Shipbucket

Let's just get a list of proposed rules going. I'll add my thoughts once some others have been posted.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

1) Housekeeping:
Pull the Tutorials from the Archive and make them as readily accessible as the basic drawing rules.

Add FD Scale, Gun Scale, etc. to the FAQ section. Had to hunt for those so I expect other newbies will have the same problem.

2) Drawing rules:

Personally, I had an interesting time with advice from seasoned Bucketers. At first I had no idea who to listen to for technique. As a result I couldn't separate personal preferences/drawing tastes from actual Rules. It might be a good idea to create Recommended Practices along with updating The Rules.

Develop the shading rules and spell out how many levels of graded shading can be used for rounded surfaces. It should spell out degree of color shift for each shade. Example: I've found 3 levels of graded shading works for the underwater hull. Periodically as many as 5 but that is harder to reproduce with software like Paint. It would help if several Bucketers create tutorials on how they each establish underwater shading. Add these to "Recommended Practices".

Since I focus on pre-1900/sail:
Sails: There should be 2-3 accepted sail drawing styles to accommodate the experience levels of drawers. Each needs the technique spelled out in a "How To Tutorial" format. List them as Recommended Practices. It would be fairly simple to allow for sails of odd colors. Example: The technique I use (a complex drawing technique) has morphed to include consistent colors, panel widths, etc. to help me cut drawing time and create a consistent feel/family of images.

Sails and masts should be treated as a whole structure following the unpublished rules for line-width of structures like antenna, railing, etc. I think this would allow for flexibility in black outlining...important on yards and components that scale out to less than pixel size.

Rigging: Develop a uniform color pallet for rigging by line usage. Example: Running, Standing, etc. Color can be specified for points where lines cross, etc.

CraigH

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In active progress
More Ships with Sails
Early Torpedo Boats in SB and FD Scales
Some railroad stuff
More random stuff that strikes me!

Did a small amount of digging:
Shipbucket - Archive Forum! > General Discussion > Style Guidelines and Shading Discussion
http://s11.invisionfree.com/shipbucket/ar/t2971.htm
May 26, 2010

Useful on the shading issue. This is the sort of thing that needs to be formalized in "the Rules", front and center so folks like me and newbies have a baseline to start from. The meat of it shouldn't be hidden away in an archived thread.

I'll freely admit to pissing people off early on....because I had no idea that link/thread above existed! There are other Rules that crop up in old threads that people site but can't or won't source .

Yes I'm a graded shading nut...that comes from years of using vector based software plus over 40 years of dabbling in a LOT of artistic media. At the same time I'll freely admit that adhering to the Rules here is critical to the SB Style though those same Rules should be receptive to controlled small tweaks over time to address new drawing challenges like sailing ships and craft the early SB was never expected to cope with.

I'm hoping others can help find these gems that have been adopted but not currently included in the Formal Rules.

CraigH

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In active progress
More Ships with Sails
Early Torpedo Boats in SB and FD Scales
Some railroad stuff
More random stuff that strikes me!

Ah, sigh, good job linking an old thread of me being an immature dick to some newbie...

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

Oh you are still an dick, you are just better at hiding it between lines hahaha

Well, that dickishness has helped keep this place running and growing.

Keep it up...so to speak.

I'll stop now to keep censors happy.
CraigH

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In active progress
More Ships with Sails
Early Torpedo Boats in SB and FD Scales
Some railroad stuff
More random stuff that strikes me!

This discussion was not going on for the last several days, but since for the last over a week I took a short break from SB, therefore I'd like to add few words.

I'm supporting the idea to have clearly stated rules for position of missiles and helicopters (hovering/landed) on pictures, and also would like to suggest to include rule that window/porthole outlines be made in black (as periodically new users outline them in grey or no outline at all).

Most importantly, though, I'd like to address an issue raised by Gollevainen regarding allowing multiple depictions of the same ship to co-exist in the archive and regarding "asking" authors for older depictions for permissions.
1) Personally I'm rather for having only one ("official") version at any given time, but I'm not against allowing multiple ones (just that's not my most preferred option). But regardless of wether there would be one or multiple ones allowed, I'd like to suggest creationg of a "museum". Some time ago TimothyC created such folder, but it's accessible basically only via the post in which He mentioned it's creation (it was after some Uploading Session or the Archive reorganization). My point is, that as a community we strive for accuracy (within the limits of style), but as we all certainly know, sources are often inaccurate (or they don't have any actual inaccuracies but are not particularly detailed), therefore it's easy to create a drawing that despite all good faith and attempts to do research will not be really accurate while being a quality work style-wise. Purpose of an official museum would be to house outdated/replaced or "known to be inaccurate and therefore not suggested for future use" works.
2) There has been raised an issue that when a member is to be asked for permission related to his/her older work it happens that such member could no longer present. I'd suggest to create some "statute of limitations" that if the member is absent from SB (either based on "last entry date" or "last log-on date") for some specified amount of time (6 months or year for example), then there is either no need to ask at all or it's the Admins that should be asked.
I'd suggest to use that rule also in regard to "claims". While claims aren't part of official SB policy, the practice itself is IMHO generally useful since it allows to avoid (to some extent at least) duplication of effort or sad surprises when someone has drawing nearly done only to find out that someone had the same idea but was faster. So my idea would be to make claims losing their validity if the "claiming" member is away for too long.

As a Newbies can I second !

I have found lots of stuff (and keep finding more better stuff as I go but some of the best guides aren't very easy to find, such as acelanceloet's tutorials (http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... f=5&t=3287 etc he has done several.) and asking questions such as rules for helicopters on or above deck etc) but would be very nice to have a folder with it all in from the start.

May I also suggest a list/spread sheet of ships done (maybe qualified by good/ok/old by Nation/Year) this may show up loads of major units not made yet and give lots of ideas for Newbies to start on (ie small with good references ) (yes I know this would be a ridiculous amount of work so maybe just do CV/BB/CA/DD etc of major powers, I was shocked that CA 24 Pensacola (Major Ship/WW2/USN !! ) was not done when I was searching for parts for a AU CL).

JSB

http://shipbucket.com/museum/

That's all there is to it.

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𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐄𝐓- 𝑻𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆

These are good points atleast in the part that they express the concern. But in practice they contain many traps that I would deliberatly want to avoid.
Some people (and this and any futher "critisism" in this post is just general towards no one particular member) have the tendecy to see SB as too institutionalised, and all the talk about "offical-" something is not the direction I want to take SB into. The idea of getting the rules revisited is not include lot more of them, but have more clearer and easily understood rules in order to take SB into direction I want it to - that is to be accesable to everyone and something that allows everyone enjoy their time here.

Rules to the claims and people loosing them seems tad too arbitrary and way too ridicilously pedantic to actually work, cases would be as different as each member is from another, and I fear such rules would be used just to cause more drama than they supposedly are to prevent.

My main point with the regard of duplicants is the desire to let people drawn. As I consider myself as an amatour artist (though SB is rather small part of that identity of mine), the idea of using my powers (that of website's owner) to forbid someone to drawn is horrible thought. I know there are bad wolves out there among our members that would happily execute such power and enjoy it, but I resent the entire idea. Yet the current system and its unwritten gentleman's rules are constantly increasing the number of cases when I or we as a community are allready using such horrible power, supposedly in good spirit, but still causing bad feelings to new and aspiring members.

But I also understand that many of our major contributors take lot of pride over their work. I do so for myself, and I wish not to see my work to vanish from the bucket, and get sunk down to that old museum idea.
But I've also begun to realise, that my (nor should anyone elses) pride over their own work and contribution isen't anyway related to wheter someone else drews the same ship. The drawings themselves don't hate each other, nor does not rival. They can co-exist just fine if only we the artists allow it, and I myself see no reason why not? SB is constantly reshaping itself and the more we progress, the more we will divide in artistical way, but it does not need to mean we should divide amongst ourself and use the new stylistic trends as something to tear us apart.

The today's trend seems to be more down to be "as accurate as possible" but I've begun resenting it in some levels. That "Accuracy" is just one subjective angle to look our work and in most cases its just fancy cover-up for stylistic differencies or interuptions of details too small to be practically possible to present in our funky scale....and certainly not something that we should weigth so much in order to decide which one has the rigth to be on the archive.
We can never judge those stylistic differencies in way that it would be just and fair, simply becouse Me and Colloseum agree so much to disagree over certain aspects of what constitutes as good SB style.

Couple of weeks ago I had private discussion with one of SB veterans and I expressed my longing for the old days of our photobucket account and e-mail group days. Back then SB ships and equipment was bit crudish and plain, but atleast we remembered that it was to be bit fun and that SB was not a tool to create realistic drawings, but tool to create SB drawings, with their legoblock -like naivety was nice change for highly detailed plan wievs. Back then we knew how to over-exaggerate and not to drawn something as close to orginal as possible when it wasen't possible. Nowadays It seesm that none of that spirit and idea remains. And the today's worshiping of pedantry is taking SB into dark and uncharted waters which I fear will destroy us if let reign too openly.

Yet I don't want to prevent anyone of drawing their ships the way they are drawn today, they should be able to go-exist just fine with the ones where not every 1cm is presented after serious ammount of research. Drawing is really fun hobby, everyone should always remember that as paramount why we have things like SB.

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Shipbucket mainsite, aka "The Archive"
New AU project "Aravala"