For the voting week of 1/4 - 1/11
Artwork by Lunar Mystic
Status: Public

So this is great, obviously, and I without hesitation am voting yes. I love the graphic style of this, the way the color is integrated into a largely greyscale work, the lighting effects, the real sense of weight and power in Molcru juxtaposed with the lightness of Fala... it's some of your absolute best work and the color technique, in particular, suggests a potential new direction for your work that I'd be absolutely on board for.

One thing I do want to note is that Molcru is a private character which means there might be a rules conflict here that we should talk about. I'm of the opinion that since, iirc, you were working on a piece depicting this scene while Beast Engine was still here, and since this follows the descriptions in The Climb very closely, this shouldn't be considered out of bounds. A piece that adapted freely from the Molcru materials potentially adding new content would be more of an iffy situation in my opinion. I think it's worth discussing though just where our boundaries are for derivatives like this of private works.

This causes me quite a bit of trepidation because it could set a bad precedent. What's more, since you somehow completely erased the phyrexianhailstorm account, finding information about anything you might have been doing with BeastEngine before the White Blight is iffy at best. The best I can find is this post (and the one after) which is Beast requesting your painting of a short story set in Zhiran's Acadamy. I do not want to set a bad precedent, so unless you can give me some good reassurance I'm going to have to say Nay.

I can provide, at least in apocryphal testimony, that Beast and LM were working on Molcru pieces regularly and this follows the products of those works closely enough that I feel that Beast would acquiesce to this being included. For what it's worth.

Still, the rest of the debate should probably continue to be followed through.

he requested this one personally. thank you.

Yeah, I can back up that apocryphal testimony.

I think part of the issue comes down to whether or not we see illustrations as works in their own right that add new information... or just reflections to what already exists. Or whether some are one way and others are another. This feels like a fairly solid reflection of what's in the story but other illustrations add new information. Should that be the criteria where we draw the line?

I suspect there's no clean place to draw a bright line rule.

If the owner of the private character objected, that would be one thing. But, since the original owner isn't around, I think it just falls to the rest of us to use our own judgment as best we can.

Based on what people have said, it seems to me like this is fine. I'm a "yea."

Artistic renditions of characters and scenes are, I think, a unique case as far as our private/public/open rule goes. I don't think that a visual representation necessarily risks violating the pre-existing understanding of archived canon. Likewise, I don't believe that our voting this piece in is necessarily saying "This IS how Molcru looks in this story." It may be, it may not. We're not voting on attaching this to the original story, just on it's own.

That's my take, anyway.

As such, I'm voting "Yea" on this piece unless the M:EMperor wants to make a ruling. I really like the look of this. (Fala wearing Molcru's hat is adorable.)

That's the big issue I'm having, specifically because the owner of the private character isn't here. I can understand where people are coming from in Beast LM collabing on Molcru pieces and how this stays close to the original material and all, but I just personally object to voting a work based on a private character or plane without the creator's go ahead, because projecting many years from now when there's a whole new generation of M:EMbers running things, this sets a very early precedent for people disappearing for a year due to meatspace and then come back to find that their private character has basically been hijacked by overeager creators who didn't wait for their say-so.

Would it work for me to draw a Molcru piece that DID add something new, put it up for vote, and have it voted down in order to establish the precedent of where the line is?

...This plan probably makes more sense to someone with a cold than someone who does not have a cold. I'm still putting it out there anyway [koff koff]

I get what you're saying, and maybe I'm being overly kind to art just because I'm not involved in it. I'm just saying that to me, it seems inherently apart from canon anyway. It's an interpretation. Like I said, I could well be wrong.

Nah, makes perfect sense to me.

I'd be all for more art from you, but for the explicit reason of having it voted down makes me uncomfortable since you don't have a lot of the time to spare for it.

Yeah that's a good point >_> Whee spare time

lol.... what a discussion!

Ok... so, honestly I asked Beast a while back (couple years I think?) what story he wanted to see an illustration for, and he said that The climb would be cool. Man I hope he's doing well. He's a mechanic in the Navy, right?

When I re-read the story for the final re-vision, and saw that it was labeled as "Private", though taken aback by the potential conflict that would possibly arise, my personality found a sense of ease within the facts that he either did not want future random members jumping onto his brilliant characters and/or that he held/or holds the "Rank" of "Private". Though I'm sure if he still holds that rank, its "First Class".

Anyway, I'm not at all opposed to how the ruling M:EMbers handle this debaucle, as I know they are quite versed in such matters.

It's good to have my work among such capable minds.

LM

For the record, this gets in at 4-1 despite my reservations (and I'm really the only one who was against it). I just haven't gotten around to uploading more of the Archive just yet.

That's great... I just hope Beast is ok with it?


lol You sure did drill me on this one, 'Luna'... but that's totally fine by me, considering you were the one who welcomed me to the Multiverse in the first place.

Thank you.

So.

So, I realize that this is thread necromancy at its worst, and I apologize for that. But I'm obligated to step in and drag this up because I just found this and I have to voice my thanks.

I'm honored. I'm touched. I'm generally emotionally warped at the stark fact that this even exists. I'm not going to be able to explain how seeing this makes me feel. I'm at a complete loss for words. So I'll just say thanks from the bottom of my meaty, blood-filled heart for making this.