I'm posting this on behalf of the Art Committee - we're the subteam of Community Outreach responsible for selecting the art that gets showcased on the Artwork Hub each month. We're now proposing the creation of new tags, specifically for artwork pages. We've discussed this with the Tech team, but they thought we should get broader input from staff and the community before implementing this.
Obviously this is similar to the Genre Tagging for Tales. This should serve a somewhat similar purpose for sorting and discovery, although obviously focused on the style and content of the artwork on each page. Both the Style and Content categories would be open to additions proposed in the usual way - similar to Genre and Theme tags, we'd require a minimum of 25 articles, but with no author requirement. In future these may potentially be applied to artwork on other types of page (SCPs, Tales, Hubs) but we think limiting it to artist and artwork pages is a sensible starting point.
I'll list the tags below with the proposed definition and current count for each tag, but this draft of an Artwork Tagging Guide is probably the best introduction - since it's an art guide and we have an abundance of art on the site, there are three illustrations for every tag.
Style Tags
These describe the art style used - we've avoided categories like "digital art" focused on the actual process, in favor of categories that anyone can assign based on how the art looks. The exact distinctions between sketched, cel-shaded and painted are tricky to precisely define, but I think that the typical example is recognisable enough that this shouldn't be too much of a problem. These tags are not mutually exclusive, and multiple can apply to the same page, or even to the same artwork.
animated - artwork is animated. Generally applies to .gif files. Superceded by the interactive and video content markers. (53 occurances)
cel-shaded-art - artwork with outlines drawn, then shaded using solid blocks of color or gradients. The characteristic style of animation, comic books and manga. (168 occurances)
image-editing - artwork created by altering or combining existing images. (27 occurances)
painted-art - artwork created using paint or pastel, or using digital brush strokes to blend colors and mimic the appearance of paint. (189 occurances)
pixel-art - artwork created by drawing individual pixels, or by deliberately pixelating an existing image. (67 occurances)
sketched-art - artwork drawn with pencil, pen or crayon, or created digitally in a similar style. May be shaded, or left as a line drawing. (123 occurances)
Content Tags
This describes what the art depicts, in very general terms. These tags are not mutually exclusive, and multiple can apply to the same page, or even the same artwork. GoI and Character tags can be used on Art Pages and we'll try to apply them more often, but we thought it would be useful to have some more general tags for finding artwork. While the scp-art tag admittedly applies to the majority of art pages since this is the SCP Wiki, filtering for it may make it easier to find art depicting more obscure SCPs without their own tags.
logo - artwork depicts logos and other symbolic graphics, such as insignia, flags and coats of arms. (84 occurances)
poster - artwork depicts a poster, infographic or advertisment, using a combination of images and words to convey information. (31 occurances)
goi-art - artwork depicting characters, objects, or themes from a specific Group of Interest. Also applies to GoI logos. (72 occurances)
personnel-art - artwork depicting specific SCP Foundation employees. Typically doctors and researchers, but also applies to depictions of field agents and other site staff, as well as directors and O5 Command. (83 occurances)
scp-art - artwork depicting one or more SCP objects or entities. (422 occurances)
Obviously this proposal has a lot of similarities to Genre Tagging, but there's a lot fewer art pages than tales on the Wiki, and they're much quicker to tag, so this shouldn't take as long to implement. We've put together a Google Document listing which tags apply to all artist and artwork pages - although it will be missing some posted more recently, it won't take too long to add tags to whichever pages are left. The art styles are somewhat subjective, but we don't expect it to be too difficult to decide which (if any) apply to a specific artist's work.
I'll leave this discussion open for suggestions and comments for a week, unless there are any specific objections or proposed changes we should be able to implement this pretty quickly once they're added to the tag manifest. We have a Google Sheet listing exactly which pages each tag applies to, but it's not particularly easy to navigate and I've been told not to post a Google Doc link on the forum.