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[Maggie]

It’s earlier than that time of year again and because so many of you are busy bees I have decided to start up the thread so we can discuss possible themes for this year’s fan calendar and get things moving along.

To get you started thinking about themes, here are the past ones:

Past Themes:

2014 Dreamscapes
2013 Every Picture Tells a Story
2012 Pinups
2011 Hidden Moments
2010 Finding One's Place
2009 The Magic of Elfquest
2008 Favorite Moments
2007 Home and Family
2006 Elf Art Through the Ages (Art History with an Elfin twist)
2005 Beloved Dead
2004 Then and Now
2003 Celebrations
2002 no theme

Themes on the current ballot (EQ goes to the movies is no longer on the ballot as most of you were completely uninterested in that theme):

Contrasts: Day & Night, Young & Old, Good & Evil, Warriors & Healers, Starsong & Wolfsong - the Elfquest saga offers many studies in contrasts.

Otherness, inter-species relations:  When the High Ones crashed on the WOTM, they were forced to relate to other species in a way they never dreamt of before.  Humans, Trolls, Preservers, Bond Beasts, the Neverending.  Throughout their history, the relationships have ranged from enemies, hunter/prey, to god/worshipper, to friend, and many in between.

Teachers and Leaders: A tribute to those who provide(d) guidance.

Parings: Skywise babysitting Trinket, opposites attracting in a moment of terror, a sense of humor vs. Strongbow. So many possibilities arise when you pair an elf with, well almost anything you like. You could pair anyone together to create a moment fraught with emotion, hilarity or even contempt. Oddbit and Leetah for example, what would they get up to if they spent a day together?

Emotive Portraits: A demonstration of pure feeling on a character without the distraction of anything else. Use just the characters face and expression to get the point across.

Alright that is what we have for the current ballot but of course you are all welcome to suggest a theme and if two others say they think it’s awesome, well then you’ll get your idea on the ballot too.

I would like to get the ball rolling so we can vote and folks can get started on their submissions for the 2015 fan calendar. So I am going to give you all until March 29th to discuss new theme ideas. After that the poll goes up and we vote for our favourite theme.

Let’s get this party started!

[Mykal]

I like the portrait aspect as well as the young/old idea

[silentleaf]

Teachers and Leaders: A tribute to those who provide(d) guidance. For the win, and it has nothing to do with the fact I have a sketch that would be perfect...... cough.

 I also love the idea of seeing all of our elves as cubs... OMG do you guys remember Muppet babies? Elf Babies? AHHH!

[Christina Raibert]

I also love the idea of seeing all of our elves as cubs... OMG do you guys remember Muppet babies? Elf Babies? AHHH!

I totally second this! This might be my return to submitting art for calendars after so many years - if I get to finish a piece in time

[Wintergreen]

'Teachers and Leaders' sounds really interesting. I, at least, had a dozen ideas immediately.

[Startear]

I like inter-species relations a lot.

[Afke]

To me the Otherness sounds the most interesting. I'm very curious what you guys would draw besides elves.
And we HAVE to be able to make a Contrasts calendar someday. There's so much of this in EQ, we would be able to use this 3 times I'm sure!
Actually I like all the themes mentioned except the Parings... mainly because parings would happen in any of them, so I don't really see it as a theme.

[Maggie]

@Afke You liked the parings theme last year...

Therefor I really like this pairings idea as well!
It could go in any direction, you'd have a lot of freedom; which characters to put together other than who they're usually paired with. Which story to pick (which time), what they're doing and the whole composition part of course.

@Everyone I appreciate you all chatting about this but discussing the themes that are already on the ballot isn't as necessary as talking about whether or not anyone has any new ideas. Contrasts, otherness, teachers/leaders, pairings and emotive portraits are all in the running for your vote but the main reason for discussion is to see if anyone has anything else they want to see as a theme on the ballot.

Also just as an aside the "Pairings" theme is supposed to be a little more on the humorous side. The point is to pair characters purposefully so we can see a reaction. It isn't just putting Skywise with Cutter so we can get the same old scene of them bonding over adventuring and the stars. The point of this theme is like an experiment, you put two different liquids in to a beaker and see what kind of reaction you get.

This theme isn't the same as Otherness, where you are forced to relate to other species/characters for the good of the elves evolution. It also isn't the same as Contrasts, where you must use opposites. Or even Teachers and Leaders, obviously you are limited to who you can use in this situation.

There are pairs of characters in all the themes except Emotive portraits the thing that makes "Pairings" different is there is a lot more choice and freedom to pair up characters you wouldn't usually see which was the intention when offering this suggestion up last year. 

[Czarine]

Teachers and Leaders.

Oh nnnoooo I wanna draw elf cubs too    though maybe not for the calendar. They'd make cute extras though!

[Maggie]

I think that Silentleaf's cubs idea makes it on the ballot.  12 months of dirty diapers...haha.

[Christina Raibert]

Don't know if it has been mentioned before, but what about Tribe Switching? For example, Teir as a Glider, Winnowill as a Sun Villager or Snakeskin as a Go-Back?

[Czarine]

Don't know if it has been mentioned before, but what about Tribe Switching? For example, Teir as a Glider, Winnowill as a Sun Villager or Snakeskin as a Go-Back?

Ah, I like this one too!

[Afke]

@Afke You liked the parings theme last year...

Haha, silly me. Though reading my old comment, it does seem like I understood the thought behind the theme better back then, than reading about it now. Thanks for (re)explaining. I think the name isn't really up to its content. Perhaps it should be something along the line of "Odd pairings".
We did something similar at RTH; here we picked one character (or none) and we were randomly assigned a second (or two at random).

[Treefox]

As always, I would definitely draw something for each of these topics.
I have one idea, that might be related too much to past themes:
Blow of Fate

Maybe also interpreted in a positive way? But I would want to avoid showing the same scenes that came up in past calendars... which might be difficult.

[Tah-Marien]

My vote goes toward Contrasts  (young/old)  and Portraits.   Although just Elfquest babies sounds fun and funny.   

[Maggie]

Haha, silly me. Though reading my old comment, it does seem like I understood the thought behind the theme better back then, than reading about it now. Thanks for (re)explaining. I think the name isn't really up to its content. Perhaps it should be something along the line of "Odd pairings".
We did something similar at RTH; here we picked one character (or none) and we were randomly assigned a second (or two at random).

That is such a fun idea Afke, it would be awesome to select a character and then have one given to you at random. I bet that would be a challenge but I could also see it producing some fantastic work. 

[silentleaf]

I like having a character selected! that could be cool! And make us think out side of the box!

[Treefox]

I like this idea as well. Not sure if it's for everyone, though. Maybe it should just go into the poll?

[Wildfire]

Man, I like all of them. Deciding might be pretty hard for me!

The emotive portraits could produce some gooooooorgeous art, having seen the amount of hard work and detail that has gone into some of the portraits on here I'd be pretty psyched for this idea.

[Dreamcat]

I think those themes are all very cool. I like the emotive portrait idea (since I do enjoy drawing portaits a lot), but the teacher/leader thing also appeals a lot to me. Drawing a scene is something different from drawing a portrait, but I do enjoy both ^^
I´m set on participating this year, so count me in.

[Amberfox]

I don't really have a preference at this point, but I'll think it over and throw in. I will also get the art done BEFORE I commit verbally (eamiled? typed?) because I hate it myself when people vanish on you.

I also don't know if it means anything to anyone, but I still have the art for the last two calendars I'm finishing up on. Yeah, I know it's late, but I can still post it to the site as plain ol' art.

[jaRf]

> Contrasts

I think this was often up for choice but always somehow outvoted by something else. I like it and it would offer a lot of possibilities - and I'd vote for it since it leaves most freedom and it was up so often.

> Otherness, inter-species relations:

Humm, would have to think some time about this.

> Teachers and Leaders:

Also a good option. Though less obvious possibilities than contrasts I think.

> Parings:

The examples creeped me out. Especially Skywise babysitting Trinket. Still this seems to offer some possibilities.

> Emotive Portraits:

You need to be good at drawing to do that.
I think this would only be for experienced artists - unless you want caricatures, which are easier to draw.

My vote would be for "contrasts".

[Maggie]

I'm putting the poll up tomorrow so we can vote on the calendar theme for 2015.

If anyone has any NEW theme ideas submit them before the poll goes up.