Pixel Marshals Community FAQ
Mar 22, 2023 12:35:15 GMT
BlastWave, Fougère_Général, and 4 more like this
Post by Ｈａｒａｓｈｏ Ｎｅｋｏ on Mar 22, 2023 12:35:15 GMT
Welcome to the Pixel Marshals Forum! a community of artists and craftsmanship made up of Paper Soldiers enthusiasts or those who interested in the art style. We've been active since early 2000's as a community for Junior Generals Paper Figures, as of 2016 there's a great schism between the ideas so Pixel Marshals Forum began since then.
What is Pixel Marshals?
Pixel Marshals is a community of pixel artists that's interested in making Miniature Paper Soldiers and vehicles from basic programs like Microsoft Paint or Paint.Net, but we're also self-publish several passion projects such as world building or writing up short stories and even scale modelling. The forum provided a good place to exchange ideas and practice new techniques. Since the rise of Discord platform and decline of a forum-based conversations, most of the activities have been carried there, but our members still post their artwork regularly on the forums too.
Pixel Marshals was formed by the artists of Junior General Forums during the schism in 2016, it was an era of strife which resulted in a collapse of the Non-Historical Board (Which was the busiest board back then, it is where people publish their personal ideas and what's they're working on besides 'Historical' Sets of Real World Soldiers or Vehicles) on the JG Forums then the JG Forums was eternally closed sometime around 2018 and Pixel Marshals took up the torch of being a community of this style of art since then.
What is an internet forum?
If you lived along 2000 AD onwards, an Internet Forum is a community for groups of like-minded people that's interested on something in common. People could share ideas in 'Threads' on subject of their interests such as their favorite TV shows, videogame tactics, antique market and of course, little paper soldiers.
Then what is Junior General Forums ?
Junior General Forums is one of the sites that existed around the 2000's until it was taken down in 2017. It was hosted with a Simple Machines Forum - an opensource tool used to create discussion boards back in the day. It is where people exchange their ideas and submit their works which will be accumulated on each
to be posted on the Junior General Website. Many Pixel Marshals members started their career there learning the ropes and improving their artstyle occasionally.
Navigating the Site
Newcomers would be surprised that they didn't see anything on this forum, because it was mandatory to get Sign-up and Logging into your account. It was our policy that all of the new members should sign-up to see our content.
General Discussion - It is the main lounge for talking out general stuff, but right now discord already surpassed its function as people rarely discussed here.
Articles and Primers - Only section that people who didn't signed in could see, it was intended to be a place where people exchange their researched works and their academic writings. Other than this FAQ thread, I think other thread on Articles and Primers are currently on hold from what I've observed.
Kingdoms and Universes - A place where you share ideas of your world building projects or collaborative universes, this is where you post your stories or politics behind your works.
Escapist Fantasies - A continuation of Junior Generals' Non-Historical Board, this is where you post your drawings and personal project you're currently working on. Some works are exclusive to the Forum which is a great incentive to sign-in and join us.
Historical Board - This is where most members posted their 'Historical' artwork. Which is a culmination of researched historical topics in the JGPM art form. Something like "1st US Infantry Division "Big Red One" during Battle of Normandy, 1944"
The Toolshed - Collection of parts and assets some artists decided to leave them there to help other people like weapons or flags that you can use to modify your own pixel soldiers.
Requests and Help - the name already implied what it is.
Literal Games - This section is dedicated to various passion project related to indie game ideas, since some of us actually worked on both digitally made prototypes or a tabletop concept. People can post their development ideas right here.
Forum Games - Explained down there if you read further.
Gaming Archives - An archive of old forum games, both that did popular enough to be made as a full game and the dying concepts waiting for someone to pick them up again.
What is the main art style of the community?
The most popular art style on Pixel Marshals is 1/72 Scale Soldiers and Vehicles made by combining existing parts or building up new stuff from scratch. The current dimensions of translating blueprints into JGPM artwork is 1 pixel = 1 inch.
Image below shows some examples of the Junior General and Pixel Marshals 1/72 scale figures made by various users for a rough timespan of 20 years. (Backsides excluded, since it was only an example)
Other than 1/72 Scale Artworks, our members also draw in other scales and styles too such as -
15mm (22 Pixels : 1 Meter) - A little cousin to 1/72, it depicted almost the same details as the 1/72 but in a more compact way.
MicroScale (1 Pixel : 4 Inches) - A style mostly used on tiny sets of soldier platoons and vehicles, it was used by some artists but not popular as 1/72 or 15mm
NavalScale (1 Pixel : 1 Yard) - This style is used on naval vessels such as destroyers or battleships as it is a balance between little details and identifiable silhouette of these 'bigger than a house' ships.
SpaceScale (1 Pixel : 1 Meter) - Drawing starships are one of our popular hobby, this scale is designed to be comfortable with something along the caliber of giant space battleships to the tiniest of some space fighters.
There was some offshoot to the SpaceScale called 'Tau Scale' ( 1 Pixel : 4 Meters ) and 'Dick Scale' ( 1 Pixel : 5 Meters) these are named after users called Tau and Dick Nixon who pioneered these sector of spaceship assembling line.
Are there any Junior General and Pixel Marshals Sheet Templates or Formats?
Both Yes and No. You can post your creation as a 'set' of infantry units or vehicles, like a platoon or a squads. (Some even made companies) or you can just post a single vehicle within a sheet. Other than making a set, some artists even utilize their figures for a 'diorama' , 'vignette' or a 'scene' by combining figures and background art.
But you can also become more serious on researching and pixel-pushing your artwork. Like for an example, you've researched a squad composition of a US Marine beach landing at Iwo Jima, 1944. You could've inserted this information into a set description to create a sense of authentic feels to your research.
Only thing that is mandatory is to credit all artists who've owned the parts you've used. Judging from the owner of a sheet you've incorporated into your own set and the artists credited in their works. If you've created your work from scratch, people should credit you if they used your works.
Lastly, crediting " thanks to everyone who’s work I’ve used " are now considered unacceptable by the community. It was lazily used in the past and we hope that nobody continues this trend.
Example
US Marine Rifle Platoon
5th Marine Division, 26th Marine Regiment
Battle of Iwo Jima, February 1944
Drawn by NotA_PlaceHolder
Thanks to Catiline for an American Flag, Bunni for American Weapons, Flashman for M1 Helmet and Duckhunter Camo, HMSFearlessCL-65 for US Webbings and Gears and D.Harper for Poses.
pixelmarshal.boards.net
Our priority is to create a printable wargame miniatures, so it's our custom to feature both left and right side of said figures. It is a lineage that's been passing down since 19th Century Wargaming Circles
The image shown below is an example of a printed out "Front-Ons" Style 15mm Napoleonic Wars Formation during the Peninsular War. Instead of Left and Right (You can still notice that feature on the Artillery Crews) it is shown as Front-Back Style to give an information about the Line Infantry Companies charging enemy formations in 19th Century line battles.
License Policy
The artwork published on Junior Generals and Pixel Marshals are entirely free to be modified or 'kitbash' with other artwork similar to how you swap parts when Scale Modelling, or similar to our neighbor artist community like Shipbucket. Of course we're not that strict on what you're browsing or borrowing from the JGPM community, but we have some rules regarding on that matter. Every piece of work you've utilized or used in your artwork or in your sets must be correctly credited with usernames of the original maker of the set you've used.
For an example, I've recolored a Hawker Hurricane from a user called Mike Brady. I'd credit his name Mike Brady (or his alias Alotef) into my credit section to identify those who've seen this artwork of 'Hawker Hurricane of the Imperial Oceanian Air Force' to understand that you based your recolored Hurricane from Mike Brady.
According to juniorgeneral.org/ all of the drawings are covered under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License which allows you to create or combine new stuff, but it doesn't allow for any commercial uses.
Posting uncredited work elsewhere is considered a heresy among Pixel Marshals Artists, it has led to some dispute with Nationstates and Roblox Communities in the past. So, when you're drawing or making new creation please take notes about where you got the parts from or who owned the artwork you based from. If it's impossible to track down the original artist, you could bring the set in question to us on Discord so we can help you out on finding the original creator of that artwork.
I can't post an image on the forum, how can I do it?
You have to use an image hosting site to host your image, then insert your image with
button. The best image hosting site out there is imgur
Do we accept other kind of artists or enthusiasts into the server?
Of course, we've met several artists and paper soldier enthusiasts across the internet on the Pixel Marshals Discord Server, some old some young. But there was sometimes that people who appeared on the server have only similarities of loving uniforms or love drawing vehicles in other scales or art style. We welcome those who didn't produce JGPM Figures, we have plenty of Cartoonists, Writers, Scale Modellers and even Game Designers on the Discord Server. But most of the stuff that happens on the server are tailored around drawing and exchanging ideas for our pixel soldiers.
How should I behave on the Discord Server?
Just act like an educated intellectual, we don't greet others with memes because it looks cool among 14 years olds.
Does Pixel Marshals related to Roblox Communities or RP Servers?
Pixel Marshals Community doesn't have any official relations with Roblox Communities or any Third Party Organizations. Pixel Marshals isn't that place you could come in and ask for random assets to be utilize into your games and have no responsibility to anything happened to that realm.
It is confirmed that some Roblox Role Play Communities used JGPM Figures as a token in their tabletop strategy games and people there have referred to JGPM figures as 'Decals' because it was printed on their tokens and has to be imported into the game. The figures have to be enlarged and posted on a piece of 3D plates to create a unit, resulted in a size different between original 1/72 Scale Artwork and an enlarged Roblox Decals.
There was a conflict several years ago when Roblox Players grab our works and used them in their games without any credit or citation. The current status quo have been brought since there was a negotiation between Roblox Game-Makers and our Administrators about the problems that emerged. As of now some amount of Roblox Players actually joined Pixel Marshals Discord Server and create their own contribution to our little community. Only those who act like a child are banned or temporarily deported because they supported Nazism or posting something inappropriate.
Just don't do art theft, it's bad and it's not professional. You wouldn't steal a car or a ladies' handbag, right?
I've heard that the artist I've followed on Deviant Art also posted their artworks here, how can I find them?
Some used the same username on both sides of the wall. Some used aliases. You can always ask people in the discord who is who.
What is Forum Games?
A forum game is like our little exercise on learning new drawing techniques in a form of a narrative Role Playing game with various themes, such as medieval politics, space warfare, a civil war within a country, cold war political intrigues or even corporate clashes. It was designed to push artists out of their 'comfort zone' and exchanging new experience on both drawing and writing.
Running a forum game takes time and effort from every players to at least contribute a narration or it dies. The goal of each game isn't to be winning or coming out in the top, but the techniques you learned through drawing stuff for your factions in the game.
. . .
Rules and Guidelines can be found here : pixelmarshal.boards.net/thread/61/rules-guidelines-expectations
I will add more FAQs in the future and I hope this message can help inform both old and new members of the forum on our current affairs, thanks for reading.
What is Pixel Marshals?
Pixel Marshals is a community of pixel artists that's interested in making Miniature Paper Soldiers and vehicles from basic programs like Microsoft Paint or Paint.Net, but we're also self-publish several passion projects such as world building or writing up short stories and even scale modelling. The forum provided a good place to exchange ideas and practice new techniques. Since the rise of Discord platform and decline of a forum-based conversations, most of the activities have been carried there, but our members still post their artwork regularly on the forums too.
Pixel Marshals was formed by the artists of Junior General Forums during the schism in 2016, it was an era of strife which resulted in a collapse of the Non-Historical Board (Which was the busiest board back then, it is where people publish their personal ideas and what's they're working on besides 'Historical' Sets of Real World Soldiers or Vehicles) on the JG Forums then the JG Forums was eternally closed sometime around 2018 and Pixel Marshals took up the torch of being a community of this style of art since then.
What is an internet forum?
If you lived along 2000 AD onwards, an Internet Forum is a community for groups of like-minded people that's interested on something in common. People could share ideas in 'Threads' on subject of their interests such as their favorite TV shows, videogame tactics, antique market and of course, little paper soldiers.
Then what is Junior General Forums ?
Junior General Forums is one of the sites that existed around the 2000's until it was taken down in 2017. It was hosted with a Simple Machines Forum - an opensource tool used to create discussion boards back in the day. It is where people exchange their ideas and submit their works which will be accumulated on each
to be posted on the Junior General Website. Many Pixel Marshals members started their career there learning the ropes and improving their artstyle occasionally. Navigating the Site
Newcomers would be surprised that they didn't see anything on this forum, because it was mandatory to get Sign-up and Logging into your account. It was our policy that all of the new members should sign-up to see our content.
General Discussion - It is the main lounge for talking out general stuff, but right now discord already surpassed its function as people rarely discussed here.
Articles and Primers - Only section that people who didn't signed in could see, it was intended to be a place where people exchange their researched works and their academic writings. Other than this FAQ thread, I think other thread on Articles and Primers are currently on hold from what I've observed.
Kingdoms and Universes - A place where you share ideas of your world building projects or collaborative universes, this is where you post your stories or politics behind your works.
Escapist Fantasies - A continuation of Junior Generals' Non-Historical Board, this is where you post your drawings and personal project you're currently working on. Some works are exclusive to the Forum which is a great incentive to sign-in and join us.
Historical Board - This is where most members posted their 'Historical' artwork. Which is a culmination of researched historical topics in the JGPM art form. Something like "1st US Infantry Division "Big Red One" during Battle of Normandy, 1944"
The Toolshed - Collection of parts and assets some artists decided to leave them there to help other people like weapons or flags that you can use to modify your own pixel soldiers.
Requests and Help - the name already implied what it is.
Literal Games - This section is dedicated to various passion project related to indie game ideas, since some of us actually worked on both digitally made prototypes or a tabletop concept. People can post their development ideas right here.
Forum Games - Explained down there if you read further.
Gaming Archives - An archive of old forum games, both that did popular enough to be made as a full game and the dying concepts waiting for someone to pick them up again.
What is the main art style of the community?
The most popular art style on Pixel Marshals is 1/72 Scale Soldiers and Vehicles made by combining existing parts or building up new stuff from scratch. The current dimensions of translating blueprints into JGPM artwork is 1 pixel = 1 inch.
Image below shows some examples of the Junior General and Pixel Marshals 1/72 scale figures made by various users for a rough timespan of 20 years. (Backsides excluded, since it was only an example)
Other than 1/72 Scale Artworks, our members also draw in other scales and styles too such as -
15mm (22 Pixels : 1 Meter) - A little cousin to 1/72, it depicted almost the same details as the 1/72 but in a more compact way.
MicroScale (1 Pixel : 4 Inches) - A style mostly used on tiny sets of soldier platoons and vehicles, it was used by some artists but not popular as 1/72 or 15mm
NavalScale (1 Pixel : 1 Yard) - This style is used on naval vessels such as destroyers or battleships as it is a balance between little details and identifiable silhouette of these 'bigger than a house' ships.
SpaceScale (1 Pixel : 1 Meter) - Drawing starships are one of our popular hobby, this scale is designed to be comfortable with something along the caliber of giant space battleships to the tiniest of some space fighters.
There was some offshoot to the SpaceScale called 'Tau Scale' ( 1 Pixel : 4 Meters ) and 'Dick Scale' ( 1 Pixel : 5 Meters) these are named after users called Tau and Dick Nixon who pioneered these sector of spaceship assembling line.
Are there any Junior General and Pixel Marshals Sheet Templates or Formats?
Both Yes and No. You can post your creation as a 'set' of infantry units or vehicles, like a platoon or a squads. (Some even made companies) or you can just post a single vehicle within a sheet. Other than making a set, some artists even utilize their figures for a 'diorama' , 'vignette' or a 'scene' by combining figures and background art.
But you can also become more serious on researching and pixel-pushing your artwork. Like for an example, you've researched a squad composition of a US Marine beach landing at Iwo Jima, 1944. You could've inserted this information into a set description to create a sense of authentic feels to your research.
Only thing that is mandatory is to credit all artists who've owned the parts you've used. Judging from the owner of a sheet you've incorporated into your own set and the artists credited in their works. If you've created your work from scratch, people should credit you if they used your works.
Lastly, crediting " thanks to everyone who’s work I’ve used " are now considered unacceptable by the community. It was lazily used in the past and we hope that nobody continues this trend.
Example
US Marine Rifle Platoon
5th Marine Division, 26th Marine Regiment
Battle of Iwo Jima, February 1944
Drawn by NotA_PlaceHolder
Thanks to Catiline for an American Flag, Bunni for American Weapons, Flashman for M1 Helmet and Duckhunter Camo, HMSFearlessCL-65 for US Webbings and Gears and D.Harper for Poses.
pixelmarshal.boards.net
Our priority is to create a printable wargame miniatures, so it's our custom to feature both left and right side of said figures. It is a lineage that's been passing down since 19th Century Wargaming Circles
The image shown below is an example of a printed out "Front-Ons" Style 15mm Napoleonic Wars Formation during the Peninsular War. Instead of Left and Right (You can still notice that feature on the Artillery Crews) it is shown as Front-Back Style to give an information about the Line Infantry Companies charging enemy formations in 19th Century line battles.
License Policy
The artwork published on Junior Generals and Pixel Marshals are entirely free to be modified or 'kitbash' with other artwork similar to how you swap parts when Scale Modelling, or similar to our neighbor artist community like Shipbucket. Of course we're not that strict on what you're browsing or borrowing from the JGPM community, but we have some rules regarding on that matter. Every piece of work you've utilized or used in your artwork or in your sets must be correctly credited with usernames of the original maker of the set you've used.
For an example, I've recolored a Hawker Hurricane from a user called Mike Brady. I'd credit his name Mike Brady (or his alias Alotef) into my credit section to identify those who've seen this artwork of 'Hawker Hurricane of the Imperial Oceanian Air Force' to understand that you based your recolored Hurricane from Mike Brady.
According to juniorgeneral.org/ all of the drawings are covered under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License which allows you to create or combine new stuff, but it doesn't allow for any commercial uses.
Posting uncredited work elsewhere is considered a heresy among Pixel Marshals Artists, it has led to some dispute with Nationstates and Roblox Communities in the past. So, when you're drawing or making new creation please take notes about where you got the parts from or who owned the artwork you based from. If it's impossible to track down the original artist, you could bring the set in question to us on Discord so we can help you out on finding the original creator of that artwork.
I can't post an image on the forum, how can I do it?
You have to use an image hosting site to host your image, then insert your image with
button. The best image hosting site out there is imgur Do we accept other kind of artists or enthusiasts into the server?
Of course, we've met several artists and paper soldier enthusiasts across the internet on the Pixel Marshals Discord Server, some old some young. But there was sometimes that people who appeared on the server have only similarities of loving uniforms or love drawing vehicles in other scales or art style. We welcome those who didn't produce JGPM Figures, we have plenty of Cartoonists, Writers, Scale Modellers and even Game Designers on the Discord Server. But most of the stuff that happens on the server are tailored around drawing and exchanging ideas for our pixel soldiers.
How should I behave on the Discord Server?
Just act like an educated intellectual, we don't greet others with memes because it looks cool among 14 years olds.
Does Pixel Marshals related to Roblox Communities or RP Servers?
Pixel Marshals Community doesn't have any official relations with Roblox Communities or any Third Party Organizations. Pixel Marshals isn't that place you could come in and ask for random assets to be utilize into your games and have no responsibility to anything happened to that realm.
It is confirmed that some Roblox Role Play Communities used JGPM Figures as a token in their tabletop strategy games and people there have referred to JGPM figures as 'Decals' because it was printed on their tokens and has to be imported into the game. The figures have to be enlarged and posted on a piece of 3D plates to create a unit, resulted in a size different between original 1/72 Scale Artwork and an enlarged Roblox Decals.
There was a conflict several years ago when Roblox Players grab our works and used them in their games without any credit or citation. The current status quo have been brought since there was a negotiation between Roblox Game-Makers and our Administrators about the problems that emerged. As of now some amount of Roblox Players actually joined Pixel Marshals Discord Server and create their own contribution to our little community. Only those who act like a child are banned or temporarily deported because they supported Nazism or posting something inappropriate.
Just don't do art theft, it's bad and it's not professional. You wouldn't steal a car or a ladies' handbag, right?
I've heard that the artist I've followed on Deviant Art also posted their artworks here, how can I find them?
Some used the same username on both sides of the wall. Some used aliases. You can always ask people in the discord who is who.
What is Forum Games?
A forum game is like our little exercise on learning new drawing techniques in a form of a narrative Role Playing game with various themes, such as medieval politics, space warfare, a civil war within a country, cold war political intrigues or even corporate clashes. It was designed to push artists out of their 'comfort zone' and exchanging new experience on both drawing and writing.
Running a forum game takes time and effort from every players to at least contribute a narration or it dies. The goal of each game isn't to be winning or coming out in the top, but the techniques you learned through drawing stuff for your factions in the game.
. . .
Rules and Guidelines can be found here : pixelmarshal.boards.net/thread/61/rules-guidelines-expectations
I will add more FAQs in the future and I hope this message can help inform both old and new members of the forum on our current affairs, thanks for reading.
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