Wesnoth Summer Art Scholarship Policy

Wesnoth Summer of Art Scholarship

Aim:

The overall aim of this scholarship is two fold;

1. To assist in the development of student artists over the summer.
2. Provide the Wesnoth Project with usable art for its own purposes.

Secondary aims include:

1. testing out a usable structure for future projects of this type.
2. establishing a system by which the project can build up its artistic talent base.

Considerations:

Financial (project)

• Wesnoth is a relatively small project with a limited financial base.
  • The scholarship must be sustainable given our financial situation.

Financial (individual)

• Payment to students should be large enough that they are free to work on wesnoth as a summer job. It should be comparable to part-time summer jobs, and/or work study programs through colleges.

Quality of Candidates

• While the scholarship is open to students, a basic level of quality must be maintained in their work.

Oversight

• Adequate oversight is required to ensure the program operates within its stated parameters.

Cultural

• The program must not be simply an excuse to pay 'bounties' to people to create art. It exists to give a chance to work on wesnoth, to students who otherwise couldn't - as an alternative to being forced to take a less educational summer job.

WSAS Parameters

1. Payments
   1. Structure. The applicant stage will run from June 13th to June 22th
   2. The mentorship program will run from June 26th until September 13th
   3. The Wesnoth Summer Art Scholarship (WSAS) will be structured in a similar fashion to Wesnoth’s Google Summer of Code program.
   4. Richard Kettering (Jetrel/Jetryl) will serve as a mentor for students and oversee their selection, in conjunction with other developers/mentors.
   5. The wesnoth forums, the IRC channel #Wesnoth-mentor, and the mailing list will serve as the primary communication forums.
2. Selection
   1. The individuals selected for the WSAS must be able to contribute art that can be added to the program with a reasonable amount of correction. A good rule of thumb is that the corrections that would need to be applied to their work should not take as long or longer than it would take for an experienced artist to just create the art from scratch, themselves.
   2. The individual may be from outside the immediate project.
   3. The program will not be actively advertised at this time.
   4. Proposals will be judged by:
      1. The usefulness of the student's proposal in improving the core content of the game
      2. The perceived ability of the applicant to achieve the milestones
3. Applicants’ requirements:
   1. Applicants must submit their proposals to the project by June 15th 2009.
   2. The proposals require a proposal for their personal objectives, as well as a structure several milestones
      1. Each milestone must have a definable goal for which pieces of art will be finished.
      2. The entire proposal must have a definable goal for the advancement of the student's artistic skill.
      3. Students are encouraged to discuss potential proposals with Jetrel or other artists before they submit their final copy.
   3. The proposal should be done on a wiki page at Wesnoth.org
   4. If the applicant is not an active Wesnoth art contributor at present, a portfolio is required demonstrating adequate skills.
      1. They will also required to fill out a questionnaire about their interests and experience.
   5. Jetrel and other developers will discuss the proposals from June 22nd and notify successful parties before June 26th.
4. Mentoring
   1. Milestones will occur every three weeks, with four in total.
   2. Students will have the whole body of work produced for each milestone, reviewed at the culmination of that milestone.
   3. Students may be asked to provide one to three exemplary works of each milestone's progress for archival/publicity purposes.