PDN Fanatics

You probably already know this, if you check your email, but if you don't (and just wandered on in here out of nostalgia), then know that beginning today, I will be sending out a weekly update email message on wednesday.

Nothing earth-shattering, just updates on site activity (challenge winners, new tutorials, interesting images, etc), and winning lottery numbers 3 days in advance.

I know, I know...you're thinking "*every* wednesday? that can't be right? He's a slacker who abandons his board to the whims of fate for a year at a time!" (or maybe you're wondering about the lottery numbers...keep reading for more on that).

Well, there might be a missed day or two (or maybe nothing interesting happened...it's possible), but by and large, once a week, you'll get an e-mail mentioning all of the stuff you already saw, since you visited the forums hourly, anyway .

Oh, and yes, I was kidding about the lottery numbers. Heck, if I could pull that little trick off, I would be in a hammock somewhere warm and sunny.

If there is something we need to reply about should we reply to the e-mail or just post on the forums ( or both)?

Whatever you think makes sense...if other folks would be interested in what you are going to say, then post it on the forums, otherwise, send a PM to whoever you need to talk to...

OK thanks.

Drakaan, don't you think that's a tall order? I would think if you were to set up a RSS feed, a blog, and then everybody who signed up for the RSS feed would be alerted to a new topic in your blog. Then in that said blog, you could mentioned who won what, and etc, etc.

I like that idea...I haven't seen any RSS modules available for freeforums, though. The main thing I want to avoid at this point is setting up multiple sites to handle one group of users. As a feature on a perfect PDNFans site, it sounds good, though.

I'm going to hijack my own topic now...

There's a thought rolling around in my head about whether it makes sense to have the site completely dedicated to PDN, since that's the focus of the official forums. My original reason for setting this one up was a certain inflexibility of the admins of the main forums to incorporate certain ideas into them (challenges, collaborative stuff, a place for n00bs who really liked the program to ask stupid questions and not get the default "use search" response, etc).

In general, I'm a *really* nice guy, and I like art, programming, and both learning and teaching. That's kind of what I want to do. Paint.NET was the catalyst, but I use other programs (I just d/l'ed artweaver and am trying to figure out where to start...I couldn't get by without inkscape, apophsys and Art of illusion are also a lot of fun), and I think there's probably room for all of those and more in the art utopia in my head.

I'm pleased with what we have, so far, but I'm wondering if I shouldn't think about broadening my view of what the forum should be about. Thoughts?

I would not mind. Finding the official PDN forums brought so many good things into my life art wise, but in many ways the path of artistic improvement for me has moved beyond simply learning about the tools. In that way, expanding the scope of the forums to include more than just PDN could be a good thing to many who feel similar.

I have a domain name in mind...I don't want to mention it until Tuesday (when I can make sure it gets registered)...I think I'm going to look into cheap ASP.NET hosting and see what I can find.

I`ve started using Gimp as well recently(although PDN is still No.1), so I would appreciate being able to post a few of my pics here. Nice idea.

Hmm...I find your idea interesting. I am thinking that rather than having the name focused on PDN Fanatics, perhaps a name like Art Fanatics would be more suitable. Then people who use GIMP (like Goon does along with PDN), Artweaver (I got to look at that), and PDN could post their own works there. It would be good for competition, challenges, and I forsee that if you launch that kind of site, even Ash would be challenged, and I would be looking forward to that. No offense intended, Ash.

I think that's an outstanding idea. I might be motivated to do more PDNing and learning a trick or two here and there.

I would recommend proceeding with caution, especially with the name, I've seen too many forums try to grow to fast and do to much, and then they fizzle. Right now our only real conduit for new members is the official forums, so I would advise against a name change at this point in time, since that would rob us of our chief source of advertisement. I think a more open policy with regards to what pictures can be posted in the Pictorium might be a good idea. I think I'll open up a topic specifically for discussion on that, and see what the general community consensus is.

Well I for one would prefer the name to stay as it is.I agree with you on that score Ben_R_R.

I propose a two-fold approach.

These forums would remain in place, with an expanded view of what you can create images with.

We'd start something new (a beta site) and invite folks who seemed interested after we'd ironed the kinks out.

I'd like to hear ideas for domain names focused on the idea of "inspirational art creations", my idea was digitalmuse.com, but I'm sure others have ideas, too...

I really like the sound of "Digital Muse"!

Ben_R_R wrote:I really like the sound of "Digital Muse"!

Glad to hear it

...and we'd need logo ideas, whatever the domain name ends up being. I plan on doing a full logo workup from that, from full-color photographic through 2-color solid-color logo. Good branding doesn't hurt!

For anyone else who likes my idea, take a look at the following for inspiration:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse

...and (since they don't mention painting on the wikipedia page)...

Jacques de Stella (Lyon, 1596 - Paris, 1657) : Minerva visiting the Muses (vers 1640)
The subject, taken from Ovid (Metamorphoses 250-260), is modified by the addition of a Muse of painting, a role held by Polymnia, the Muse of lyrical poetry in honour of the gods and heroes. This modified representation of the fable conveys the idea that the art of painting, ranked with the other mental disciplines, is capable of submitting its inspiration to the demands of wisdom and reason, as evidenced by the presence of Minerva. Following their victory in the contest with the Pierides the Muses ("Clio", "Melpomene", "Urania"...) strike up a song, which fills Mount Helicon with such joy that it is on the brink of exploding. Pegasus kicks the mountain with its hoof and the Hippocrene spring starts to flow. Minerva, alerted by Fama, comes to contemplate this phenomenon.

(from here)