How were the project participants selected?
Skylark is an ancient and passionate Red/Green shipper. He just picked artists and writers he’s friends with and/or whose work he admires, that’s all.
Is there participant compensation?
All participants will be sent a complimentary physical and digital copy of the calendar and fanfiction appendix, as well as the opportunity to purchase additional physical copies at-cost.
What charity is this project supporting?
By majority vote, the contributors decided to support an environmental conservation charity. After careful research, the mods decided on Rainforest Foundation US.
Rainforest Foundation US works to protect the rainforests of Central and South America by partnering directly with those on the front lines: Indigenous peoples in Brazil, Peru, Panama, and Guyana, who are deeply motivated to protect their lands. The foundation supplies them with legal support as well as technological equipment and training so they can use smartphones, drones, and satellites to monitor illegal loggers and miners, and take action to stop them.
Rainforest Foundation US has shown an unusual commitment to rigorous evaluation of its impact by inviting Columbia University researchers to conduct a randomized controlled trial in Loreto, Peru. Starting in early 2018, researchers collected survey data and satellite imagery from 36 communities partnered with the foundation and 40 control communities.
The results were published [in 2021] — and they’re encouraging. The program reduced tree cover loss, and the reductions were largest in the communities most vulnerable to deforestation (along the deforestation frontier).
—This Vox Article
Rainforest Foundation US has a four star rating with Charity Navigator.
So is he Green or Blue?
For the sake of consistency, this project calls the rival Green.
Can I draw/write other ships for this project that aren’t Red/Green?
In a word, no. You’re very welcome to include any other characters or pokemon in your piece that you’d like, but please keep everything outside of Red/Green strictly gen. We also ask that OC appearances are kept to a minimum.
Is this project Red/Green or Green/Red? (Who tops?)
Either, both, we don’t care. As long as Red and Green are in love, it’s welcome here.
What time period are you looking for? Can we create AU pieces?
We are looking for canon game universe iterations of Red and Green, but they can be pulled from any point in their timeline – from their childhood in Kanto to their later years in Alola and beyond. Pokemon Masters work is also allowed, as Masters follows gameverse canon. AUs of any kind are not allowed.
I have questions about collaborating with a writer/artist.
Talk to the mods about it. It’s probably easier to answer in a one-to-one conversation.
Can I have more detailed art specs?
We are publishing the calendar through Lulu.com.
- Full color
- SFW, related to the assigned month
- US Letter – 11 x 8.5 in (27.9 x 21.6 cm)
- Landscape orientation
- White wire-o binding covers 0.375 in (0.95cm) at the top of calendar grid pages and bottom of image pages
- Hole punched in image 0.25 in (0.64cm) from the top trim edge
- The image frame is 11.25 in wide x 8.75 in high (bleed included) or 3375 pixels x 2625 pixels
- To ensure high-quality printing, image resolution needs to be between 300 PPI and 600 PPI
- RGB document color setup
- “Preparing Art for Print” guide
How about detailed writing specs?
- 1,000 to 1,500 words
- SFW, related to the art piece it accompanies
- Pieces should be submitted as a google docs file. Don’t forget to give “anyone with the link” read-only access!
- Please include author’s name and content tags (if necessary) at the top of the work.
- Use google docs’ default settings (Arial, 11 point font, black text).
- Any text formatting such as bold, italics, centered font, etc. should be colored red. If you are considering more elaborate formatting, please contact mod Skylark for guidance/advice.
- Grammar Rules:
- Pokemon should be pluralized and uncapitalized when appropriate. Examples:
- Fearow looked suspicious.
- The fearow pecked at the ground.
- Several fearows circled above.
- “Fearow!” shrieked a fearow.
- While picking over the berries Fearow cawed, “Fearow!”
- In general, if there’s an “a” or “the” before the pokemon’s name, it’s lowercase. If there isn’t, it’s uppercase. “Green’s eevee jumped down from the couch.” vs “With a shake of its fur, Eevee jumped down from the couch.”
- If there are several pokemon whose name ends in an s, like amoonguss, it would follow native pluralization english rules; in this case it becomes amoongusses. (You could also make an argument for amoongi in this specific instance, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.)
- Pokémon also follows this rule.
- Three pokémon are over there.
- Pokémon are great.
- I love pokémon.
- However, The plural of pokémon is pokémon.
- Pokemon should be pluralized and uncapitalized when appropriate. Examples:
- We’re using the e with the accent over it. It’s pokémon.
- Place names should be capitalized and spelled how they are spelled by Bulbapedia. Viridian City, Mt. Moon, Saffron Gym, Silph Co.
- Man-made items should be capitalized following Bulbapedia guidelines. Pokédex, Poké Ball, Blue Flute, Xtransceiver.
- Items that exist in the real world but are for some reason capitalized in the pokémon world (mostly food/usable items, like berries, maladadas, soda pop, rage candy bars, antidotes, hyper potions, poffins, etc.) are not capitalized. It’s a persim berry, not a Persim Berry.
How are you coordinating the project?
There is a discord server for project participants. Joining it is strongly recommended but not required. For important events, like check-ins, we will also send e-mails to all participants.
For the public, we have a Twitter and Tumblr where we will announce all updates.
What are the Check-ins like?
Check-ins happen periodically throughout the creation period to ensure that everything’s going smoothly. The check-ins give mods and participants an opportunity to touch base, sort out issues, and ask any questions that they might need.
Our expectations are as follows:
Check-in #1:
- Artists: Idea roughed out, sketch drafted
- Writers: Idea roughed out, piece outlined
Check-in #2:
- Artists: Lines ready and initial colors done, OR 25-50% completed
- Writers: 25-50% of piece done (250-750 words)
Check in-#3:
- Artists: Flats laid down, about 75% done
- Writers: 75% to full rough draft of piece
Final submission:
- Artists: Fully colored, completed piece in RBG
- Writers: Completed, beta’ed, formatted piece
Any chance that there will be merch?
Probably not. It’s just a calendar, nothing so fancy.
Will there be international shipping?
We are using Lulu, our publisher, for printing and shipping. We can ship internationally to any country that our publisher can. Here is Lulu’s full shipping FAQ, detailing their print-on-demand process, shipping times, etc.
Notably, Lulu cannot ship to Russia or Ukraine at this time. If you are from those countries and would like to purchase the project, please reach out to pokeprompts@gmail.com.
Because of the low weight and standardized size of the calendar, we anticipate lower shipping fees of no more than 8 USD anywhere in the world.
Can you offer refunds?
All sales are final, sorry. However, if your calendar is damaged in shipping, please reach out to the mods and we will see if we can send you another one. Just don’t expect it to arrive before January 2023.
If through some unforeseen catastrophe the calendar is unable to be printed, all orders will be refunded and as much information will be made public as possible. We will also do our utmost to still get our contributors something, even if it’s only PDFs of the project. We really don’t expect this to happen, though.
Will you do repeat print runs of this calendar?
It’s not likely, sorry.