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zachol
2007-01-14, 01:36 AM
So, anyway, I'm new.

Hi again, I posted in the other thread (for new people! huzzah!).


Anyway, after a few minutes of looking at the possibilities for the avatars, I decided that although they are totally awesome, they're not exactly what I want, and besides, I sort of like some aspects of uniqueness.

Thus, I decided to make my own avatar.

And, I thought back to one of my better liked characters, Zanas the shadow elf (that is, an elf with the shadow creature template tacked on - makes a super good scout and good trapmonkey, but a bad anything else without some effort).

So, I decided to make an avatar of her.


Then, I ran into a problem - I'm not an artist.
I'm especially not an artist of Rich's level.
And, even if I was, I probably wouldn't be able to mimic his style all that well, even with some practice.

But, I can use the GIMP pretty well.


So, what I did was save a few sort of promising avatars from the examples, loaded one up (DrowGirl, I think?), played around with it for a while, and came up with this.

The Hairy Modfather: Copyrighted image removed.

To be a bit more specific on what I did, I started with DrowGirl, added slightly slimmed-down boots from NecromancerGirl, removed the spider and little necklace thing, blacked out torso and such, darkened skin, changed hair from white to black, and added a scaled-down (50%), blackened crossbow from RogueGuy.

Theoretically, she should be completely black (yay shadow creatures), but I felt that would be overdoing it a bit.


Before actually putting that as my avatar, I decided to look at the rules, and noted something in the section on avatars.


Using copyrighted artwork as an avatar is technically illegal unless you have the permission of the copyright holder. Even if the art is modified in some way, the original copyright still stands and you can't use it as an avatar. Rich Burlew has specifically requested that people NOT use his OOTS art as avatar image, other than those he has specifically provided as the default message board avatars. If you want an OOTS style avatar, there are many burgeoning avatar artists hanging around the Comics forum who might make one for you.Which on first glance is moderately confusing, but mostly against using what I've done so far.

I could conceivably go and learn inkscape, and that would likely be helpful in the long run, and I could request an avatar, but I thought I might as well ask if what I've got at the moment would be acceptable.

I would probably be cleaning it up anyway (looking at it now, it has a bit more fuzz than I'd like, especially around the boots...).



Also, secondary questions would be a. is this post in itself a bad idea for even having the image in the first place, not as an avatar and b. I'm not entirely sure, but is this way of creating an image/avatar generally frowned upon?


Many apologies in advance if I've done something stupid.

I'm new, you see. :smallwink:

Dispozition
2007-01-14, 01:43 AM
Well...Since you didn't actually draw anything yourself...I do belive that it's not allowed. I'm not totally sure on the rule, but since becasue it's all Rich's art, it's copying, so against the rules...

As I said...I'm not totally sure...So don't go by what I've said until someone else has backed it up...But you probably shouldn't use it as an avatar.

zachol
2007-01-14, 02:22 AM
Hmm.

Maybe I should just learn Inkscape.

Dispozition
2007-01-14, 02:26 AM
Or sodipodi...But inkscape is probably better...

zachol
2007-01-14, 02:49 AM
Y'know, after about fifteen minutes playing around with Inkscape, I'm finding it to be amazingly easy and otherwise good, and far better than the other way of doing it (pixels suck).

Specifically, these "Bezier curves" are amazing.

Consider the original post... dumb.



Though I am a bit curious about the questions I had, still.

Dispozition
2007-01-14, 02:55 AM
is this post in itself a bad idea for even having the image in the first place, not as an avatar

Just so long as you don't go shpwing it about, you should be fine, but you shouldn't really do it.


b. I'm not entirely sure, but is this way of creating an image/avatar generally frowned upon?

Here, yes. Other places, wouldn't have a clue...

And don't worry about it...We're a mostly friendly bunch, unless we're angry, then we're not friendly...

zachol
2007-01-14, 04:24 AM
Consider myself not-a-problem'd.

And look!

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/8260/zwavedw7.png

Not completely sucky, and actually better than the first attempt.

Anyway, should be good now. Thanks for the understanding, and, again, sorry for the faux pas.

Dispozition
2007-01-14, 04:37 AM
Gah! Seriously...Brighter, or transparent...please...

zachol
2007-01-14, 05:45 AM
...que?


Hmm... perhaps I don't have this that well.

Edit: Hmm?

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/1897/basicsm9.png

Dispozition
2007-01-14, 07:03 PM
You can't see the detail, none at all...It just looks like a solid shape...

zachol
2007-01-15, 12:42 AM
I'd say that's the point (huzzah for shadow creatures), but ok.

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/2944/basiceg4.png

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/7402/basicwd9.png

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/8343/basicqs5.png

Is the problem primarily in the skin or the hair?

I'm honestly not trying to be, well, problematic, and I'm sorry if I'm acting like a dumb newbie.

And thanks for the suggestions, as well. They're appreciated.

Dispozition
2007-01-15, 12:47 AM
Ok...Slightly better...But since shadows are normally kinda transparent...You know...And don't ask me how to do that in inkscape...I don't know...

zachol
2007-01-15, 01:10 AM
Ah, I get it.

Hmm... I'll have to think about that.

The problem is that I can't just move the little slider thing - places where two lines overlap then get darkened more than I want.
Like, where the fingers meet gets twice as dark as the surrounding lines.


How about... mnyeh?

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/303/shadowvj7.png

Dispozition
2007-01-15, 01:12 AM
Better...Much better...It'll be good to have another decent avatarist among us.

zachol
2007-01-15, 01:26 AM
I suspect my main problem is going to be getting colors right.

After trying to do a few other ones, I'm finding that they're not all that intuitive to figure.


I assume aesthetics and color picking aren't really something you can learn in a few hours from an online tutorial?

But yes, thanks.


Hey, last question... how do you do anime-like spikey hair/beards/tattered clothing?
Patience and a lot of clicking?
Or is there a quick way to make jagged lines (like there is for curves)?

Dispozition
2007-01-16, 05:02 PM
Uhhh...You should point that question at B-man, he's done more anime stuff than I have.

But yes, colouring isn't something you pick up overnight...I'm still getting a total hang of it, but I'm sure as hell better than I was when I started.

Good luck on your avataring misadventures, and I hope I see you in the showcase thread soon!

Captain van der Decken
2007-01-16, 05:34 PM
Hey, last question... how do you do anime-like spikey hair/beards/tattered clothing?
Patience and a lot of clicking?
Or is there a quick way to make jagged lines (like there is for curves)?

Draw the spike once, then duplicate it several times.

Of course, not much help if they have to be different shapes, but you can play around with them after..