An "Advanced" board has been added to the oekaki!

[Verd]

i do think the oekaki function is a good feature for the site to have, but it's a power-house monopoly maker and it makes famous users more powerful and weakens the influence of smaller users.
as a player of the site for 4 years now, the community around oekaki has changed so drastically it's not even the same thing anymore.

now yeah, i'm no advanced artist and i'm not even that good, i draw for fun, but i do see players with genuine talent getting brushed aside by growing threads and species and it's sad.

[zelay]

i do think the oekaki function is a good feature for the site to have, but it's a power-house monopoly maker and it makes famous users more powerful and weakens the influence of smaller users.
as a player of the site for 4 years now, the community around oekaki has changed so drastically it's not even the same thing anymore.

now yeah, i'm no advanced artist and i'm not even that good, i draw for fun, but i do see players with genuine talent getting brushed aside by growing threads and species and it's sad.

I really agree with this.

[SelkiesSong]

I agree art is an evergrowing process, but we all have different styles. And were all proud of our own work. Whos to say we all dont belong in advanced?

You need a foundation before you worry about style. Most people in beginners are just that: beginners. They don't have that foundation yet. And that is perfectly okay, you will get there.

I promise you that there are no cookies and ice cream to be had if you get into the higher level boards, so I don't get why some of you have this "NEED IT NOW" attitude in regards to this.

[Andiliion]

I agree art is an evergrowing process, but we all have different styles. And were all proud of our own work. Whos to say we all dont belong in advanced?

i agree, but there is a thin line between having a different style and having horrible anatomy issues.
Here are two different pics by me of the same subject
Valossa one | Valossa two

now i dont have any problem with being proud of your art no matter your level. But if you look at the above examples you can see my MAJOR improvement, and the difference in skill level. There is also a very different style between them, but what the first one lacks is correct anatomy and the overall use of the painting program was well... pathetic. As for the second one, it too has a few issues but not as many as the first. Now if both were posted in the same place to me i would feel as if my first valossa drawing was being belittled by the more advanced looking art. If my more detailed pic of valossa was put in the same place as my first one, i would feel as if my work was under appreciated or even being mocked. The point is, they do not belong in the same place. in the words of selkiegal "You need a foundation before you worry about style. Most people in beginners are just that: beginners. They don't have that foundation yet. And that is perfectly okay, you will get there."

oh and Selkiegal, you have spoken words of wisdom! I totally agree with pretty much every one of your posts

[zelay]

I agree art is an evergrowing process, but we all have different styles. And were all proud of our own work. Whos to say we all dont belong in advanced?

You need a foundation before you worry about style. Most people in beginners are just that: beginners. They don't have that foundation yet. And that is perfectly okay, you will get there.

I promise you that there are no cookies and ice cream to be had if you get into the higher level boards, so I don't get why some of you have this "NEED IT NOW" attitude in regards to this.

All of your posts are so true <3

And everybody is of different age here. There is a high probability that a 20 year old artist will draw better than a 13 year old artist, because they had much more experience and time to perfect their skills. I'm actually kind of talking to myself....

[Twisted Illusions]

I can kind of see both sides of this.
On one hand, I very rarely actually post art on the Oekaki boards, but I browse through them a lot. And most of the time, I do go to intermediate board. I'm not sure whether this applies to most people or just me, but I'm worried that if there is yet another board, artists who have been using Oekaki for years but aren't quite skilled enough for the advanced board will get overlooked.
I can also see the issue with the advanced board becoming too exclusive and clique-like. I mean, like other users have mentioned, the adoptable board is already pretty monopolised - I don't want to see the same thing happen to the other boards.
However, I can also see that this will help other artists who were in-between boards, and how it will make beginners want to improve - my only issue with this is that it may take years to reach the advanced board, and I can see many younger artists, perhaps with low self-esteem when it comes to their artwork, getting discouraged - especially if they still get moved down into the beginners board, even though the standards for the intermediate one has been lowered.

[StarWithRockDots]

I think this is a really good idea; now the intermediate board doesn't seem quite so intimidating. :3 [I still don't feel quite like I belong there yet, though. ;w; Or maybe I'm just too hard on myself.]
Also, it'll give people more places to post their art; when there's hundreds of people all posting on the same board, drawings can get shoved away and swallowed really easily.

[Rainbow Dash]

I agree art is an evergrowing process, but we all have different styles. And were all proud of our own work. Whos to say we all dont belong in advanced?

You need a foundation before you worry about style. Most people in beginners are just that: beginners. They don't have that foundation yet. And that is perfectly okay, you will get there.

I promise you that there are no cookies and ice cream to be had if you get into the higher level boards, so I don't get why some of you have this "NEED IT NOW" attitude in regards to this.

At least for me, it's less about passing the advanced oekaki exam and being a good artist and more about what it'll do to the artistic community. It's already hard for artists that aren't well-known or astoundingly good to establish roots in CS. There's already a big split in the artistic community and I feel like the advanced oekaki is not going to mend that rift.

Will an advanced oekaki make a new goal for artists? For some, sure. But creating a little gated community is going to make it that much harder for artists to get in on the ground floor.

[Keero]

Though I can see that this is a very controversial topic, I really do support this new board.

Yes, it has pros and cons, just like everything else does. But for the one point that stood out for me, the one that claims everybody will visit the advanced board instead of the others, I think that is dependent on the person. I for one, visit all of the boards. I don't look for just the level of artistic ability, but also the ideas and creativity somebody might have, as well as effort. Honestly, it's not even the idea that this will be for advanced artists that I like so much, but rather the idea that there will be more art to see at one single point in time. I would love it if we didn't base art of level on artistic ability, but rather the category or purpose it was meant to serve, so that art of canines were in one board, art of humans in another, art of other animals in another. That's the way I really think the boards could be put to full use in the least offensive way.

[sapiosexual]

this is a great idea, thank you