Community Profile

GENERAL APPLICATIONS ARE SUSPENDED until further notice (this may still change.)

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(Original notice)

This community was created on August 16th, 2005 to keep track of a newly-formed group-art project concept that has been tenatively named 'Birds of Prey -- Group Art Portfolio'. A more creative title will be concocted eventually. ;)

Artists of all skill levels will be participating... from amateur and casual artists all the way up to seasoned professionals such as Mr. Larry Dixon and Mrs. Patricia-Ann Lewis-MacDougall.

DEADLINES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE: Sketches/concepts are due by October 1rst, 2006 and Finals are due by December 15th, 2006.

Most of the information in this community has been mirrored here: http://www.caramitten.com/raptor_folio/

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(revised guidelines)

Hey folks!

Here are the ground rules for the Birds of Prey Project. We don’t yet have pictures to highlight the words, but this here’s the bulk of what you need to know to get started. Explanatory art will follow.

1. You pick a species of raptor, then

2. Develop a sentient, anthropomorphic analog of that species; and

3. Place them in your own interpretation of the boilerplate world to be supplied in our Styleguide (our Bonsai Planet). That is, we'll supply a general description of the setting. It's up to you to create a version of Bonsai Planet that fits your creature, aesthetic, and storyline, if you have one; lastly,

4. Render at least one full-page illustration depicting your creation doing something on your version of the Bonsai Planet.

To be clear: this isn’t a traditional shared world. Rather, everyone takes the same general notion and bends it to fit their idea. Each of you has a whole planet to play with. Take this basic concept and push it as far as you like.

You can make your chosen bird into an intelligent, tool-using, civilized species in any way you see fit. They can be hexapodal (six-limbed, with wings and arms) or differ from their base only in minor ways. They can be flightless if you wish, rendered realistically or cartoony, treated as a scientific exercise in evolution or as a flight of pure fancy (pardon the pun). All we ask is that you keep human-style breasts off your creation. These are egg-layin’ critters, after all. Remember this is a chance to engage in world-building, not a cheesecake portfolio, so avoid overtly sexual imagery.


That lays down the groundwork. Now for the fine print.


What we want from you

You will be expected to produce at least one full-page black and white or color illustration for this project, with a rough limit of 12 pages maximum per artist. If you’ve got a notion for something bigger than 12 pages, please discuss it with us first.

We’re assuming the final product will be an 8x10” or 8.5x11” book, with the option for color interiors as well as a color cover. Once we’ve gone through our printing options and made a projection for a budget, we’ll revisit this goal and see if it’s still within reach. We’ll try and nail that end of the project down as quickly as possible.

EDIT: There's a chance that, rather than not having enough material, we'll end up with too much. In the event of such a happy result, we may split the project into a pair of books. [info]peganthryus had a great suggestion: separating the entries by "Reality" and "Dream", that is, fantasy from pseudo-scientific. I can see the advantage of going this way. At the same time, the idea of mixing things up has always appealed to me. We'll cross this bridge when we get to it.

Your finished product can take a variety of forms. If you want to do a Wayne Douglas Barlowe-style treatment of your creation then it's reasonable to assume some sketches with notation will accompany at least one completed illustration. It need not be more than one page, but this approach gives you the excuse for providing developmental material along with the final work.

Comic format is another direction you can take. Develop your species and create a short story that gives us a glimpse into their lives. Some ideas:

1. The "first flight" of an adolescent, a kind of Birdy Bar Mitzvah. This could fit a short comic (say 6-10 pages) around a ritual celebrating a young bird's passage from childhood to fully-fledged adulthood. Birth, death, marriage, divorce, property, authority, law, religion, all involve rituals that carry plenty of possibilities for stories.
2. A tale could be built around some aspect of the culture you've created, maybe a hunt that goes wrong, or tensions within the flock over a real or imagined crime, or a conflict between two sentient species if you're going for something that big.
1. Natural disasters are always great for short, action-packed sequences. Volcanic eruptions, mudslides, cyclones, tornadoes, forest fires all would make good starting points.

Yet another approach would be something Nick Bantock-style, one that's a blend of graphic elements and illustration. If you're unfamiliar with this author try checking out the Forgetting Room or the Griffin and Sabine trilogy. Bantock incorporates found objects, letters, stamps, and so on to illustrate his stories. Think of it as storytelling through collage.

All that matters is producing work that sums up the worldbuilding you've done, given the building-blocks of the Bonsai Planet.


What the hell do you mean by Bonsai Planet?

(**please note, 'Bonsai Planet' is most defintely NOT the final world name)

Every starting point in conceptual design involves two things: the concrete and the aesthetic you apply to the concrete. The former isn’t mutable. A building’s a building, a mountain a mountain, a chair is a chair. The aesthetic you apply to the concrete elements of your world, that’s where “look and feel” enters the picture. If done well, your aesthetic will not only shape your world, it’ll hold it together, too.

Bonsai is the deliberate recreation of nature in miniature, according to a very strict set of artistic and aesthetic guidelines. The nuts and bolts of Bonsai you needn’t worry about. What we’re after is establishing a common approach to this world that everyone can tap into.

A good analogy would be to say “everyone has to make a car”. We all know what a car is, the things a car is generally expected to do and, roughly, how it must look. It’s got wheels, an engine, space for passengers and so on. What would a car like if it were designed by Hokusai? Or da Vinci? Or Faberge? What if cars went about suspended from cables instead of landbound? What if they were expected to fly as well as drive on the earth? Take a look at Buckminster Fuller’s car design, Syd Mead’s cars for Blade Runner, the Tucker Torpedo and some examples of early-model horseless carriages, and you’ll have a good idea how wildly divergent ideas can grow from a common source.

As I said, Bonsai is the stylized recreation of nature in minature. Ignore the “in minature” part unless that really piques you. Focus instead on “stylized recreation of nature”. This world has an environment that should feel shaped, stylized, formed through a specific filter, regardless of the terrain. Cara suggested this earlier: imagine a pyramid formed with plant life. Take a look at Chinese silk paintings or Japanese woodblock prints, or examples of Zen gardening. If you prefer, dig up references to Jacobean gardens, the European macro version of Bonsai. Or check out artist’s renderings of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Investigate zeroscaping or other modern methods of creating gardens. The environment needs to feel shaped, consistently so.

That’s it, in a nutshell. If you have any questions, feel free to respond to this post, email me or Cara. You can ping me at Berbalang at gmail dot com and Cara can be reached at raptorfolio at gmail dot com.

RESEARCH RESOURCES (to be updated periodically):

Master List of Participants and Chosen Species Check here before submitting a chosen species. I am sorry, but please remember that species are on a first-come, first-serve basis.

A LARGE sampling of species still-available.

MangoVerde Bird Guide Mango Verde is a wonderful resource for photos, videos, and sound-files from all sorts of birds. This project will be limited to owls, true raptors (including secretary birds and ospreys), and new-world vultures. Once you find a species that interests you, I reccommend that you 'google' for more reference materials, as MangoVerde is under constant update/construction.

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