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LtL future plans, why we decided to change things
You probably noticed that Wildlife and Creature Design is now named Life to Legend. This was done for two reasons. 1: At the beginning of 2021 I decided to start a website to cater to artists, but WaCD was already taken. And 2: I also wanted to include character designs, specifically the more surrealistic ones (futuristic, fantasy, hybrids, anthromorphs). Meaning WaCD wouldn’t fit anyway. After some sparring with WaCD members and art friends, we landed on Life to Legend.
But Life to Legend is growing out of its tiny skin now as well. There is not so much traffic yet, but the statistics show it’s following a trend, this means that I can now predict fairly well how quickly and at which points this website will make a jump in its growth, and we’re now nearing the next step.
The website statistics aren’t interesting for you guys, so I won’t bother you with that. What might be important to you though is: This website is specifically built for artists and is in many ways also very interesting to writers, Sure, I learn a lot on the way myself as well, which is very useful being an artist myself. But I don’t write it all down just for myself. Life to Legend is a platform built to learn from with a very broad perspective. You won’t only learn anatomy, or color theory, or environments, or even behavior. Instead, this website is built to teach artists and writers how everything ties together, giving you a much broader perspective, and tools to practice your craft more effectively. Especially when you specialize in the surreal realm of things. Where everything is derived from real life, the things we do know.
Summary
Long story short: Life to Legend was once a figment of the mind, an idea, coming from a passion. This idea quickly grew to a group of 1500 people with a very strong core of passionate people. I didn’t set out with LtL to just have a fun community. I set out to teach people about nature and art, my personal passions. Although I wasn’t sure about how it would take shape when I started this project and I still can’t predict the future, I do know that I do what I love, and can see that this is very helpful for other artists as well. So: Why are we changing up things:
- The Facebook community hit its limit in its current form.
- There is very few user content on the Facebook page and too much video’s in comparison.
- Because of the low percentage of actively participating member, Facebook doesn’t suggest the group any longer to other potential members.
- The discord server remains painfully silent.
- Life to Legend is built for YOU, not just for myself, I mean to implement more ways for the community to be part of this initiative.
- There is no room for a Facebook page to stop growing when there are so many artists out there willing to learn and such a wonderful community available to help out.
The future plans for LtL
These are the biggest changes that will happen on short notice:
- The Life to Legend group will get a public sister group. I couldn’t anticipate what LtL would become in such a short timespan (1,5 years) when I started with it. And I wasn’t aware of the impact of a group being private at the time. It’s not possible to make a public group out of a private one. But to create an active community, a private group simply doesn’t do.
- The old private group will remain, but I won’t guarantee it will stay live for long as it already lacks user interaction because of its private nature.
- As public groups are more sensitive to spam, nasty comments, and content that doesn’t fit into the set parameters, we will have to moderate a bit more ‘passionately’. We don’t enjoy doing this, but it’s just the concequence of having a public group. We do warn people though whereever we can before taking any action. You don’t have to worry about posting the ‘wrong stuff’. Although we may use the Facebook warning system to educate you, I do want to stress that there are no immediate concequences. This will only happen when you consistently break the rules or act like an asshole :p.
- The prompts will be back! We’re not sure yet how often they will be refreshed, but they will be back. There most likely will be two kinds of prompts: One for fully rendered art as part of a ‘contest’ and another type that comes up more frequently to cater to those that like to do only sketches or have a lot of time on their hands. This last one however won’t be part of a contest and might be user generated.
Things that are seriously considered for the near future
- An instagram channel featuring art from artists, this most likely will be prompt based.
- A featured page on the website for artists winning the prompt contest. They will be able to add their website, social media channels, and a short snippet of information about themselves.
- Drawing together on some channel. If any of you has an idea of how Bobby Chiu makes this happen on his channel, please contact me! Like this: (On the same canvas) or through a screensharing collection where you can click on each screen sepparatedly and watch up-close what a single person is doing on their computer.
- Anything you guys might come up with between now and the changes near the end of this month.
What to expect in the near future
Shifting from a private to a public page is the biggest change. This will mean that you have to become a member of this sister group, but other than that there is no action needed from your side. The rest will come by itself through this new group. An interesting Facebook mechanic and one you might want to exploit is this one:
Founding Member: Acknowledges early members who have helped grow your group. This badge is awarded to people who join within the first three days of a new group’s creation and write a post, invite people to join, or share to the group within those first three days. This badge is only available in newly created groups.
From this day on there will be daily announcements planned at different times of the day to inform everybody of the switch to the public page. I’m not suspecting any trouble as Facebook sadly gravely filters away all the posts from the group in people’s timelines. It’s an attempt to reach as many people as possible about these changes. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.
I will be communicating the final changes by the 23rd of this month through another blog post, just like this one. I make sure there is a list available with all changes and how you can anticipate, or participate with them. If you have any questions in the meantime: Don’t hesitate to ask them! We may not have a solid answer right away but will endeavor to answer it as quickly as possible. If you have any suggestions, feel free to share them with us and the community!
Thank you!
The future is bright for Life to Legend, there are way more plans, but we will discuss them when the time is ripe. I want to thank everybody that has participated in the past 1,5 year to make this group grow by giving useful suggestions (Like creating a sister group). By sharing art, giving advice, providing art for the website, plugins, coding creature generators, and more. Thank you all for being in this wonderful community! Without you all, Life to Legend would be nothing!
