people an idea of working to a deadline that will affect more than just themselves if they miss it and an idea of working in a team on a project is like.

i'd really like to get involved with another team chow after my exams because you can see from the results of this one that some great artwork comes out of it (i love team zaxxon's entry by the way!) and everyone who was involved seems to have really enjoyed the experience.

great work everyone!

[Zarquino]

I really enjoyed this challenge very much I have to say that I have learned much about myself in relation to deadlines and I have to say I have a shit ton of work to do.

I really liked the teamwork aspect of this event and plan on participating in many more of these events in the future.

Great work everyone who participated I really had a blast and cannot wait for the next one.

Great work Daestwen way to organize a very fun and inspiring event!!

I can only agree with everything, and mostly with the Daestwen work! Thank you!

I want to say that maybe 45 days instead of 30 could be nice. In one month the designs can be ready "easily" and then you can finish everything in 15 days, I mean colour, cleaning and making the final composition.

Looking forward next one!

[thirdeye]

I also had a lot of fun. We started out as a trio but Jakkas - being the only working more than full time as an illustrator - had to pass (he had loads of work). So we finished all 6 characters as a duo. It was a bit too much since we're not pros like Trevor and Marco, but we had a lot of motivation to at least finish this. And I'm very glad we did. As for my feedback...

- one month was enough time, couple of days of extention till the end helped since we had to finish 3 characters a person - and not 2 like we assumed in the beggining, but still the two of us managed to finish 6 characters in over a week - after day job and school.

- only thing that comes to mind when thinking about number of characters is that maybe we can make it... a character (or two) for one person in team. Two person team has to do only 4 but can also do 6, 3 person team has to do 6 etc.

- descriptions were ok. Open enough to give creative freedom and closed at the same time to give good guidelines.

- team communication may have been a problem, but not a huge one - depends on some basic organization skills. It helps if the team has a leader that can set the basic guidelines, mood, make reference sheets etc. The fact that we're all from Poland helped a lot I think - no communication problems, same time zone etc.

- what has been said about links to team sketchbooks in one post is very true.

That's all from me - I had a lot of fun and I hope that Nasty Sausages will strike again in the next team chow

[Flipnastywebby]

first off everyone who finished did a great job.
6 characters for some teams can be quite a task considering external factors other than technical skill/application. (time zones, douchey partners, gigantor)
someone mentioned earlier that if its too much for you, figure out how to make it happen(paraphrasing).
seriously, ethax and I didnt even meet till like the 20th and didnt start working till the 24th-26thish and we still managed to knocked out 6 characters.
you gotta want to make it happen.
granted i think if we had the whole month we would have produced more finished pieces that were more cohesive. ( but thats on our heads for starting so late in the month )

If this team CHOW continues to happen I will continue to be a part of it.
it feels more real, like an actual job.
its both fun and beneficial to professionals and aspiring artists.

I also saw a few people asking about professionals dimming in on the briefs......this has to happen!
not now, but NOW! it would take this, which was fun, add awesome and take it to a new level of creative sexiness.

great job everyone

[lady nerevar]

first of all, great entries guys

i didnt participate this time, though i certainly hope to in the future, so not sure how qualified i am to give comments, but i'll do it anyways.

i felt like the prompt needed to be a little more focused. the "hero" didnt turn out to be a very identifiable character imo, as many of her attributes (memory loss, stubbornness) are very hard to get into a picture. im sure its possible, but i dont think it was really done by any of the teams (sorry!). looking at the voting thread the surest way to identify the hero seems to be "female in center of picture."

some of the other characters (namely the Protector and Technician) were easier to identify based on purely physical characteristics ( Protector = BIG dude/chick), at times in such a way that it was their only defining characteristic. the CHOW usually does a very nice balance between the character's personality and his/her physical attributes, i feel like this one was a either/or. that made the characters hard to identify on a composite poster.

part of that was just the epicness of the project i think, it came across as a real videogame/movie/comic brief which involved backstory as well as pure character design (i guess the former should play into the later, but i cant really think of a way to depict "Sometimes wonders if accidentally stepped in way too deep into something never meant to be approached"). some of that delicate nuance can only be expressed in many drawings, not just one (which could make this a really interesting long term project )

not sure if that made any sense or was at all helpful

[arttorney]

Our team communicated a lot and it was a good way to get to know each other and find out what we each thought we could contribute. My teammates were pretty gracious no matter how annoying I was, and I am grateful for that. I think we all compromized somewhat away from what we thought we would rather be doing in a perfect world. It was an interesting experience because we had to make some sea changes here and there, which I don't generally do when working alone. By that I mean I usually ART first and ask questions later.

This brings me to a cross-cutting comment: several people, including blackcherry, who was on my team, have discussed feedback in the threads during the process. I suggest that teams might help themselve in this area by specifically inviting outside criticism. I purposefully did not comment in other people's threads because they are, in fact, those other people's threads. Maybe others felt that way too. If I have nought but a lame asspat to offer I won't waste bandwidth on it. On the other hand if I have a real criticism to offer, then the fact that such a criticism came into a workbook thread from an outside team's member, then it might come off as some sort of shot across the bow. (I know, I am hyper-competitive. It's an artifact of my day job.)

I had no problem with the amount of work in the amount of time. I am used to budgeting time to manage complex tasks. (For me a deadline is not about whether or not it gets done, but instead about how well it gets done. I can draw six stick figures in about three minutes, but with more time comes more detailed rendering. This relates to what blackcherry said about the respective pacing among teammates. Until you work together with somebody, you really have no idea how long it takes them to produce something. They work in a vacuum and then post it. When you are yoked to them in a team, you need to worry about each other's pace and expectations.)

The briefs were good. We didn't know about the group photo aspect until a few days before the deadline which was scary, but apparently manageable.

Being in a team means you can't trash talk. There is too much possibility that RL will hit somebody hard and your team doesn't finish. You only want to talk a big game if you are absolutely sure you are going to finish it.

I think the option to re-form teams should be open for the future. I don't think re-forming teams should be mandatory since some people may have already found the team they want. The random option should probably be left in place because some people are less outgoing than others. The "find your own team" option should be left in place because some people are more outgoing than others.

I don't necessarily crave input from a professional AD. I prefer input from ordinary folks, who are my true audience. I prefer the input after I made the piece. Did I strike a chord? Did I hit my mark or miss wildly? Knowing these things, I can aim better next time. (Again this is probably an artifact of my day job, where I am expected to exercise a lot of independent discretion and then perform on cue.)

[Sekino]

Well, even though we didn't make it to finals, I had to mention I was overall happy with both the team I was with and the briefing.

I am only speaking for myself, but I think the main reason we couldn't complete the work was because several members (myself included) got unexpectedly busy with jobs/life. Perhaps more time would have allowed us to work around this, yet I don't really think a month is an unreasonable deadline either. I'd sure like to give team CHOW another shot, given the opportunity and when time allows for it.

Congrats to the awesomely diligent teams who managed to get it done (I'm figuring out my votes). And special thanks to my teammates: Yoitisi for outstanding planning skills, Bendragon for great sketches and Vibhas for A+ enthusiasm. Good times!

[Burtzum]

I like the idea of having a pro dude (or dudette) in the biz to play art director. Its an outside AD so you don't have to worry about hurting anyone's feelings or about the AD only choosing their own drawings like you would if someone in the team took on the role. And they're presumably working in a company environment in the biz so they know a thing or two about how all that works.

I call on Coro to be AD for my team's next TCHOW. or TCOW/TEOW/TIDW. whatever it will be. He has enough time to post about snuggies so he must not be too busy. Plus I liked his critiques he gave me at Seattle about having too much shit hes already seen before in my portfolio. And hes actually an AD. Sound good Coro?

[Psychotime]

If there's a team I would be appropriate for, sign me up!

[AhChu]

First off thanks heaps daestwen for the great idea. I was assigned into a random team where one of our members went awhol after the first week I think.

The time frame and character count I think is fairly balanced it was a good challenge to push myself out of my comfort zones especially for letting a painting go. My teammates were awesome, got some great crits for tweaking my artwork and helping me push my ideas ( Thanks Skropi & Lostmelitutle ) and with being in different timezones it really helpt to get home from work to have ideas and crits waiting there for me to action. My communication was all through the Team sketchbook which really great.

Ad idea sounds funky, finding one for each team could be a killer, maybe have it as a comp, like the top 5 teams of team Chow get assigned an AD then they battle it out for supremacy could be cool...and good motivation to get into the top 5.

[Mark Tarrisse]

I think a lot has been said.
As a team we could finish each characters, simply because one of my teamates had a lot of stuff to do and some health problems, and my other teamate had some unexpected extra work to do so both of them were reallly busy. Anyway even if we couldnt finish I think we all had a lot of fun doing this.
I couldnt read all the replies from everyone but I think the suggestions of thirdeye are good.
But I must say I was a little desapointed about something with many teams : in many teams they were no real collaboration while working on the chars. In my team we decided work on all chars as collabs, someone started the sketch, and someone else did the colors etc. I think its more difficult, but really funnier to work like that.
Well I think its all that I have to say, thanks a lot daestwen for this great organization. And great work everyone!

[Tommoy]

I absolutely had a lot of fun doing this teamchow, its an extra dimension to an already exiting forum. Count me in for the next team building session no matter who how what or when (soon I hope).

[Nibras]

First of all, thank you Daestwen for the great experience and your awesome efforts . I think this gave me a bit of a taste of just how it might be to work with a team when in a real life job.

Even though my team didn't get this finished I learned alot, exams had just started with extremely bad timing but still. I learned about how I deal with deadlines and how to actually get stuff in on time, how teams work together and how it should be organized.

Without even doing alot of it I learned tons from watching other teams get this down and I can say my skills have grown a bit from this.

Overall great experience, would defiantly do it again.
1 month deadline is good, any longer and it starts to get boring.
And I like the pro Idea alot.

All the input I have is that it was great
Exams are shit.

[ilfed]

I am going to mostly just echo what everyone else has already said. I think the character briefs and time frame were all just right. Unfortunately, my team disappeared after the first week or so. This is more of a problem with us not properly organizing things within our team, rather than a problem with the activities structure.
It was cool to see what the different groups came up with and I think this is a pretty cool activity.

[Mark Tarrisse]

DAEEEE when is the new team chow ?!

[comixnut]

I like the idea of having a pro dude (or dudette) in the biz to play art director. Its an outside AD so you don't have to worry about hurting anyone's feelings or about the AD only choosing their own drawings like you would if someone in the team took on the role. And they're presumably working in a company environment in the biz so they know a thing or two about how all that works.

What Burtzum said.

[Adam Schumpert]

Ok... So Team CHOW III was awesome!
Thank you to Deastwen, Posh, and anyone
else who worked so hard pulling it all together.
Can't thank you enough!

Now... I'm just curious... Any idea when
you will be kicking off Team CHOW IV?

[bidhu]

First of all, thank you Daestwen for the great experience and your awesome efforts . I think this gave me a bit of a taste of just how it might be to work with a team when in a real life job.

Even though my team didn't get this finished I learned alot, exams had just started with extremely bad timing but still. I learned about how I deal with deadlines and how to actually get stuff in on time, how teams work together and how it should be organized.

Without even doing alot of it I learned tons from watching other teams get this down and I can say my skills have grown a bit from this.

Overall great experience, would defiantly do it again.
1 month deadline is good, any longer and it starts to get boring.
And I like the pro Idea alot.

All the input I have is that it was great
Exams are shit.

Hi nibras, myself Maharana & I want to know that how can i post my artworks in conceptart.org ? I have registered myself in this site but unable to post my works for public views, from which i could get comments, so will u pls help me ??

waiting for ur reply ...thanks

[ArtByManon]

I would LOVE to do a team chow - how do I know when this is happening and manage to get in on the action? It would be awesome and I know i would learn so ooo ooo much.

[jozulus]

i am waiting for TEAM CHOW IV.th edition! It will be awesome!!!! when will it start?

[trevor]

uhhhhhhhhh
im pretty sure when we have team chow 4 the howling loveboys would take a shot at rocking it out

[Martheart]

Because there has been a change in CHoW moderators recently, the Team ChoWs have been delayed a bit. We first wanted to get the hang of it and get everything sorted out before taking on such a challenge to moderate! I am now looking at the possibilities and hope to start the new Team ChoW soon. A little more patience and I'm sure the next Team ChoW will be awesome

[ArtByManon]

I would so love to be in a new team chow - but have NO idea how i sign up!!??

[ArtbyWard]

I would so love to be in a new team chow - but have NO idea how i sign up!!??

Don't worry, we will make a big announcement when it starts, and everything will be clear

[Mat Kaminski]

Oooh I'm so pscited