Emoticons (or emotes) are the internet's solution to the subtle nuances of human speech and facial expression. An emoticon at the end of a sentence can significantly change or further punctuate its meaning, making it easier for the average netizen to express themselves as fully and accurately as possible.

Yet as common as they are, people tend to put little thought into where they came from. It often takes the most clever, the most skillful, indeed the most devious of emoticon artists to really make people notice their work. Unfortunately there are still far too many talented artists who slip through the cracks, and that's where we come in.

Our goal is to not only expose artists, but to help them by providing tutorials, critiques, and advice. We want to provide whatever resources are available to us in hopes of aiding artists of all skill levels. If you have any suggestions on how we can better accomplish this please feel free to note them to either *livius or =Zikes.

When =Chimpantalones first joined deviantART in May of 2005 he focused more on traditional art with pencil drawings and didn't post his first emoticon until mid-August that year. It was a couple more months before we saw any more from him, but at the end of October he really started cranking them out giving us such usable and giggle-worthy emotes as :dontpoke: and :unibrowwhip:.

:hyperbounce: Zikes: Hyperbounce really stood out to me when I looked at Chimpantalones' gallery because it's such an active and joyful looking emote, for which I happen to have a bit of a weakness. The animation is smooth and the physics of the bounce is quite lifelike, and the expression on its face lets everyone know that this emote has got it all figured out. Considering Chimpantalones has only been making emotes for half a year the quality of this emote is impressive. Though, as with any emote, there is some room for improvement. The shading style he chose seems a little too linear, and could use some work to make it look a bit more rounded. Shading is one of the most commonly difficult parts of an emote, though, so I definitely can't begrudge him that. One other issue is the height of the emote. It's a rather tricky issue, considering it's a bouncing emote and needs some space to do that bouncing, but when used in-line with text it can cause unsightly gaps between lines of text. These gaps can't always be avoided, but they should always be kept to an absolute minimum. With this emote 4 pixels can be shaved off of the bottom by stopping the leading hand from passing through the "ground" as he lands after doing a clockwise or counter-clockwise spin. This would also further the realism of the bouncing. This only happens in the 26th and 38th frame, so fixing it should be fairly easy and give a nice return and have a negligible affect on the overall look of the emote. All in all a very well done emote, its enviably joyous look and genuine-looking bounce physics make it my favorite in Chimpantalones' gallery

:seizure: Livius: I could have selected a variety of other emotes from Chimpantalones' gallery -- :guitarsolo: with its Hendrixesque flame, or the delightfully orthogonal unibrow -- and I seriously considered picking one of them when I saw that Zikes had chosen :hyperbounce:, if only to underscore the color variety in Chimp's work. In the end, however, I had to go with :seizure:, because it's a perfect illustration of two of Chimp's finest qualities: his sense of humor and his smooth timing. The idea behind it, as he carefully noted in the description, is not to mock or even represent an actual seizure. It's a metaphoric seizure, a kind of ecstasy; the reaction we all might have when confronted with something marvelous in our eyes. The movement from neutral blink, to wide-eyed stare, to salivary overdrive to dramatic backwards fall into grand mal. Particularly notable is how well the animation conveys a seizure in the micro-movements of the hands and body. The line of drool is not only a great detail, but provides a felicitous pretext for creative looping when it comes time to wipe it away -- note the punctilious way the droplets fly off the wiping hand. The one element of the piece which I find slightly jarring is how low the hands are held during the initial neutral frames. Once the hands are in use, they are well-placed and smoothly essential to the action, but before then they seem almost like vestigial appendages. Raising them closer to the body might help. Then again, it may just be me. Overall, this is one of my very favorite emotes. So much so that it puts me in the paradoxical position: if it had been on the dA legend, I would totally have used it to represent my initial reaction to it.

I. When did you start making emotes? What/who inspired you to don the emotimantle?

I think I made my first real emote (:dontpoke:) sometime around late October. I posted it on October 30th. Actually, it was your [=Zikes'] and =brokenboulevard's emote tutorials that made me want to try it... I found them fun to make, and I guess the style just kind of stuck.

II. Out of all the possible forms out there, why make emotes?

Emotes are simply the most fun type of art to make. While I also like drawing cartoons, I find that I am also better at emoticons, so I tend to stick with my strength.

III. What programs do you currently use to make emotes? What do you like/not like about it? Have you ever used any other software? What did you like/not like about it?

I use Macromedia Fireworks 8. The only thing I don't like about it is that you can't insert blank frames between two currently existed frames. Instead, you have to click "add new frame" and then drag it manually to where you want it to be positioned. Hope that made sense. I've never tried any other software for making emotes.

IV. How long does it take you from first pixel to final animation? Have you gotten faster since you began or do you take more time now?

It usually takes about a half hour, depending on the emote. My longest one to make (besides :dontpoke:, because I was still trying to figure out what I was doing) was :guitarsolo:, and that took a little over an hour.

V. Do you have a favorite color, or palette for emotes? How about shading style? Do you experiment far and wide or do you prefer to focus on one or two elements? Do you think you have a recognizable signature style? If so, what is it?

I'm kind of partial to the little camou green emote (like in :guitarsolo: and :unibrowwhip:), but I try to vary the colors I use in submitting them. My shading style got a little more subtle as I made more emotes (the earlier ones looked too much like shiny plastic). I always tend to focus more on the tiniest details (even the ones I know only I could notice) just for the sake of being an OCD perfectionist. As for a signature style... well, I noticed I tend to put the hands further away from the body than most people do (I find it can otherwise look a little cramped) and I draw them walking sideways in a sort of weird way.

VI. What do you think of emote conventions like the 15 x 15 round, shading for 3 dimensional effect, short, declarative animation? Are they inherently valuable? Useful jumping off points? Nice suggestions? The MAN keeping you down?

I prefer to think of them as "guidelines" than actual rules (Yar. ). I use these guidelines as a useful tool for drawing a basic body/hands and all that, but I tend to vary it up as perspective changes (like in :thrust or other weird things like that. And no, the MAN is not keeping me down.

VII. What do you feel are your strengths and weaknesses as an emoticonist? Is there anything you've consciously worked to improve? If so, how?

As for strengths, I believe I can animate things rotating on a flat plane (like Roy's sword for instance, when it comes straight forward across his body) very smoothly, something that is pretty difficult to do. I'm also good at coming up with bizarre ideas. My biggest weakness is lack of focus... I'll start something but never finish it til later (then why am I doing this interview you may ask? The world may never know.).

VIII. Do you have a favorite emote from your gallery? If so, why is it your favorite?

My personal favorite is :Samus:. I just love the firing effects (which were semi-accidental, by the way...) and the look of her visor.

IX. What emote in your gallery do you feel is most underrated?

Probably :Samus: again. I think this is partly due to the fact that not all that many people have ever played Metroid...

X. What kinds of comments are most helpful to you?

Ones that actually have constructive criticism. I get a lot of "cool, smooth animation " comments, but I've always found that the critiquing ones are obviously more helpful.

XI. What do you hope to achieve with your art? Is it about personal achievement -- setting a goal and accomplishing it -- or seeing them appreciated, posted, commented, faved, a little of everything?

_{Hmm... how to say this without sounding like an attention whore...} Well, I kind of just like to see that my art is appreciated (Damn, still attention whore-ish...). It tells me that the time I took to create it was worthwhile.

XII. What other artistic media are you involved in, and how do they affect your emotes?

I do a lot of paper and pencil doodling but don't submit it to deviantART (except for the first few works in my gallery). I also wish I could use Flash well (I have ideas, but I am unable to use them... ) and try to do something on it every once in a while. These drawings tend to show the utter randomness of my brain, and thus, my emotes also tend to be very random. Random is good.

XIII. How much time do you spend on deviantART per week?

A good few hours, probably. Usually this involves just replying to my messages and such. However, if I decide to forum lurk, I tend to spend quite a bit more time on dA.

XIV. Do you belong to any online communities other than deviantART? What brought you to devART and what kind of appeal does it hold for you?

Well, I go on iSketch (kind of like online pictionary; it's very cool) sometimes. It's not exactly a community, but it's how I found dA (people kept on posting their accounts, so I finally decided to get one myself).

XV. Who is your favorite artist and why?

Hmm... *faboarts, ~nancynismo and *kris-wilson all have amazing stuff. These are just some of my favorites, however, and I don't think I could ever pick one single favorite.

XVI. Scenario: A Luddite gains super powers and removes all things electronic from the world. Do you still continue to create art and music via traditional means, or do you make it your life’s goal to stop his nefarious scheme?

Luddite? As evil and nefarious as this is, I think I would just continue to draw on paper.

XVII. Scenario 2: A genie grants you as many skills, tools, and as much time as you could ever want. What do you do with it all? What dream project would you make come true?

Yay! I could finally do Flash stuff well! I had a very, VERY random idea for a Flash movie. It would be like the TV show, The Bachelorette... but with all squirrels, of course.

XVIII. Do you have any advice for budding emoticonists you wish you'd known before you created your first emote?

Just know that your first emote is going to take a long time to make if it's going to look right. You're probably not going to be comfortable with the software yet, so consult multiple tutorials. That's what I did.

XIX. In the past decade we've gone from plain text colons and parentheses to intricately designed graphics. Where do you think emotes will be 10 years from now?

It would be able to read your facial expression and display it as an emote. If you smiled, would come up. If you laughed, would come up. If you spontaneously turned into a llama, could come up.

XX. What's next on the schedule for you? Any upcoming emotes on the horizon or other such projects?

Yeah, I started on a new emote... I should probably finish that, but I would rather finish this interview and go play Banjo Tooie right now. That Squirrel Bachelorette thing I mentioned earlier... I will try to make that a reality.

*KennyMcCormick is the self-proclaimed female clone of South Park's own accident prone Kenny McCormick, and one look at her gallery will make you a believer. She has dozens of emotes covering some of South Park's most famous and infamous characters, a collection any self-respecting South Park fan will admire.

=Mrichston is a man of many interests, as is clear from even the most cursory glance at his gallery. His emotes run the gamut from oversized superheroes to classic guitarist rock. Creativity and inventiveness are his muses. I challenge anyone to browse his gallery without thinking "how the hell did he come up with that?"

We'd like to try some sort of emoticon-based community project with you all, but want to get a feel for how many would be interested first. It'll be open to people of all skill levels so if you're a beginner or advanced emoticon artist feel free to pipe up and let us know if you'd be interested in participating.