multifandomdoodle | Rules & FAQ

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Rules & FAQ

Welcome to Multifandom Doodle, a low-pressure, AO3-based fanart exchange!

By signing up for this exchange, you're committing to create a gift of fanart for at least one person and receive a gift of fanart in return. The minimum requirement is a doodle or clean sketch that is at least 500x500 pixels, on unlined paper and clearly scanned if drawing traditionally.

There is no requirement or expectation of a certain skill level or style. This exchange is open to all!

Important Links & Contacts

Dreamwidth

2021 AO3 Collection

2021 AO3 Tagset

Mod email: multifandomdoodle@gmail.com

The Basics

The minimum requirement is a doodle or clean sketch of at least 500x500 pixels, on unlined paper and clearly scanned if drawing traditionally.
Gifts or treats that exceed the minimum requirement, i.e. comics or paintings, are welcome.
There is no requirement or expectation of a certain skill level or style. This exchange is open to all!
Works created to fulfill an assignment must contain some element of drawing and/or painting.
- Manips, photo/video edits, gifs (except of hand-drawn animation by the gifter), and CGI renders are not eligible for this round, except as treats.
Art created for this exchange should be posted to the AO3 collection. Artists are asked to refrain from posting artwork created for this exchange elsewhere prior to AO3 creator reveals. After creator reveals, artists are free to post their art wherever else they may choose.
Art may contain a signature or small watermark prior to AO3 creator reveals.

Nominations & Eligibility

All fandoms, characters, and ships are eligible for this exchange.
Original Works and RPF are eligible for this exchange.
- Mods reserve the right to reject nominations deemed to be in bad taste (e.g. Nazi RPF).
Each participant can nominate up to 10 fandoms, with up to 20 characters/ships in each fandom.
Relationships between two or more characters are still nominated as individual "characters." To nominate a relationship, nominate them by putting "group: " before their names, in the following format:
- group: Character A/Character B or group: Character A & Character B or group: Character A/Character B & Character C, etc.
Romantic and/or sexual relationships are denoted by the / sign between the characters' names, and platonic and/or familial relationships are denoted by the & sign between the characters' names.
You may nominate settings and/or objects as individual "characters" or as part of relationships (e.g. "place: Howl's Castle", "group: Fawkes & the Room of Requirement", "group: Dean Winchester/The Impala").
- Please nominate individual places/settings with "Place:" or "Setting:" in front of them, to disambiguate them from freeforms (e.g. "Place: Howl's Castle", "Setting: the Hundred-Acre Wood").
Please nominate crossover relationships under the fandom "Crossover Fandom." When nominating them, please use the format "group: Character A (Fandom 1)/Character B (Fandom 2)."
Please nominate original characters and relationships under the fandom "Original Work." Descriptive character names are recommended. "Mermaid/Pirate" is pretty vague, while "Curvy Blue-haired Tattoo Artist Mermaid/Roguish Tattooed Butch Pirate" gives a better idea of what visuals and dynamics someone might be looking to request or draw.
- If you have a gender preference for an original ship (e.g. you want "Elf Paladin/Orc Druid" but only if they're both female), you must nominate the ship with genders included in the names (e.g. "Female Elf Paladin/Female Orc Druid").

Signing Up

When signing up, you choose what characters/ships you'd like to receive fanart of, and what characters/ships you'll offer to draw fanart for. You can only request and offer characters/relationships that are in the tagset.
- The "Any" box means "any character or ship in this fandom that has been nominated for this exchange." It does not mean "any character in the fandom as a whole."
You can request 3-10 different fandoms, with 1-18 characters/ships per fandom. You can offer 4-10 different fandoms with 1-18 characters/ships per fandom.
This exchange uses "or" matching, and your gifter is only required to create something based on one of your characters/ships. Please keep this in mind when prompting.
In the "Description" section of the signup form, you can write prompts for your artist to get a better idea of what you want. It's generally a good idea to list out tropes, kinks, or visuals that you tend to like, as well as give some prompts specific to your requested characters/ships. "Dear artist" letters are not required, but they are welcome!
You can also include DNWs (Do Not Wants), which are things you don't want to see in your gift. These can include anything, but you may not use them to try and railroad your gifter into making one specific drawing (e.g. "DNW anything except a picture of catboy Kylo Ren kneeling at Rey's feet while she holds his collar and looks at him lovingly"). You may not use DNWs that contradict your requests (e.g. requesting a "/" relationship and then DNWing shipping).
- You are encouraged to list any stylistic preferences you have, and artists are encouraged to take these into account. Due to ambiguity, style- and medium-related DNWs will not be enforced (e.g. "DNW traditional art", "DNW CalArts style", "DNW anime style").

Assignments & Matching

For your assignment, you are required to create a doodle focusing on at least one of your recipient's requested characters/ships while respecting their DNWs.
If you aren't able to be matched as a recipient, your requests will go out as an initial pinch hit.
If you aren't able to be matched as a gifter (i.e. nobody's requesting what you're offering), we will make a post mentioning that we have unmatchable participants. Then we will send you an email asking you to add to your requests.
If you have questions about your assignment and want to ask something of your recipient, please do not contact your recipient directly. Instead, email the mods, and we will act as an intermediary.

Defaulting & Pinch Hits

If you feel you can't draw what your recipient is requesting, please default ASAP so the mods can find a new artist for the request. There are no penalties for defaulting, except that if the gifter assigned to you also defaults, you will not be sent out as a pinch hit.
Pinch hits will be posted to the Dreamwidth comm and are first come, first serve. You do not have to be signed up for the exchange to claim a pinch hit.
Any pinch hits that are claimed less than a week before the due date will be due ASAP before the reveals date.

Treats

A treat is an extra gift you've made for someone you aren't necessarily assigned to. Treats may be any medium (including fanfiction!) and need not meet minimum requirements, but must address at least one of the recipient's character/ship requests and respect their DNWs.

Other

Don't be a jerk. Kinkshaming, ship-bashing, harassment, and deliberately spiteful art are banned.

Please comment on this post or email multifandomdoodle@gmail.com with any other questions you may have!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(deleted comment)

Hi! Thank you for asking! Yes, this exchange is open to ALL fictional requests and offers. ALL. I cannot overstate this. Your art piece could be an E-rated AO3-warnings-bingo extravaganza and as long as it met your recipient’s request and avoided their DNWs it would be 100% welcome in this exchange.

The only content restrictions, as stated in the rules, would be anything from real life deemed to be in bad taste such as Nazi RPF.

This sounds fun! How will the finished art be submitted, is e-mailing it to the community's address okay?

Hi! Great question! This is an AO3-based exchange so everything you do for the exchange -- from nominating fandoms/characters, to receiving your signup, to submitting/posting your gift and treat(s) -- is going to happen through AO3, exactly the same way a fanfiction exchange would.

When nominations open, you will be able to use the Tagset (linked in this post) to nominate fandoms, characters, and ships you might want to offer or request in this exchange.

When signups open, you will be able to use the AO3 signup form on the AO3 Collection (also linked in this post) to request and offer different fandoms, characters, and ships.

When you get matched up with a recipient, AO3 will send you an email telling you what their requests are so you can create for them! AO3 will also generate an Assignment page for you, which is your assignment for the exchange.

And finally, when you create your gift, you will post it on AO3 using the Assignment page. Because of AO3's handy challenge and collection settings, the mods for the exchange will be able to keep everybody's gift hidden and anonymous until the exact same time :)

Here is a tutorial for posting to a challenge/exchange on AO3 (it uses fic-centric language but the basics are the same for art)
Here is a general tutorial for posting works on AO3

Please let me know if there are any further questions!

Edited 2021-10-11 22:48 (UTC)

Hi, I am already committed to another exchange with a very similar time frame but I wish all participants a great time! I love the idea of an exchange for art because so often people prefer fic in general exchanges.

Hi and thank you for the well wishes! If you change your mind, this exchange is low minimum for a reason... ;)

And yes, the reason this exchange is running is because there was some discussion and it seems like more and more artists are interested in exchanges, and more and more people who used to only write fic are interested in trying out art too... so why not have an exchange for all of those people! It is exciting.

Are "Any (Category)" nominations going to be accepted? For example "Any Pokemon" or "Any Batman Villain." Additionally, will "Creator's Choice of Fandom" or "Creator's choice of canon character/setting/weapon/etc." be in the tagset?

Hello! Thanks for asking.

Are "Any (Category)" nominations going to be accepted? For example "Any Pokemon" or "Any Batman Villain."

Because of the number of character nominations allowed per fandom, and in the interest of avoiding ambiguity, we will not accept "Any (Category)" character/ship nominations for the inaugural round of this exchange.

A feedback post will be available after the inaugural round for participants and future participants to offer suggestions for the next round and weigh in on each other's suggestions, so please feel free to float this idea again there! If this is something multiple participants have interest in, we can implement it in the future.

Additionally, will "Creator's Choice of Fandom" or "Creator's choice of canon character/setting/weapon/etc." be in the tagset?

Not for the inaugural round, but again, this is a great idea so please mention it in the future feedback post and we can try implementing it in a future round if it's something other participants are interested in!

Edit: An update to the second question! The original answer was "No" but upon reconsideration and due to "Any" nominations not being allowed this round: Yes, "Creator's/Artist's Choice" nominations are allowed this round. :) In the future feedback post I would like to hear everyone's input on "Any" vs. "Creator's Choice" vs. both being allowed in nominations.

Edited 2021-10-27 02:40 (UTC)

For traditional art, would a (clear, cropped, taken from overhead, with a good camera) photograph be acceptable rather than a scan? My scanner makes everything look grainy and horrible.

Hello! Good question, thank you so much for asking.

If you are fulfilling your assignment with a piece of traditional art, the art should appear to be clearly scanned (i.e. of a quality appropriate to be given to somebody else as a gift). Whether you get to that point by using an actual scanner, a mobile scanner app, or taking a photo with a high quality camera is up to you!

Basically, as long as the image is clear and presentable, mods don't care how you got it. :)

If it's not too much trouble, do you have any recommendations or links to guides regarding image hosting site selection for newbie artists and/or people who've never posted art to AO3?

Hello, thanks for asking!

Here is an assortment of resources with different people discussing how they post their fanart to AO3.

AO3 hosted tutorials:
-Embedding Media at the Archive Of Our Own (official admin post; if you scroll down to "Inserting Art" you'll see some image hosting suggestions from the AO3 admins, but you will also see that all the admins' image hosting examples have been noted "Caution" or "Not Recommended"... YMMV but I suggest looking into the resources below for image hosting guidance)
-Tutorial on putting pictures and gif on AO3
-...and if you're feeling really brave, How To Size Images on AO3 and How To Make Images Fit In Mobile Browsers

Other resources:
-How to post images within a story on AO3 (Dropbox hosting)
-How to post fanart on Archive Of Our Own (imgur hosting, deviantART hosting)
-Reliable Long-term Image Hosting Sites (list of image hosting sites, includes Discord)
-Any advice on adding fanart to your fanfic on AO3? (see comments)
-Discussion of image hosting, specifically on Discord
-Traditional artists discuss scanning, image hosting, and uploading to AO3

Please let me know if these links are helpful!

Finally had a chance to dig through these links and they are very helpful, thank you!

Is there any chance you'd consider upping the number of characters we can request? There are definitely fandoms where I'd like to request 15-20 potential doodle subjects for my creator to choose from.

Sure, what the heck. I will increase the max request/offer number for characters to 18 in this round.

Yay, thank you!! <3

Can I suggest that you have places/landscapes disamniguated in the tagset? If people nominate a place under Character and it's accepted, you'll no longer be able to use it as a free form if it hasn't already been used that way.

So like, place: Sesame Street instead of just Sesame Street.

Hi! Thank you for asking. I'm a little confused about what exactly the question is as this isn't a freeform exchange... would you be able to elaborate further? Are you worried about what would happen if AO3 canonized a setting as a character tag?

(It's not a bad idea to disambiguate places, but I'm hesitant to change disambiguation rules after nominations have already been opened unless it is something that would break the exchange or cause serious problems. So clarification would be super helpful!)

It's unfortunately just the way AO3 works. If it's a newish fandom that hasn't had that place used in another work, and an exchange uses it unambiguated in an different slot (like character), if you want to use that tag in a free form slot, you'll now have to use it as Sesame Street - freeform instead of just Sesame Street. Forever, even in things totally unrelated to the exchange.

Yikes! Thank you for sharing. That is unfortunate. I will update the nomination rules to request that places/settings be disambiguated as "Place:" or "Setting:" and will go through and disambiguate anything that's already been approved, where possible.

May I ask why the following nominations were rejected?
"Kirsty Cotton as Pinhead"
"Nancy Thompson as Freddy Krueger"

As an FYI I nominated 'Any Eldritch Horrors' because it wouldn't allow me to nominate 'Eldritch Horrors' any other way. Every other disambiguation I could come up with was "already in the archive as a freeform tag".

Also, if you're disallowing the use of "any" you really should put that information in the main body of rules text and not just in the comments section of the posts, as I assume many people, like myself, don't look at comments sections unless they have a specific reason to.

Hi! Thanks for asking. (Please drop future questions/clarifications regarding nominations on the Nominations post!)

As someone unfamiliar with the fandom, those tags read as prompts, not as characters. Would you be able to clarify the meaning of those nominated tags and that they are individual characters?

I will update the nominations post with the note that "Any [Item]" is not eligible as a nomination for the inaugural round, due to ambiguity. Thank you for letting me know this would be helpful! :)

Hi, sorry, I did a dumb thing with a nom and didn't notice until after it was approved -

Under Treasure Planet, it should just be "Jim Hawkins" and "John Silver", not "Jim Hawkins (Treasure Island)" and "John Silver (Treasure Island)".

Hi! Thanks for pointing this out, it totally slipped my notice too :) I will fix this up.

Due to ambiguity, style- and medium-related DNWs will not be enforced

Does this also apply to narrower DNWs that are elements of stylistic choices? Some of these are accessibility concerns, for example, I have vision things so I usually DNW digital blur filters.

Hello! This is a really good question and I appreciate you asking.

The rule about style- and medium-related DNWs, similar to the rule this round about nominating Any, is there to avoid ambiguous moderating situations (for example if someone were to DNW anime style, then thought the way their creator drew the eyes on their gift looked too similar to "anime", and asked the mods to rule on whether the eyes are or are not "anime enough" for their gift to get tossed out). It's also there to reduce pressure on beginner artists who may not even know how to define their style or how to make adjustments to that style to fit someone's stylistic DNWs!

A digital blur filter is a specific enough DNW to be enforceable and more importantly, it doesn't actually impact the style in which the creator chooses to draw or paint their gift, since a blur filter is basically added in post and this isn't a manip/edit focused exchange. So I would enforce a DNW of digital blur filters.

Thanks again for asking!

Hey, can you clarify if underage participants are allowed? The rules post makes it pretty clear that sexual content is permitted to be produced, but doesn't state a minimum age for participants. I saw someone a while back talking about helping their child put a signup together and now I'm alarmed about the possibility of unknowingly gifting explicit art to a minor.

I'd like to repeat this concern. Even if my work isn't sexually explicit, I don't want to matched to a minor in either direction.

Hello! Thank you for making me aware of that discussion, and thank you to the anon who commented below as well. Normally I would ask that this be brought up in the future feedback post but in answer to this specific question, I can say definitively that any future rounds of this exchange will be 18+ and this will be stated in the rules.

With that being said... Since signups have already opened for the 2021 round, I am not going to retroactively add an age limit rule for the 2021 round. If this will prevent you from participating, we hope to see you in the next round once the age limit rule has been implemented!

Thank you for your reply! I hope you make it clear to participating adults that they may match to minors so they can take that into account in the content of their requests and fills. Good luck with this round!

For this round, since signups have already opened, the rules will stand as they are. Thanks.

it has come up in a different forum (discord) that it would be prudent to add that "participants 13+ years old welcome" (matching ao3's minimum age to make an account) to more visible communications like a main DW post, or the ao3 collection profile, so that people who don't read the comments don't assume incorrectly what ages are welcome.

Not changing the rules at this time, just ensuring they're visible to all

Thank you for your input.

Hi, I am trying to post a treat but I can't, the challenge does not appear on the drop down, what do I do?

Don’t know if you figured this out yet, but this is how I did it. Go to the collection. (“https://archiveofourown.org/collections/multifandomdoodle2021”) In the upper right under the exchange name, there is a “post to collection” button.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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