The Last Poster Wins! [v23]

[Neo Emolga]

Oooooh believe me. I felt the EXACT same way. Over on GT when I was getting use to that forum. I originally had only an avatar that I’d just pull from off google somewhere. It was blurry most of the time and odd. Then I saw all these awesome looking images below a users every post and wanted one myself. I felt jealous not having something awesome looking. Blogs were the same. They had additional banners to show off. I wanted part in each of these. One day I found a friend that offered to make me some. I still remember his username (HolyRoxas) xD. He was AWESOME! He made some avatars and blog banners for me from time to time. Over the years I made a few more friends that would often do it. Since I didn’t know how.

A friend then hooked me up with CS3. I tried it out. Over and over and over again. To no avail. I mean I improved very slightly, but it’s never been how I wanted to. Plus not having a “real” Photoshop kinda hurt more than anything...and GIMP was a detriment more than anything. Maybe one day I’ll have a real “working” Photoshop and be able to make a real attempt.

Ooh, that's cool! Do you still have some of these on your hard drive or have they kind of been lost to the sands of time? I never tried GIMP (never needed to), but I have that funny feeling there would be a cold chill of disappointment if I did. As for improving, these things take time and very often I need to decide if I have the time and energy to try new things, or if I'm kind of short on time and if I should just stick to using what I know works as it always has.

My objective now is to get better at doing my own art and images, though this adds loads of extra time and there are always those days when I just can't crank out the art the way I want it to.

[Chakramaster]

Ooh, that's cool! Do you still have some of these on your hard drive or have they kind of been lost to the sands of time? I never tried GIMP (never needed to), but I have that funny feeling there would be a cold chill of disappointment if I did. As for improving, these things take time and very often I need to decide if I have the time and energy to try new things, or if I'm kind of short on time and if I should just stick to using what I know works as it always has.

My objective now is to get better at doing my own art and images, though this adds loads of extra time and there are always those days when I just can't crank out the art the way I want it to.

I think I do. At least I hope so. I know for sure some of them are on.....the ever lost Photobucket. The others were on the flash drive I threw away that I’m sure had viruses on it. Aaaaand an external HD I think. I hope I still do xD. I wish I could find all my Detective Conan wallpapers again too. Man I loved the fall season Conan and Kaito Kid (Phantom Thief Kid) one.

Yeah GIMP isn’t anything like Photoshop, yet sort of is. It’s just not as refined and doesn’t do it as well as Photoshop. I’d love to get a tutor or something for Photoshop one day. Also help kinda explain things to a point that makes it more understandable. Most I’ve tried reading are just bad at it and confuse me xD.

Yeah I’ve tried to draw things before. I showed it to Gemma once and....yeah it was still bad xD. It does take time though and tons of practice. You’re right about that. Though I feel a lot of my practice didn’t help or Fate much. Maybe cause I never showed it off or got feedback? I dunno.

[Neo Emolga]

Yeah I can make a mean graphic, I've done it for politicians after all so I've got to have some skill with it, I just usually don't put a ton of effort into these things because I don't really want to. Especially now that I can draw stuff.

I remember when I worked for IFF, I did some graphics, but in my excitement, I made them too over the top. Simple, elegant, and to the point would have been the way to go, but instead I was doing all kinds of crazy things with reflective text and other crap that looking back, probably wasn't the best idea. Sometimes less is more.

I think I do. At least I hope so. I know for sure some of them are on.....the ever lost Photobucket. The others were on the flash drive I threw away that I’m sure had viruses on it. Aaaaand an external HD I think. I hope I still do xD. I wish I could find all my Detective Conan wallpapers again too. Man I loved the fall season Conan and Kaito Kid (Phantom Thief Kid) one.

Yeah GIMP isn’t anything like Photoshop, yet sort of is. It’s just not as refined and doesn’t do it as well as Photoshop. I’d love to get a tutor or something for Photoshop one day. Also help kinda explain things to a point that makes it more understandable. Most I’ve tried reading are just bad at it and confuse me xD.

Yeah I’ve tried to draw things before. I showed it to Gemma once and....yeah it was still bad xD. It does take time though and tons of practice. You’re right about that. Though I feel a lot of my practice didn’t help or Fate much. Maybe cause I never showed it off or got feedback? I dunno.

The big thing that I wasn't doing before was when I first starting drawing stuff with my tablet, I wasn't using reference pictures. USE reference pictures. No matter how much you remember how a character looks or how many times you've drawn them before. You'd be surprised at how many times I've gone "oh, Emolga's nose really isn't THAT close to his mouth, my bad" or "oh, the bottom of the eyes should be exactly level with his nose! Forgot about that!" If you don't do this, funky things happen and it never looks just right. Even if you're drawing an entirely new character, use an already existing one as a starting point and as a basis. Things like the size of the ears relative to the size of the head and length of the tail in proportion to the rest of the body all become clearer and more apparent. And for me, proportions were MURDER on me for the longest time. Using reference pictures helped with fixing that issue immensely.

[Noblejanobii]

I remember when I worked for IFF, I did some graphics, but in my excitement, I made them too over the top. Simple, elegant, and to the point would have been the way to go, but instead I was doing all kinds of crazy things with reflective text and other crap that looking back, probably wasn't the best idea. Sometimes less is more.

Oh yeah definitely. If you look at the graphics that I did for politicians, they're very very very simplistic. Just adding some text and maybe a hue change here or there. I did do a few very complex ones towards the end of my first internship this past summer, but they were very carefully monitored to ensure they weren't over the top.

[Chakramaster]

The big thing that I wasn't doing before was when I first starting drawing stuff with my tablet, I wasn't using reference pictures. USE reference pictures. No matter how much you remember how a character looks or how many times you've drawn them before. You'd be surprised at how many times I've gone "oh, Emolga's nose really isn't THAT close to his mouth, my bad" or "oh, the bottom of the eyes should be exactly level with his nose! Forgot about that!" If you don't do this, funky things happen and it never looks just right. Even if you're drawing an entirely new character, use an already existing one as a starting point and as a basis. Things like the size of the ears relative to the size of the head and length of the tail in proportion to the rest of the body all become clearer and more apparent. And for me, proportions were MURDER on me for the longest time. Using reference pictures helped with fixing that issue immensely.

Yeah most artists you that take requests ask for some reference. So if there's any specific styles they go by that. I'm sure that's another big reason. I tried using a reference, but I think my big issue is I'm picky with that. Where if it doesn't look "exactly" right. Then it's not right. Trust me...many of times Gemma has joked with my drawings xD. "Pikachu's tail looks like a staircase xD" and such like that (yeah, it's that bad hahaha). Proportions are a killer for me and making them even look natural in general honestly.

Also it looks like Photobucket is completely down now? So I can't even look back at the ones that were still lingering there in the void.

[Neo Emolga]

Yeah most artists you that take requests ask for some reference. So if there's any specific styles they go by that. I'm sure that's another big reason. I tried using a reference, but I think my big issue is I'm picky with that. Where if it doesn't look "exactly" right. Then it's not right. Trust me...many of times Gemma has joked with my drawings xD. "Pikachu's tail looks like a staircase xD" and such like that (yeah, it's that bad hahaha). Proportions are a killer for me and making them even look natural in general honestly.

Also it looks like Photobucket is completely down now? So I can't even look back at the ones that were still lingering there in the void.

It just takes time and practice as well as a drive and passion to get better. I'll admit, there are days I'm just too lazy and not motivated enough to draw and that's probably keeping me from being an expert. And that's where I feel starting a comic would be a good motivator to improve and do something fun while at it.

As for Photobucket, what they did was just terrible. No warning, no advance notice, just poof, everyone's stuff is gone, too bad. Come on. At least give people a week to grab whatever they wanted to keep and back it up someplace else if Photobucket's owners couldn't afford hosting or only wanted paying members to use the service. Instead, everyone's images were replaced with those infamous "Please update your account to enable third party hosting" things everywhere.

I checked and it still seems to be around, but pft, forget ever using that site again. There's better hosting sites out there that won't screw you over.