#paper tips

Hello!! First of all tysm!!! I don’t think my colours are that outstanding so this is a neat lil surprise!!

So, for the colour picking itself I’m not sure how to help because I go by instinct, leaning towards muted tones! I rarely use colour palettes and tend to just save colours that I think are pretty and stick to those!! I’d recommend looking around tumblr, Pinterest, etc, for inspiration and studying the ones that you like, e.g. the colour contrasts, use of certain colours to highlight/shade something! However I can give some advice to sort of toning the overall drawing!! Disclaimer, I’m not an expert I draw for fun!! This is just what I do personally yea!

Firstly here’s a quick tip to toning an overall illustration to get the colours to gel together! Usually adding a coloured layer with a layer setting over the whole piece really helps the colours be more cohesive! It’s best to experiment depending on the mood of your drawing, but usually I use ‘overlay’, ‘soft light’, ‘colour’, and ‘linear burn’. The opacity usually ranges from 5% to 20% depending on the desired intensity.

I also want to say that when shading, I’d recommend using a reddish tone on a lower opacity with the Multiply setting! I used this for Willow’s shirt, arms, and nose, which helps bounce of the original colours. Using grey to shade often comes out as a murky imo.

Secondly, here’s a small tip for monotone colours featuring a Luz!! Using the same colour on a Multiply setting helps keep the colours cohesive and prevent clashing colours that are jarring!! And masking a different colour over at certain areas helps to make it less flat quickly!

First of all, if you are able, DO NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU ONLY HAVE A MONTH TO WRITE THIS ESSAY! My team assumed we wouldn’t be going for a Chairman’s award this year and it was sprung upon us, so I have something of an excuse. But truthfully, you only need a few weeks. You should start working since the beginning of the academic year, but writing does not take too long.

Here are the steps you need to take if you’re even thinking of submitting on time.

Write a schedule. Include due dates for yourself, not just the submission date. You should have actual planning and organization of ideas as one day.

The steps you should have are: planning (what are you going to say), rough outline (key points), final outline (key points with fluff), rough draft (mine was 600 words, when the desired count was 1500!!!), final draft (flowery words, quotes, and examples of what a great team you are should be here, this boosted me to 1500 no problem. use quotes from interviews for your video especially!), and editing time (i had about a week between completion and submission to have it reviewed and edited, and i am grateful)

What’s your team’s niche? What does your team do that no one else does? Do you host FRC events? Help FLL kiddos? Volunteer your butts off? Hella underfunded and underserved? Talk about it! It’s what makes your team Chairman’s worthy!

Talk about your team. Do you have amazing programmers? What about your cool mechanical squad? Tons of diversity? Say whatever you want to.

Add a few quotes. If you’ve done your interviews for the video, then use those. If you haven’t, use quotes that make sense.

Once you’ve made a good word count, open it up to peer and mentor review. If you’re in Google docs, share so they can suggest/comment.

Read it out loud!!! I made so many little syntax mistakes, I’m really glad I didn’t miss them. This is good for when you aren’t sure about something or someone doesn’t have the time to sit down and edit your paper.

I know it sucks but work during meetings if you don’t have other stuff to do. If your main job is Chairman’s, use time at meetings to write. You’ll get it banged out in a few hours if you have a friend or so to bounce ideas off.

Come up with a “vocabulary” list. These are words and ideas you want to work into your essay or work your essay around them. (These could relate to your team’s niche.)

Work with the videographer!!! If it’s not you making the video, work with whoever is. Create some interview questions for them.

Make sure you know the content of each other’s work!!! If you’re being interviewed for the award and you’re asked something about the video when you spent build season on the essay and you dont know, you’re hecked. Same for the video. Just talk to each other!

If you’re traveling for a long time to a regional, use this time to prep your presentation even more. Everything here can be done after the fact for your presentation.

Be ready for questions!!!!! If you don’t know the answer, work with it. Do not interrupt someone else! It looks really bad and unprofessional.