Rumbellers! The possibility of running an art/fic bang for the fandom was brought up last night. If you’re not sure what a Big Bang is, keep reading the info that I copied and pasted from last night’s post:
A Big Bang pairs up fanfic authors and fanartists to work on a joint project. The goal is that by the end, each fic has fanart of some kind to go with it, and each piece of artwork has a fic to go with it.
In a ‘regular’ Big Bang, the writers go first, by submitting a brief summary of the fic they plan to write. (This part is done anonymously, so it’s not just a name-recognition popularity contest.) The artists name their top choices of which fic they want to create art for, and the mod(s) match everyone up as fairly as they can. Some people won’t get their first choice, or even their second, but I’ve been in the situation of not getting my first choice, and still had a great time with the Bang.
After the writers and artists are matched, the mod puts them in touch with each other, and they collaborate to create fic and art that complement each other. Usually the matches are kept secret until the works are posted.
A Reverse Big Bang works in much the same way, except that the artwork is created first. The artists submit their artworks (anonymously), which don’t have to be finished at that point but need to at least have enough done so viewers can see where they’re going with it. The writers state their top choices, the mod matches them up, they collaborate.
Word count requirements can be whatever the mod sets for that particular Bang, but 5,000 words of betaed, finished fic seems to be a common number.
For purposes of a Bang, fanart isn’t defined as just drawn/painted/etc art. It can also mean gif sets, aesthetics, photo manips, or a playlist with cover art. Basically, anything visual that can be reblogged on Tumblr. I know that the Bangs I took part in at the height of Glee’s popularity sometimes had trouble finding enough artists to pair up with the writers. But every fandom is different and maybe it wouldn’t even be an issue for Rumbellers. It would depend on how many writers and artists sign up for it.
On an assigned day, the artist and writer both post their works and the fandom gets to roll around like excited puppies in all the pretty new fanworks. If it’s a big event with lots of participants, typically the posting schedule will be spread out, with one team per day posting.
This type of event usually stretches over months, to allow time for the multi-step process. Whoever’s going first has to produce a fic summary or rough WIP art, then everyone needs time to look over the choices and submit their picks, time for matching, and then the second half of the team needs time to do their work after discussing it with their partner. So yeah, it all takes a while.
If what you’ve read here intrigues you, please click the link above to take the survey. It’s only six questions and should take a minute at most. I want to find out how many people are really interested in something like this, and if the writer/artist ratio is equal.
I plan to run the survey through next weekend. It will close at midnight EST on Sunday, June 24th.
